Revolting dinner parties

Others have commented on Bilger's New Statesman article attacking 'Blair's Bombs', which appeared while I was away for a week in Italy, but I could not let this bit, reproduced here, pass:

At a large media party I attended, many of the important guests uttered "Iraq" and "Blair" as a kind of catharsis for that which they dared not say professionally and publicly.

Sounds like Peter Hain was right then, back in April:

Peter Hain launched a fierce attack on self-indulgent 'dinner party critics' among the liberal middle classes who are tempted to use the ballot box to punish Blair. He said that by doing so, they would only hurt the poorest, who were dependent on a Labour victory.

The leader had 'got the message' about their displeasure, Hain said, arguing that those who still disagreed over Iraq or civil liberties should reopen the arguments after the election.

There's now a kind of dinner party critics who quaff shiraz or chardonnay and just sneeringly say, "You are no different from the Tories".

So Metropolitania is in revolt then.