Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

Let the metropolitan elite lead the way

And both main parties should be wary of a membership boom

issue 01 October 2016

How does one join the Liberal Metro-politan Elite? What should be the qualifications? I must be an LME member because literally thousands of my readers have (over the years) told me so. They don’t mean it kindly, but I take it kindly. ‘Elite’ means ‘the best’, I should hate to be called illiberal, and I have a nice flat near central London.

How, though, do we LMEs maintain the exclusivity of our club? The 48 per cent of voters who voted Remain will soon be hammering on our door for admission, plus (I’ll bet) a fair few repentant former Leavers too. But the elite cannot by definition comprise more than 49 per cent of the population, and as someone once observed: ‘Think how stupid the average person is, and realise half of them are stupider than that.’ We’d be swamped.

I have long proposed that membership of the LME should be by invitation only.

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