James Blunt rightly describes Chris Bryant MP as a “classist gimp” after he complains that the arts are dominated by people from privileged backgrounds
Public schooled Chris Bryant MP is a man best known for posing in his underpants on the website Gaydar but now, in having attacked the Eddie Redmayne and the singer James Blunt, he has once again made an utter fool of himself.
Last Friday, Bryant, the current Shadow Culture Minister, told The Guardian:
“I am delighted that Eddie Redmayne won [a Golden Globe for best actor], but we can’t just have a culture dominated by Eddie Redmayne and James Blunt and their ilk”.
In a missive in reply, Blunt subsequently stated:
“Dear Chris Bryant MP, You classist gimp. I happened to go to a boarding school. No one helped me at boarding school to get into the music business. I bought my first guitar with money I saved from holiday jobs (sandwich packing!). I was taught the only four chords I know by a friend. No one at school had ANY knowledge or contacts in the music business, and I was expected to become a soldier or a lawyer or perhaps a stockbroker. So alien was it, that people laughed at the idea of me going into the music business, and certainly no one was of any use”.
“In the army, again, people thought it was a mad idea. None of them knew anyone in the business either”.
“And when I left the army, going against everyone’s advice, EVERYONE I met in the British music industry told me there was no way it would work for me because I was too posh. One record company even asked if I could speak in a different accent. (I told them I could try Russian)”.
“Every step of the way, my background has been AGAINST me succeeding in the music business. And when I have managed to break through, I was STILL scoffed at for being too posh for the industry”.
“And then you come along, looking for votes, telling working class people that posh people like me don’t deserve it, and that we must redress the balance. But it is your populist, envy-based, vote-hunting ideas which make our country crap, far more than me and my shit songs, and my plummy accent”.
“I got signed in America, where they don’t give a stuff about, or even understand what you mean by me and ‘my ilk’, you prejudiced wazzock, and I worked my arse off. What you teach is the politics of jealousy. Rather than celebrating success and figuring out how we can all exploit it further as the Americans do, you instead talk about how we can hobble that success and ‘level the playing field’. Perhaps what you’ve failed to realise is that the only head-start my school gave me in the music business, where the VAST majority of people are NOT from boarding school, is to tell me that I should aim high. Perhaps it protected me from your kind of narrow-minded, self-defeating, lead-us-to-a-dead-end, remove-the-‘G’-from-‘GB’ thinking, which is to look at others’ success and say, ‘it’s not fair’”.
“Up yours, James Cucking Funt”.
Refusing to give in, Bryant patronisingly wrote back:
“Dear James, Stop being so blooming precious. I’m not knocking your success. I even contributed to it by buying one of your albums. I’m not knocking Eddie Redmayne, either. He was the best Richard II I have ever seen”.
“If you’d read the whole of my interview, you’d have seen that I make the point that the people who subsidise the arts the most are artists themselves. Of course that includes you. But it is a statement of the blindingly obvious that that is far tougher if you come from a poor family where you have to hand over your holiday earnings to help pay the family bills”.
“I’m delighted you’ve done well for yourself. But it is really tough forging a career in the arts if you can’t afford the enormous fees for drama school, if you don’t know anybody who can give you a leg up, if your parents can’t subsidise you for a few years whilst you make your name and if you can’t afford to take on an unpaid internship”.
“You see the thing is I want everyone to take part in the arts. I don’t want any no-go areas for young people from less privileged backgrounds. And I’m convinced that we won’t be Great Britain if we waste great British talent in the arts. You seem to think talent will always out. My fear is that someone like Stanley Baker, the son of a disabled miner in the Rhondda, who rose to be one of Britain’s greatest film actors (Zulu), would have found it even harder to make it today”.
“That’s why we need more diversity at every level in the arts – in education, in training, on-screen, on stage and backstage – and we need to break down all the barriers to taking part so that every talent gets a chance”.
“Yours bluntly, Chris”.
The Labour party would do well to send Chris Bryant on his merry way. He is an utter idiot and frankly our most worthy Wally of the Week.
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What a revolting idiot Bryant truly is. He has no shame and should have stuck to religion.
Liberals are a breed of their own, you either have the talent for the performing arts or you don’t have it. The bottom line is James Blunt has a natural talent and good ear for music, whether he comes from a rich or poor background is irrelevant. Bryant is scouting for brownie points from the poor and working classes, they know you have to be able hold a tune to sing. I think Bryant must be tone deaf….
Thank you Steeple Times for publishing Blunt’s superb letter. I have encountered Byant in three or four meetings and found him to be a most disagreeable know-all on every occasion. Well done Blunt.
With wallys like Bryant in politics, is it any surprise that UKIP do so well.
The wally is concerned that Stanley Baker would not have made it in 2015. He knows very little about Baker. Stanley Baker was a real man and from a era of real movie stars. Laurence Olivier spotted the potential in Baker. He was made of the same stuff as Richard Burton, he stands head and shoulders above todays crop of so-called actors. He had the raw talent and nothing was going to stop him from becoming a world class actor. Did Bryant know Stanley Baker?
Chris Bryant is a true toad of a man. He makes me want to LIKE Rupert Murdoch.
Having just sold his working class constituents in Rhondda Cynon Taff down the river by voting WITH the Tories for further cuts in public spending then he can’t really champion their cause. They won’t have enough money to live on let alone try to get into the Arts. Actually there are plenty of grassroots organisations out there helping just these more disadvantaged people to get into the Arts sector so his attack on Blunt isn’t remotely justified. I’m not a Blunt fan but I feel sorry for him falling victim to Bryants Tall Poppy Syndrome rant.
I happen to be a James Blunt fan, his Back to Bedlam album was a masterpiece. How I relate to the lyrics of his song titled 1973. Esra Siebra and I lived in the clubs in 1973, pissed as Lords. Blunt would have made it anywhere in the world, under any circumstances. Bryant must not pick on James Blunt, rather try me, my last wish is to be buried with the Back to Bedlam album safely in my hand.
How very dare you attack Chris Bryant. He is a good man who has stood with dear Gerry and Kate McCann in support of better regulation of the press. You should not attack this fine MP in this way and your cheap shot at the underpants episode just shows The Steeple Times for what it is: GRADE A TRASH. I am wholeheartedly disgusted that you fail to support dear Gerry and Kate in their search to find their beloved daughter Madeleine and urge you to put this right henceforth with an article in support of the couple. Stop being biased and stop attacking the great and the good like Chris and Sir Christopher and Lady Catherine Meyer. They are all supporters of Find Madeleine and you should be too.
You truly are mad. Is there nothing that you don’t somehow link to Madeleine McCann? Please cease leaving such inane comments. Our readers do not appreciate your rants and if you continue, we shall have to ban you from commenting as we have already done with lunatics such as the convicted cheat and conman Thomas McLoughlin.
Gillian Trott- Chris Bryant posing in his underpants for a sleazy internet website is weird and inappropriate for a man holding a position of trust in public office, the left make the rules as they go, and we the public must toe the line. Sir Christopher and Lady Meyer is welcome to him, and so are you…………You are so kooky, I hope Mr Steeples don’t ban you, as you are a good laugh, and a inspiration to Nick Clegg.
Why are you here Pam Gurney? You are one of very few people who cares about the parents, everyone else is interested in justice for Madeleine.
What ban our pet irritant,. that ‘Looney Tunes’ woman Trott? It might well be that she is the trigger for Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems to launch their ‘initiative’ with NHS on mental health, yesteday! And if she is banned she might trigger another movement:: JE SUIS TROTT.
That’s all we need, another jealous, whinging, lefty victim.
I this guy related to the Australia prime minister?