The Clapham Omnibus is associated with rather stuffy assumptions about what the great unwashed public think, e.g. "So, Minister, what would the man on the Clapham Omnibus say about the reduction in tax on whisky in the new budget? Wouldn't he prefer cheaper beer? Hmm? Hmm?"
Back in the days when the phrase was more common, Clapham was mostly a cheap but respectable, ordinary place to live, full of ordinary respectable chaps who held ordinary respectable opinions. These days, however, it's full of gastropubs and is inhabited by large numbers of people who own labradors and call their children Henrietta.
They rarely travel by bus.
It's now used as a deliberate archaism, or by politicians attempting to be witty on Radio 4.
Tragically, London has outbreaks of Heritage Fever and so the Number 88, an ordinary, unassuming single-decker bus, was repainted and renamed as the Clapham Omnibus some years ago. |
