Beware the lesser mortals

In Jan 2009, when the Singapore economy was in all sorts of trouble, one of PM's many permanent secretaries Tan Yong Soon decided to take his family to a top notch cooking class in France, spending 50k in the process. Not that there's anything wrong with that except that he saw fit to brag about it in our local media.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/403473/1/.html

After being "thoroughly and utterly" rebuked in Parliment, like Han Solo to Luke Skywalker, Pasir Ris-Punggol MP Charles Chong rushed to Tan's defence:

Agreeing that the rebuke in Parliament was “harsh”, MP Charles Chong noted that Mr Tan didn’t “brag” about how expensive the trip was in the article.
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“Maybe it made lesser mortals envious and they thought maybe he was a little bit boastful,” he said. “Would people have taken offence if his wife (a senior investment counsellor at a bank) had paid for everything?”

Well Mr. Chong, its time we envious lesser mortals layeth some smackdown on you greater mortals.

PS: Why does PM need so many perm secs anyway?