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My friend Robert Halfon has an excellent post on Gordon Brown's 'shallow salesman' sneer:
Far from wounding Mr Cameron, Mr Brown instead insults hundreds of thousands of people across the country – if not millions - who earn their living by being precisely that – Salesmen. By implication, he also criticises not just the Salesmen but also their families and close friends. After all, if being a Salesman is 'dishonest', then being associated with a 'Salesman' is dishonest also. So the many many people who sell cars, windows, heating systems, health products etc. etc. are according to the Prime Minister, either 'shallow', 'slick', 'used' or 'dishonest'.
...The truth is that most salesmen work very long hours, often work on low basic or commission only and have to travel far distances in order to make a living. Many years ago I worked in telesales, and I was struck how many people were doing it as a second job in the evenings in order to provide extra support for their families or had suffered some kind of financial hardship. Far from being used as a political insult in which Mr Brown can attack the Prime Minister, salesmen should instead be celebrated for their hard work, entrepreneurial spirit and for providing services that many people could not do without. Mr Cameron should wear the salesmen badge with pride.
I think it says a lot about the outlook of our wonderful PM that he should regard the word 'salesman' as an insult. His predecessor was sometimes a bit too starry eyed about the capabilities of businessmen and women, but at least he had an instinctive appreciation of the moral worth of wealth creation. Brown, on the other hand, appears to have an instinctive loathing of capitalism, and to regard it merely as something to be tolerated for the benefits it can bring.