Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and the last acceptable prejudice - hating 'posh' people - inc Saturday morning Kia Abdullah update

Until Thursday I had never heard of Rosie Huntington-Whiteley but then I heard a nasty film review on a BBC radio station of the new film Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon. I am sure the film is poor, the previous two looked dire enough but the reviewer was obsessed by Rosie Huntington-Whiteley's 'posh' accent, he even made 'fwah, fwah, fwah' noises as an approximation of her accent. Would impersonating an East End actress or an Indian actress in a similarly insulting way be acceptable? I don't think so. So why is insulting 'posh' people acceptable on the BBC?

I thought that I should at least find out who this Rosie Huntington-Whiteley was, all I knew was that she was 'posh' and a lingerie model. I found many pictures of her, some of which I repeat below for your information.

But is she posh? Here's some video of her being interviewed...

Posh? She is well-spoken and only uses 'you know' once; but posh, I don't think so. Walk around Sloane Square and you will hear 'gels' who make Rosie sound common. That's the trouble with England today; if you don't speak Estuary English or have a regional accent then you are posh... Does that make me posh? I will ask people today...


Prejudice against 'posh' people also reared its head today with the news of the tragic deaths of three gap-year travellers in Thailand. When occasional Guardian contributor Kia Abdullah heard that three 19 year old students had been killed in a bus crash in Thailand, her first thoughts weren't 'how dreadful' or 'how horrible' for the parents or even 'that's dreadful, I wounder if I could write a piece that would be relevant to all the Guardian reading parents whose children are travelling at the moment'. No she Tweeted this:

Kia has of course since 'apologised' and deleted those Tweets and the many replies she received criticising her comments. But just read those two two Tweets and ask yourself 'what sort of a person Tweets that she has no sympathy for anyone killed on a 'gap yaar' and 'smiled' when she saw they 'had double-barrelled surnames'. is vile too strong a word? I don't think so... Deleting history does not mean it never happened, I wonder if Kia Abdullah has also blocked all of us who criticised her/ I would guess yes, after all she does not want reality to intrude into her left-wing prejudiced world...