Save Siena From More Jobs And More Money
“JUNIOR jet set fight to halt Tuscan hordes,” says the Times’ headline.
“Young British rich lead campaign against planned ‘holidaymaker’ airport at Siena.”
There’s a demonstration on the steps of the National Gallery. Not because it’s handy for the club and Hugo has a house nearby for post-protest restoratives but because the Italian bank, Monte dei Paschi di Siena, sponsoring an exhibition of Renaissance art from Siena at the gallery, just happens to be one of the new airport’s backers.
Says the Times: “Most of the protest group are in their late teens or early twenties. Many can recall idyllic summers spent in Tuscany at the villas of their parents or grandparents.”
Their number features: Fred Lambton, grandson of Lord Lambton, “the former Tory cabinet minister who lived out his life in Tuscany after resigning from the Heath government over a call-girl scandal”.
Rose Hanbury (model) and Zita Lloyd (model); Joseph Getty, Sir Paul Getty’s grandson; George Frost, Sir David Frost’s boy; Rollo Weeks (actor brother to Honeysuckle Weeks and Perdita Weeks, also actresses – his name means ‘famous wolf’); Arthur Jeffes, a polar explorer; Marissa Montgomery, founder of the Pussy Glamore lingerie range,;Guinnesses, “Heskeths” (a Germanic tribe?); and socialites.
They are the Save Siena group.
Says Lambton: “I spent a lot of time out there when my grandfather was alive and I have seen what the airport would do. The site is completely surrounded by a national park and has a delicate ecosystem. Building an international airport would be disastrous on so many levels.”
Notes the paper: “Lambton, who has previously fought campaigns against the power of supermarkets and the expansion of Heathrow”.
Thank goodness, say we, that the privileged have taken the time to warn us of the dangers of cheap flights, cheap food and more jobs. If only Zac Goldsmith had been there…
Pic: Siena’s Il Palio horse race in full tally ho!
Posted: 13th, January 2008 | In: Broadsheets Comments (5) | TrackBack | Permalink
