Like King Canute, Marie Antoinette is a much-misunderstood and, generally speaking, a much and unfairly maligned figure. Disappointingly, this time the guilty party is my old boss Iain Martin. For shame. Iain hazards that Peter Mandelson’s suggestion that everyone try and keep their heads in these turbulent times since there is “no value in creating frenzy” is but the latest “Marie Antoinettish” comment from the noble lord.
In the first place, Marie Antoinette probably never said “Let them eat cake”. Secondly, if she had she would scarcely have been the first to suggest that the populace switch to brioche in times of shortage. Thirdly, this would have been a perfectly sensible, if perhaps insensitvely phrased, recommendation, given French regulations governing the price of bread etc etc.
In other words, comparing Lord Mandelson to Marie Antoinette is either manifestly unfair to the French Queen or, more hazardously, a compliment to the former member for Hartlepool.
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