I suppose we should be grateful to British celebrity fashion designer Dame Vivienne Westwood for crystallizing contemporary elitist scorn for the rest of us. The UK Telegraph reports on words that should stand as her enduring legacy, much as Marie Antoinette’s famous response when told the starving French peasants had no bread, “Let them eat cake.”  

Dame Vivienne Westwood, the fashion designer, has declared that people who can’t afford to buy organic food should "eat less" and stop getting fat.

The millionaire designer made the comments as she delivered a petition to Downing Street protesting about genetically modified food.

When a BBC Radio 5 Live interviewer suggested that "not everybody can afford to eat organic food", Dame Vivienne replied: "Eat less!"

Body type has become a class marker. The fashionable upper classes starve themselves and work out at gyms. Ectomorphs are the new natural aristocracy. For most of history, fat was fashionable, indicating wealth. Now that humble folk can afford obesity, why the enlightened classes pursue the opposite.

And if others don’t share their dietary preferences in the current fashion, why they are just stupid:

"You’ve got all these processed foods, which is the main reason people are getting fat. They’re not actually good for you - they don’t give you strength, they give you weight.

"I eat vegetables and fruit. I don’t eat meat. I believe meat is bad for me so I don’t eat it. It’s also bad for the animals.

"If there was a movement to produce more organic food and less of the horrible food, then organic food would obviously be a good value price, wouldn’t it?"

They have to be forced into submission:

"We need to change to a green economy and a green world and that is easy to do. The alternative is hell," she said.

Dame Westwood is unlikely to face the same fate as her French predecessor, but she not doubt considers herself a victim:

Dame Vivienne later issued a statement saying her comments had been misunderstood.