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

VfM4meplse

ukcarper wrote: »

it helped get rid of pole tax

Getting rid of Poll Tax was part of the Tory strategy not to lose the 1992 general election - the most instrumental part of which was getting rid of Thatcher. Everything has its uses.

leveller2911

I think there is a bigger picture here.I can only describe what has happend in my locality which is fairly rural,villages and small market towns.

The OP is right we have lost our "firebrands" people who could passionately debate and lead.I think this has a lot to do with the loss of village pubs and post offices and village shops.These were the places people use to meet,chat and organise they have gone and that is a loss to democracy.

I dont think its a class thing, no matter whether your middle class or working class its the same effect.I do wonder if it was a "policy" of government to take away the route that society used to debate,organise and protest,without it we are splintered and as such not a threat to the political elite be it at county level or nationwide.
After all we all moan,whinge and rarely protest, just how THEY want to keep it...No natural charismatic leaders.

SingleSue

donaldtramp wrote: »

I'd agree but it isn't an excuse to be bandied about either.
I haven't criticised, just trying to define.

Sue I know you say that you don't "like it" but that's the definition and you fall squarely into it. I haven't moaned about benefit claimants once either;)

I never fit squarely into anything!

I certainly don't class myself as being in the underclass (here comes my own snobbery ) as I have been well educated, have worked hard for most of my life and never been in a minimum wage job and actually grew up in middle class surroundings and still have middle class parents.

I certainly don't see myself as being exploited, misunderstood on occasions but not exploited.

I claim to be merely resting from being middle class :rotfl:

Actually, looking at this discussion, I am not sure why I am getting such a bee in my bonnet....we are all people, pure and simple.

Edit - Just looked at the Wiki definition of underclass, I am def not underclass by any stretch of the imagination.

globalds

Although not affecting me personally yet.
This is the first time I have felt like taking to the streets in protest at what seems the unbelievable behaviour of all the groups involved in this crisis to just want things "back the way they were"....Like a dope addict who just wants to be high again as a solution to the come down.
Gordon and the bankers have no intention of changing the way things are done in the financial world.

mardatha

PasturesNew you are SO right. Class is nothing to do with where you live or what you work at - its how you ARE. I know people in council houses who can hardly fill in a form who have ten times the manners & dignity of fancy executives. And I worked alongside fancy executives & their secretaries who have all the grace and composure of a wet ferret.

Optimist

I am upper class and I look down on you lot

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0DUsGSMwZY

carolt

Sorry OP - I do agree we're a weedy lot - but not that the answer lies in a "lurch to the right".

Of course, if things get bad enough, that may be what happens, but personally I see the National Front as the problem, not the solution.

whathavewedone

So it seems that the only acceptable class to be is working class.

I don't think that any class should be vilified or glorified.

Of course you will find nice people in all walks of life, why should you even think that one person will be friendlier or kinder because they are working/middle/upper class?

Sorry but it's just a nonsense.

As a middle class woman married to a working class man, there are aspects of British working class culture which make me cringe. The nauseating reliance on the extended family, the inability to do something interesting on a Sunday because we always go round to nanny's for our tea. Cousin Julie can't get thrush without the whole family knowing about it ("can't have baths you know" said in conspiritorial stage whisper"). So and so isn't a chav because "She wears Juicy Couture tracksuits!" His sister putting 100 photographs a day up on Facebook, nothing too tedious or humdrum to be recorded - latest being a picture of a picture of a flower that she'd bought from Ikea.

No doubt oh would be able to rip the P out of my family just as easily. He probably wouldn't tell me though any more than I'd want to hurt his feelings. He isn't as much of a stereotype as the rest of his family but still the way they are is normal to him.

All I'm saying is that for every white middle class person who would sell their granny to get their child into a good state school there's a white working class person who couldn't give a stuff about their kid's education so long as the majority of kids at their school are white and speak English as a first language.

Rant over. It just annoys me the way that being working class is seen as the only acceptable class.

Not only that but most of the people I know who insist that they are working class are university educated, in professional jobs, read broadsheets etc. Mum was a teacher, dad worked for the council. MIDDLE CLASS MIDDLE CLASS MIDDLE CLASS

treliac

PasturesNew wrote: »

Underclass to me is a way of thinking/behaving. As is working class. You can be working class without a job. You can be underclass with a job.

Underclass: no pride
Working class: have pride
Middle class: up themselves because they think everybody can do what they did and they'll tell you so too
Upper class: no idea whatsoever what's going on and probably a "let them eat cake" attitude

By those definitions, I don't fit any. Hmmm, we'll have to invent some more.

SingleSue

Try my non class Treliac....works for me!