Champagne socialist

"Champagne socialist" is a pejorative political term originating in the United Kingdom. The phrase is used to describe self-identified socialists whose comfortable upper middle class lifestyles are perceived to be incompatible with their professed political convictions. Other phrases with the same implication include "Gucci socialist" and "salon socialist".

Australia and New Zealand

In Australia and New Zealand, the variant "Chardonnay socialist" is often used. When the term was coined around 1989, Chardonnay was seen as a drink of affluent people. It became more generally consumed during the next decade and hence the term has lost some of its sting.

Australian left-wing "true believers" levelled the term at supporters of the failed republic referendum of 1999, where the vote was split not along conventional party lines but very much along socio-economic divides, with the rich overwhelmingly supporting the change while the less well-off were opposed. Staunch Australian right-wingers, on the other hand, level it at those who support such things as government funding for the arts, free tertiary education, and the ABC – all causes which are described by critics as "middle-class welfare."

See also

• Gauche caviar
• Radical chic
• Limousine liberal

External links

• Dylan Jones: Card-carrying champagne socialists are looking to swap sides - but they want to do it with dignity The Independent
• Champagne socialist at The Free Dictionary