Good on Alistair McLean from Activities Abroad for offering Chav Free holidays! Here’s a section of the email which was sent to users:
“Hello [ ----- ]
Chav Free Activity Holidays
According to the Daily Mail, children with middle-class names such as Duncan and Catherine are eight times more likely to pass their GCSE’s than children with names such as Wayne and Dwayne.
This got us to thinking. Are there names you are likely to encounter or not encounter on an Activities Abroad holiday? After a bit of research we came up with two lists of names.
Unlikely
Likely
Britney
John
Kylie-Lianne
Sarah
Bianca
James
Tiffany
Charles
Dazza
Rachel
Chardonnay
Michael
Chantelle
Alice
Candice
Lucy
Courtney
Joseph
Shannon
Charlotte
Nuff said, innit?
Brilliant! Very witty and refreshingly honest change from the usual grey corporate email.
Then the Daily Mail reported that the firm was under fire. You read more from the BBC and hear an interview with Alistair Mclean on Five Live.
Turns out this woman has had a total sense-of-humour and humanity failure. Here’s the reply from Alistair McLean in the blog
Firstly, I am delighted that you enjoyed your “perfect holiday” with Activities Abroad.
I’d also like to say that I am genuinely sorry if our newsletter caused offence for it was I who authorised the mailing. However, I simply feel it is time the middle classes stood up for themselves.
We work hard to make a decent home and life for our families and we pay our taxes to contribute to our society and economy. Unfortunately, everybody else in our society seems to take from us whether it is incompetent bankers or the shell suited urchins who haunt our street corners.
Last year Activities Abroad paid: corporation tax, income tax, PAYE, national insurance contributions, VAT and contributed to Aids projects in South Africa and other charitable organisations. We make a positive contribution to our economy and watch it all be frittered away by people who simply can’t be bothered (”bovvered”).
So regardless of whether it is class warfare or not I make no apology for proclaiming myself to be middle class and a genuine contributor to our society.
We sent the newsletter to 24,000 people and only 11 (0.0458%) have expressed themselves to be unhappy with the content. The rest presumably took it in the toungue and cheek manner in which it was intended.
Did you write to the BBC when they featured Vicky Pollard on Little Britain or Catherine Tait’s Lauren Cooper? Do you encourage your children to go off and play with with the shell suited, Lambert and Butler sucking teenagers who hang around our shopping centres at night?
Again, my apologies if we offended and I am genuinely sorry that you won’t be traveling with us or recommending us in the future.
Regards
Alistair McLean
Yes, the word chav is now politically incorrect. But the fightback has begun – the Daily Mail and Daily Express both carry opinion pieces, but let’s not pretend this is a tabloid-only issue.
The fightback of the working majority starts today. Enough is enough – if we don’t stand up for people like Alistair, then we might as well give up and join the abhorrent views of The Fabian Society – talking of which, here’s Jon Holmes giving his opinion of them!
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