"Left-wingers with a sentimental attachment" / Scruton - 2 comments

Would you spend £1,022 on a magnum of Armagnac bottled in 1982, and valued at a mere £33? How long it had spent in the cask, we're not told, but it can't be great, can it?

It seems that the "complicated" tax arrangements of Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, son of the "controversial" former Socialist President, François, have forced him to sell off papa's furniture and wine collection, according to BBC News. The booze alone raised over £10,000.

According to David Dessaigne, a wine collector from south-west France, "The buyers are mainly left-wingers with a sentimental attachment." Sentimental for what, exactly?

I assume he means the wine. Perhaps Roger Scruton, New Statesman wine correspondent would have approved.

Interestingly, he's also made an appearance (see how I dovetailed the three sections there) in "A Matter of Principle : Humanitarian Arguments for War in Iraq", a new book that also contains an article from the pen of our beloved Norm, and which Gene and David T give more details about at Harry's Place.

It's tough being in the Centre Left nowadays - you find yourself with the strangest bedfellows whom you never would have believed were your type before you set out. I have to say, though, that Roger Scruton - for me - is one of those "this far and no further" types: it all starts well as the Montrachet begins to flow, but then you find yourself pinned down on the subject of Hobbes and Locke, and before the end of the night you're wondering if it didn't all start to go downhill for Britain round about the time of the Battle of Blenheim [1704], why we ever stopped hunting poor people in the Royal Forests, and why we ever changed cricket bats from curved to straight in the first place...

Just right for the NS then.