From The Dutchess vs 'white trash' Britain in spiked:

The Duchess in Hull is one big advert to show how jolly nice Fergie is. So it’s not surprising that it avoids asking one very obvious question: why does she have an apartment in New York and staff while the Sargersons - who seem like thoroughly decent people in a rut - have to feed themselves on 80 quid a week?

[...]

Poor people being patronised by the upper classes is nothing new, of course. In The Road to Wigan Pier, published in 1937, George Orwell recounts the anger of one communist activist: ‘In London, he said, parties of Society dames now have the cheek to walk into East End houses and give shopping lessons to the wives of the unemployed. He gave this as an instance of the mentality of the English governing class. First you condemn a family to live on thirty shillings a week, and then you have the damned impertinence to tell them how they are to spend their money.’

If we don't save the planet, civilisation will collapse and it will be like living in a remake of Mad Max Beyond the Thunderdome. Therefore, it's very important that you jet off to this environmental conference in Barcelona. I know visiting Barcelona in April is a real strain, but hey, you can't save the world sitting on your settee, can you?

Cuba is a model for how industrialised economies should develop in the event of an oil peak? Er, is this some kind of joke? While any discussion of Cuba's economy must take into account the impact of the disgraceful US trade boycott, Cuba's soporific economy which squeezes the life out of anybody with ideas or initiative isn't a model for anything. If you want to see how successful Cuba is, just compare its economic progress with that of Barbados since the Cuban revolution.

I think these greenie doomers have a few superfruits missing from their vegan diet.

What gets me is the way Cuba is held out to be some model society by the sort of students who hand you out silly tracts on Royal Avenue on Saturday afternoons. What's the level of immigration to Cuba from industrialised countries? Er, uh, nearly zero. If it was such a good society surely people would be falling over themselves to move to it. Great model there.