Extravagance for the Few, Deprivation for the Many

A Vulgar Banquet, A Vulnerable People: The Growing Chasm

The King and Queen were guests of honour at the star-studded dinner in the Hall of Mirrors, nice gig if you can get it…

What a sign of these warped times that our beloved leaders can indulge in gallivanting hedonism while the people they claim to serve starve and shiver.

The symbolism of this garish gala should not be overlooked. Macron fêted the monarch just shy of 231 years since the French cast off the yoke of tyranny on September 21st, 1792. What insult to the martyrs of the revolution, now spun in their graves by this decadent homage to the ancien régime.

As working families face harrowing deprivation, the gilt-edged elite gathered for a banquet of obscene extravagance. Their table groaned under $1,500 bottles of wine and ostentatious delicacies like blue lobster, accompanied by much self-satisfied bonhomie. Let us hope such elites choked on their own decadence.

Of course, when Monsieur Macron somberly declared “France is at the end of its age of abundance,” he referred not to the bounties heaped before His Majesty, but to us common rabble.

His words are just echoes of all those politicos who serve the oligarchy throughout the world. To us, they say: “Best pare back your modest portions, good peasants, and spare a thought for the struggles of your betters as they suffer the grave indignity of silver service instead of gold. Such is the noble sacrifice required in this new age of austerity, though the wine cellars of the palace runneth over.”

Let gruel suffice to fuel your labours, but fault not the elite for retaining a standard befitting their station. For was it not ever thus, from Versailles to Dickens’ London to Banquet Hall today?

An obscene excess for the gentry, stingy scraps for the rest. At least take solace that your leaders share in spirit by denying themselves the rarest ambergris and hippocras. Surely such restraint reflects the values of our enlightened age.

Best not lecture oppressed peoples on emptying their pantries for the common good when genteel gullets are filled with such profane excess. If this vulgar parade of privilege fails to turn stomachs, then the people’s appetite for justice has left them.

Privilege and Poverty: A Stark Study in Contrasts

Contrast this vulgar ostentation with the Dickensian destitution now blighting our crumbling towns. Surging inflation has left ordinary citizens repressed by a cost-of-living purgatory. Heartbreaking accounts abound of parents starving themselves to feed their children while energy vampires reap record profits. Yet the aloof aristos turn up their noses, oblivious to such anguish.

Happy to fly into Paris the city of failed agreements to talk about a climate crisis leaving a carbon footprint the size of a rainforest.

This sickening paradox exposes the sordid reality beneath our Potemkin democracy. A crooked system run by and for a crooked cabal in high places, while the decent, salt-of-the-earth people suffer the consequences of corruption. What cloven-hoofed irony that the gluttonous benefactors of injustice should lecture hard-working families on “shared sacrifice” as they gorge on ivory-tower excess.

This stark contrast between the haves and the have-nots is a reflection of the systemic issues within our society. It highlights the growing gap between the political and economic elite, who seem to live in a world of privilege and excess, and the average citizens who bear the brunt of economic hardship and inequality.

The banquet incident underscores the inherent flaws in our political and economic systems. It points to a growing disillusionment with a brand of capitalism that seems to benefit the few at the expense of the many. It’s a reminder that our leaders should be more attuned to the struggles of their constituents, rather than indulging in extravagance while the rest of the population is left to grapple with the cost of living crisis.

But wait! Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Soon Sir Keir Starmer will ascend to the dizzying heights of Prime minster sat upon the iron throne in the palace of Westminster, a working-class giant chiselled from that old toolmaker’s block. The pampered elites will be quaking in their designer boots because the era of tolerating stolen abundance and manufactured belt-tightening is over. But, hold on a sec, my bad, it’s easy to forget the leader of a working-class party is one of them waiting for his own VIP invitation to their exclusive soirées.

“Come The Revelation…”

Oh well, back to the Pitchforks and firebrands standing ready for the reckoning, as the wretched of the earth unite to bring the glittering citadels of unearned privilege crashing down. Parasites who sucked the marrow of Britain shall face a righteous fury exceeding their darkest nightmares. The party comes to a bitter end for those who danced and feasted while the nation starved.

That is not a threat, but a prophecy… or so they say. The extravagant banquet should serve as a warning to the elite, string their memory of a bygone time when they told us, peasants, to eat our cake. Reminding them just how close they are to the precipice they come once again or so the aggrieved claim.

A warning cry redeem yourselves while you still can restore the dignity, opportunity and honest pay to the exploited people you pretend to serve. For if you persist in gluttony and indifference, prepare for the whirlwind soon to sweep you away into the dustbin of history, or so the indignant proclaim. The people’s judgement looms, only if inflammatory rhetoric is to be believed.