Oh, noooooooooo. Diners in the upper house of the U.K. Parliament are getting right stroppy about the current House of Lords restaurant options (all of which are taxpayer-subsidized) thanks to small wait lists, less than satisfactory cappuccinos and the lack of Chilean wine on the wine list. And don’t even mention the poor woman who was refused a table and couldn’t lunch elsewhere because she was wearing a tiara. The shame of it all!
The complaints, recently released through the through Freedom of Information laws, become increasingly ridiculous when you realize just how little the peers of the House of Lords pay for their fine dining experience. According to The Independent, a full roast dinner costs only £9.50 ($15.52) and peers are given a “£300-a-day expenses allowance for attending the House of Lords.”
As Member of Parliament Maria Eagle (of the Labour party) points out:
“These complaints are completely out of touch at a time when so many families are struggling to make ends meet, thanks to the Government’s cost-of-living crisis. They should be grateful not to be one of the half a million people forced to rely on help from food banks since April, despite Britain being the seventh richest country on the planet.”
The whining does indeed come off as out of touch (at best) and disgusting (at worst), but — luckily for us — it’s also funny. In fact, many of the complaints from the wealthy diners at the House of Lords are so comically overblown that they might as well be expressed by generic rich people cartoons.