What’s wrong with being middle class?

Well watch it, chummy. According to the Bishop of Chelmsford (No? Me neither) you could be just as bad as the violent, drunken yobs who infest the streets of Britain.

The Rt Rev John Gladwin reckons the middle classes “Have got into habits of high consumption without thinking through the implications for the community.”

Eh? When was the last time a so-called middle-class boozer got raddled on Pinot Grigio and went out and kicked someone’s father to death?

When was the last time you heard about someone beating their children after consuming three G&Ts?

The Bish claims that: “When young people do go out clubbing it’s all very public, whereas older people can collapse at home.”

And his point is what, exactly?

If I choose to get so drunk I collapse and vomit everywhere, it’ll be all over MY Wilton and MY sofa, and I’ll have to pay for the cost of getting it cleaned up again. I won’t be asking anyone else to do it for me. And, being middle class, I won’t stagger off to casualty to demand a magic pill for my bad head. I’ll lie in bed, consuming vast quantities of the aspirin I’ll have paid for out of my wages, and I’ll probably feel like dying of embarrassment into the bargain.

Has the bishop ever spoken to any of the people who have to deal with the sharp end of this government’s mental drink policies, I wonder? People like my mate the copper, who now has to work five weekends out of every six so that he and the others can be on duty for Saturday nights in the posh county town where he’s based, just to mind the drunken teens.

Or the A&E staff who, I bet, could count on the thumbs of one hand the number of violent threats they’ve had from the middle-class consumers of too much Merlot.

Never mind the booze, it’s pontificating prelates like Bishop Gladwin, and the politicians and bien pensants who make me feel sick, with their constant attacks on the middle classes as if it was a crime to be law-abiding, pay your taxes and want to improve your lot.

Middle class parents are slammed for trying to get their kids into decent schools. They are slammed if they send their kids to private school and slammed again if they try and improve failing schools. They are criticised for speaking out against political correctness and slackness, yet their taxes are greedily consumed to pay for this organised lunacy.

How different from the home lives of our American cousins. In the USA, right now, there is an entire commission set up to take care of the midddle classes and for that, read ordinary, working people who want a better life and are prepared to graft for it. Spearheaded by Vice President Joe Biden, the Middle Class Task Force spends its days travelling the country and listening to what the people want to tell it.

According to President Obama: “The strength of our economy can be measured by the strength of our middle class.”

Mr Biden goes further: “America’s middle class is hurting,” he says. “President Obama and I are determined to change this. Quite simply, a strong middle class equals a strong America. We can’t have one without the other. “ Imagine Gordon Brown saying that! In fact, imagine David Cameron or any of them having the courage to come out and admit it.

Because attacking the middle class is the new British disease. Bullied, picked on, forced to fund bonkers schemes to shore up the super-idle and the whims of climate change obsessives, we see the taxes that we pay flushed down the tubes to prop up projects to appease Guardian readers.

Obama has vowed to put the middle class “front and centre”. Over here we continue to hammer the middle classes through the tax system, sneer at their hopes for a better life and now we have clerics deriding them for enjoying a couple of glasses in their own home. No wonder we need a drink.