James Blunt v Labour’s Chris Bryant: who’s the wazzock?

This delightful election campaign – there are 107 days to go, by the way - was disrupted by two full-on rows yesterday, both involving Labour front-benchers. But who did bloggers pick as the winners?

James Blunt vs Chris Bryant

The first spat involved the ‘You’re Beautiful’ popster James Blunt and Labour’s recently appointed culture spokesman, Chris Bryant, whom Blunt accused of being a “prejudiced wazzock”.

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It all started with Bryant giving an interview to The Guardian last Friday in which he said that if Labour win the election and he becomes Culture Secretary one of his first priorities will be to encourage more diversity in the arts.

“I am delighted that Eddie Redmayne won [a Golden Globe for best actor in The Theory of Everything], but we can’t just have a culture dominated by Eddie Redmayne and James Blunt and their ilk,” he said - the unspoken point being that both are public school boys, Redmayne an Old Etonian and Blunt an Old Harrovian.

“Where are the Albert Finneys and the Glenda Jacksons?” Bryant asked. “They came through a meritocratic system.”

Blunt went ballistic, telling Bryant in an open letter: “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.”

In fact, he argued, his background and accent worked against him because he was considered “too posh”.

“And then you [Bryant] 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.”

Blunt pointed out that his record deal had been 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”.

Bryant shot back: “Stop being so blooming precious”, adding: "It is a statement of the blindingly obvious that that is far tougher [to get ahead in the arts] if you come from a poor family where you have to hand over your holiday earnings to help pay the family bills."

Bloggers’ winner: Chris Bryant. “The MP only mentioned Blunt once, in passing,” Dorian Lynskey wrote for The Guardian. “He said nothing more about Blunt or indeed about the music industry. Guilty of immense narcissism, if nothing else, Blunt has made Bryant’s wide-ranging, systemic argument all about himself.”

Chuka Umunna vs Dermot Murnaghan

Now to Labour’s business spokesman, Chuka Umunna, and an ugly spat with Sky News presenter Dermot Murnaghan which ended with Umunna storming out of the studio yesterday.

Umunna had been invited on the show to talk about David Cameron’s latest speech about the economy when Murnaghan chose to throw him a question about Communities Secretary Eric Pickles’s controversial letter urging imams in Britain to help root out extremism and "demonstrate how faith in Islam can be part of British identity".

Umunna admitted to not having read the letter – at which point Murnaghan charmlessly suggested that Umunna take half an hour to read it and come back and answer his question.

But Murnaghan’s biggest insult was to suggest that Umunna didn’t know what he thought because he wasn’t sure of the party line – at which point Umunna walked out.

Blogger’s winner: Chuka Umunna. True, he should not have lost his temper. “One of the skills of a politician who fancies being a leader is to look calm and reasonable in the face of unreasonable questions,” Isabel Hardman blogged for The Spectator. BUT, she said, he had every right to decline to comment on something he had not read and which was not on the agenda.

Others have suggested that with this attitude, Muraghan should be applying to Sky’s ugly American sister, Fox News, for a job.

Countdown to 7 May: check The Week's daily election round-up