The Middle-class - "Sorry, we're a bit useless!"

amcluesent

Riot? We'd rather have a cup of tea

"Maybe we prefer to moan, or have a cup of tea, or maybe we have been brainwashed into thinking that politicians exist only on television so that incidents where ordinary people lose their rag and swipe an MP or throw green custard become all the more astonishing reminders of reality.

The tub-thumping street-corner politician, of whom Winston Churchill was one and Gordon Brown is not, and who was ready to exchange banter with a vociferous public that is not merely an opinion group, has long gone ."

All sadly true. Every other community has it's militant organisers, it's firebrands, those who just never stop pushing.

Yet as swathes of the middle-classes lose their homes, jobs and wealth, where is the leader who can unit the many threads of disaffection? Grumbling at a bring'n'buy sale or tut-tutting at the farmer's market isn't going to change anything.

We need to stop being so reasonable, seeing both sides of the argument and being frightened of our own shadows. The middle-class desperately need to find a voice and leader or face oblivion. A lurch to the right is looking ever more attractive.

PasturesNew

I'm not middle class, so I don't care what they're up to or not.

SingleSue

I'm non class but used to be middle class.

I was very outspoken and always let it be known when I was not happy with service etc......I do still do that but feel less able to due to my new found status.

I made a stand against the poll tax, now I just try to change others views of certain sectors of society.

uropachild

What's non class?

SingleSue

Benefit claimant....you are not classed as working class as you don't work.

I refuse to call myself scum class unlike others.

ukcarper

It's not just the middle class even students don't protest now

Dr_DiNg_DoNg

good article, our generation is safe in the knowledge that benefits will feed, cloth, home and sky tv us, why riot when 3L of white cider and a bag of chips will get us pished & fed thats all the English need.

donaldtramp

How about "underclass" as a definition? Is that a fair?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5907628.ece

“Families live their whole lives on benefits and that is wrong, morally wrong,” he says. “We should be making these value judgments. This is a problem damaging the whole country and hobbling our economic system. I remember scoffing when John Major said we should understand a bit less and condemn a bit more, but he was right.”

“I’m not doing this from a religious perspective. I couldn’t care less about the private bedroom activities of consenting adults,” he says. “Where it impacts on children and where it relies on me as a taxpayer to sustain that lifestyle, that’s when it becomes a matter for public policy debate.”

Dr_DiNg_DoNg

There is no such thing as an "underclass" , if there is an "underclass" its the people mortgaged up to the hilt in homes they cannot afford in the long term.

SingleSue

Sorry, I don't like underclass either.

I can't relate to that as you appear to need to have been on benefits your entire working life.

I haven't.

donaldtramp

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O104-underclass.html

underclass Close to the Marxist notion of the lumpenproletariat , the term designates people without the means or opportunity for effective legal participation in society. The underclass is thus situated below the working class, which, although exploited, is able to participate in economic reproduction, rather than subsisting on government subsidies, charity, or crime. The emergence of an underclass of structurally unemployed persons—often concentrated in minority groups—has been widely debated in recent years, especially in American urban sociology .

Sounds about right to me.....