sims's sympathy and wit were not enough to spare him some criticism. to make fun of sims the "national observer", in 1892, nominated him to succeed tennyson as poet laureate. the members of the aesthetic movement were sometimes contemptuous of sims, and in 1894 he was the butt of a spoof in "the green carnation" by robert hichens. in 1899, charles whibley wrote an acid profile of sims. sims later sacrificed some of his standing among progressives with his 1906 campaign in "the tribune", titled "bitter cry of the middle classes", in which he criticised organised labour and argued that lower middle-class tradesmen and workers were over-taxed in the name of statism.