How the pampered other half live eh? Wimbledon fever is once again sweeping the country, at least until all the Brits are knocked out.

Prices for strawberries and cream are soaring and young children are emerging blinking into the sunlight trying to work out whether you use a racquet like a Wii paddle and living out their ephemeral dreams of one day serving on the centre court at W1A.

The fact that tennis is such an elitist sport where you don’t have to be rich but it certainly bloody helps appears to pass many people by.

OK it is not quite Formula One, where you have to have a million pound planet killer of a vehicle, or showjumping where you need a bleeding horse — and a few working-class kids do make it, but usually only after a huge amount of self-sacrifice and indulgence from the rest of their families.

The rest of us would be hard pressed to afford a ticket.

In fact the more I think of it Wimbledon is an excellent metaphor for the Tory plan for Britain. There are serfs to kneel at their feet and do the fetching and carrying. The toffs all sit there quaffing champagne smirking with their chums and they pretend they like the Scots if it looks like they might win and sneer at them if they don’t.

And to take it one step further, just look at the politicians who actually play tennis: Cameron, Osborne, Johnson, Blair.
Arrogant, millionaire bullies and egomaniacs to a one.

It doesn’t get more elitist than Wimbledon, you have to be specially selected to play and the only colour allowed is white.

It’s no wonder the bloody Windsors can’t keep away from the place. It must be like home away from home.

And speaking of the palatially ensconced parasites it emerged this week that despite their lives of privilege and opulent state-funded wealth, they too are not inured to Wimbledon fever.

Yes it emerged this week that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have decided what they really need for their multi-million pound grace and favour home is … a tennis court.

Not exactly going down the local supermarket for a couple of cheap racquets and a ball is it?

Mind you their idea of a local “supermarket” is probably Harrods or Fortnum and Mason’s.

Who said they were out of touch?

The royal couple have apparently submitted the planning application for their home at Anmer Hall near Sandringham, Norfolk.

From a brief perusal of the application it transpires that they don’t even need a new court. They already have one (of course they do) it’s just that it’s not in exactly the right place and apparently spoils their view.

The application, submitted by the Sandringham estate office, adds: “Moving the court further away from the hall improves the views from the hall and locates the court largely in an area of undeveloped garden.”

The documents explain the current court is in need of “extensive work” and would need digging up and relaying, so a landscape gardener suggested it could be moved.

The new court would be surfaced with AstroTurf, the application to King’s Lynn and West Norfolk Borough Council says.

How vulgar! You would have thought they’d want real grass, they could always get a footman to trim it with nail scissors or something.

Now, the thing about planning applications is that they have to be advertised in the press to allow people to put in objections.

Such objections usually concern the effect on neighbours’ light or the fact that the proposed edifice is seen to be in poor taste.

Well, I can’t think of anything more tasteless than two inveterate idlers using our money to make their existence even more lavish while we have our benefits slashed and pay cut.

Now, far be it from me to suggest such a thing as a campaign of mass of complaints to the local authority in question.

But if you happen to find yourselves at a loose end...