This is what James Blunt has to say about Chris Bryant

Chris Bryant, Labour's shadow culture minister, has said the arts world needs to address its diversity problem, with a more meritocratic culture and fewer people from privileged backgrounds.

“I am delighted that Eddie Redmayne won [a Golden Globe for best actor], but we can’t just have a culture dominated by Eddie Redmayne and James Blunt and their ilk,” he told the Guardian.

A fair point you might think. But, ever one for a sharp-tongued comeback, Harrow-educated Mr Blunt has clearly taken offence to being singled out.

The singer sent a scathing letter to the Guardian in which he addresses Mr Bryant as a "classist gimp" and a "prejudiced wazzock" and defended his own success in the music industry.

Here's one of the choicest quotes:

Every step of the way, my background has been AGAINST me succeeding in the music business. And when I have managed to break through, I was STILL scoffed at for being too posh for the industry.

And then you come along, looking for votes, telling working class people that posh people like me don’t deserve it, and that we must redress the balance. But it is your populist, envy-based, vote-hunting ideas which make our country crap, far more than me and my shit songs, and my plummy accent.

• James Blunt

You can read the whole thing on the Guardian website here.

Chris Bryant then responded to James Blunt's reply to Chris Bryant, by saying that while he was pleased James Blunt had done well, his original point still stood.

Here's part of what Mr Bryant said:

Stop being so blooming precious. I’m not knocking your success. I even contributed to it by buying one of your albums. I’m not knocking Eddie Redmayne, either. He was the best Richard II I have ever seen.

If you’d read the whole of my interview, you’d have seen that I make the point that the people who subsidise the arts the most are artists themselves. Of course that includes you. But it is a statement of the blindingly obvious that that is far tougher if you come from a poor family where you have to hand over your holiday earnings to help pay the family bills.

• Chris Bryant

You can read his whole letter on the Guardian website here and presumably click refresh for a while until James Blunt's latest reply is sent in.

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