My flat doesn't have a bath. Social mobility is an impossible dream here.
If you were working class you could cobble one together from a couple of car bonnets and a welding torch.
Proper working class would start with you making your own toolbox and the tools* to go in it…
*that’s how apprentices were trained in The Goode Olde Days Of Yore.
When I was at sixth form/university I had a part time job in a workshop that prepared rally cars. The first thing I had to do was make my own welding cart. It took fucking forever and the end result was a load of crap that needed three grown men to move it and fell apart when they did. Now you can buy good ones from MachineMart/Screwfix for about 60 quid.
After that display of youthful ineptitude the second thing they got me to weld were bits of a rollcage for an RS2000 on the integrity of which lives would depend. That was my first introduction to the ethics of the car business.
“ my own welding cart. It took fucking forever and the end result was a load of crap that needed three grown men to move it and fell apart when they did.”
Sounds like you had perfectly acquired the skills required (and renowned the world over) for British sports car engineering.
The GE question for me is how badly the Tories lose and who with?
If Boris remains then the Conservatives don't even reach "toast" status, More like stale bread that fails to make it out of the wrapper. In the leafy Conservative seats Boris is seen as a vulgar lying oaf that you'd cross the street to avoid - Advantage LibDems.
In the Red Wall and suburbs some of the spiv shine remains but then it'll be "the economy stupid" that rubs away the remaining gloss - Advantage Labour and Others.
Boris Remains = Electoral Catastrophe Boris Goes = Electoral Hope .. Perhaps.
How Stupid Do The Stupid Party Want To Be?
I agree with this. Boris really has to go to get the Tories in the game.
Even without him, however, it is going to be very difficult with a poor set of cards. Inflation is going to be high from here to the election. It should be past its peak by the election but it will be far higher than we have got used to. The government finances will benefit from that inflation to some degree both by fiscal drag and by a reduction in the real value of the debt mountain but the treasury is not so much empty as seriously overborrowed so there will be no more than token freebies for anyone.
What does a new post Boris party have to do? I would suggest:
1. Get sensible working arrangements with the EU both generally and specifically in NI. If that involves compromises on our part about standards etc so be it. The anger of natural Tories who were remainers must be defused. Many of these are the people who did not vote on Thursday.
2. Clean up as much as possible of the horrendous backlogs in the NHS that have come as a result of Covid. This affects everyone but specifically their older supporters.
3. Get the Social Care plan actually working. God knows how but do it.
4. Get as many infrastructure plans to the spades in the ground point as we can afford. It won't be many.
5. Try to be more competent. Its a bloody low bar but you look at a lot of the existing cabinet and despair. There must be more talent on the backbenches to bring forward.
6. Calm down a bit. Use softer language, do not unnecessarily create culture wars, talk consensually, acknowledge the many challenges we face and be open about the choices available.
That's one route. The other is to to go full-on American Republican; shout more, rub the left's noses in woke, Europe and Corbyn. State cuts to pay for tax cuts.
I know which one I'd prefer, and which one I suspect works better.
I fear which one the Conservative Party will have more fun doing.
Trump was also more big government than Reagan just as Boris is more big government than Thatcher.
Trump and Boris are both culturally populist and nationalist, especially Trump but on economics they are relatively centrist.
Is Boris nationalist, or just posing as one? He has lived in America and Belgium, and relinquished US citizenship only on receipt of a tax bill.
Of course he's a nationalist. One of the clearest cases of nationalism there is. He literally campaigned for his nation* to gain more sovereignty.
*personally I don't see the UK as a single nation, but he does.
It is really sickening to see LBC try to draw equivalence between Starmer and Johnson.
Johnson lied. Repeatedly. He said there were no parties at all. Zero. Zilch. He lied.
Keir Starmer has never lied about this. He’s never denied what happened or that the photos aren’t genuine.
One has been investigated. Found to have lied and been fined.
The other has not lied and has been found not guilty.
I know I’m biased but can anyone sensible honestly conclude Starmer and Johnson are at all alike? I can’t imagine past Tory parties putting up with this kind of thing.
Ah great, another outing for "what does working class mean?"
It is an interesting question. Is it about money? - you're working class if you don't have any. Or occupation? - you're working class if your job isn't white collar professional managerial. Or culture? - you're working class if you have "working class values" (tbd).
My view is it's about money. The "occupation" test doesn't fit for how the workplace is these days. And the "values" test is too soft and allows too much bullshit into the equation. So, it's money, pure and simple. You're working class - regardless of whether you actually work - if you don't have much capital and your income is modest or low. All such people are working class and nobody else is.
To stress test this:
A bloke called Frank who's been a labourer for 25 years, just about managing, wins the lottery. No, let's make it more heartwarming, he gets an acca up on the horses and it pays out £2m.
And at about the same time -
Prince Andrew loses everything but his title. Gets kicked out of Windsor Castle and starts a new life on Universal Credit in Slough. Is allocated a bedsit and has £50 a week for extras like food and heating.
Has Frank ceased to be working class? Has Prince Andrew (and he is still a Prince remember) *become* working class?
The answer to both is Yes. The test is passed. My definition is the one to go with.
Prince Andrew could lose all his money and he still wouldn't become working class.
He could rent a flat above a shop, cut his hair and get a job, smoke some fags and play some pool, pretend he never went to school, but still he'd never get it right, cause when he's laying in bed at night, watching roaches climb the wall, if he called his mum he could stop it all.
Ah the great Pulp. Yes. If somebody is on their uppers but could - if they asked - transform their finances with an input from their wealthy family, this is akin to having money and they aren't working class. So per my example, we must assume that Andrew has tried this and been told to go and do one. Quite a thought, isn't it? Makes you sad to contemplate it on the human level.
The traditional solution to the Andrew problem would be a sanatorium in leafy Surrey:
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
A Cambridge economics or Oxford Maths degree however would certainly qualify you to run a hedge fund.
It is also no surprise we get more Oxford PPE graduates as PM than say politics graduates from Liverpool John Moores
Ah great, another outing for "what does working class mean?"
It is an interesting question. Is it about money? - you're working class if you don't have any. Or occupation? - you're working class if your job isn't white collar professional managerial. Or culture? - you're working class if you have "working class values" (tbd).
My view is it's about money. The "occupation" test doesn't fit for how the workplace is these days. And the "values" test is too soft and allows too much bullshit into the equation. So, it's money, pure and simple. You're working class - regardless of whether you actually work - if you don't have much capital and your income is modest or low. All such people are working class and nobody else is.
To stress test this:
A bloke called Frank who's been a labourer for 25 years, just about managing, wins the lottery. No, let's make it more heartwarming, he gets an acca up on the horses and it pays out £2m.
And at about the same time -
Prince Andrew loses everything but his title. Gets kicked out of Windsor Castle and starts a new life on Universal Credit in Slough. Is allocated a bedsit and has £50 a week for extras like food and heating.
Has Frank ceased to be working class? Has Prince Andrew (and he is still a Prince remember) immediately *become* working class?
The answer to both is Yes.
The stress test is passed. My definition is the one to go with.
No it is not just about money.
In most countries it is about money and wealth and to some extent education level too.
In the UK however money is just a small factor in it, birth is also important and where you went to school also matters. Alan Sugar and David Beckham for example will never be posher than the Duke of Richmond even if they are now richer than him.
Prince Andrew even if he lived in a bedsit on UC would still be posher than Frank the labourer even if Frank won the lottery and became much richer than him
I think this is too woolly. Money clarifies. But we can reconcile your view to mine by uncoupling 'class' from 'background'. Most of what you're talking about is relevant to background and somebody's background is very often different to their class.
Me, for example. I have a working class background - since my family met the acid test of "little or no capital, low to modest income" - but I myself am not working class since I fail that test myself.
It's really easy, this, once you get the hang of it.
You are still working class by background even if you yourself are now middle class
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
With two exceptions, I wouldn't have trusted any Oxford humanities graduate of my acquaintance to run a whelk stall.
Science, different matter.
There is something to be said for making Oxbridge graduate-only and freeing up its world-class researchers to do even more research (although a lot of undergraduate teaching is done by those lower down the tree). For too many students, it is merely an expensive finishing school.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
This is a bad example as actually Worcester's a pretty good uni (I worked there for a bit). If people are saying its degrees are not worth anything that merely shows our system of assessing worth is totally wrong.
Yep I agree. I was just directly following Mexicanpete's analogy.
The trouble is that it is now the case that many or even most degrees are not worth what they once were and probably not worth the cost in terms of time and money. Now one might reasonably say that, like diamonds, they were never worth as much as people pretended them to be and, again like diamonds, it was only restricting availability that gave them a nominal worth. But now that we have largely destroyed that value by flooding the market, we need to be honest with those we are selling degrees to about their real world value.
Opening up degrees to 50% of the population was a great way to get rid of youth unemployment but it has brought in far more - and far more serious - problems for which there is no quick or obvious solution.
They could be - but it needs a bit of a change of attitude on the part of both unis and employers. A great many post-92 unis could and do actually offer excellent teaching, but too many still seem to think of themselves as research institutions when that's not what they're good at. Meanwhile, many Russell Group unis are terrible for teaching, providing a really bad undergraduate course, but excellent in research.*
Which is why Gove and Cummings in their infinite ignorance and stupidity opening up Russell Group unis to all without a cap was exactly the wrong approach. It should have capped numbers in the Russell Group - even a case for making them postgrad only - and opened it up elsewhere and said, OK, this is about education, not research.
It can't happen now because the Russell Group have sunk so much money into student estate that would bankrupt themselves by trying it, but it could easily have worked and would have been far better all around than what we've ended up with.
*Of course, it doesn't always follow. For many years Oxford Brookes had a much better history department for both research and teaching than Oxford itself, which was mysteriously not always reflected in the rankings put together by (checks notes) Oxford graduates...
The GE question for me is how badly the Tories lose and who with?
If Boris remains then the Conservatives don't even reach "toast" status, More like stale bread that fails to make it out of the wrapper. In the leafy Conservative seats Boris is seen as a vulgar lying oaf that you'd cross the street to avoid - Advantage LibDems.
In the Red Wall and suburbs some of the spiv shine remains but then it'll be "the economy stupid" that rubs away the remaining gloss - Advantage Labour and Others.
Boris Remains = Electoral Catastrophe Boris Goes = Electoral Hope .. Perhaps.
How Stupid Do The Stupid Party Want To Be?
I agree with this. Boris really has to go to get the Tories in the game.
Even without him, however, it is going to be very difficult with a poor set of cards. Inflation is going to be high from here to the election. It should be past its peak by the election but it will be far higher than we have got used to. The government finances will benefit from that inflation to some degree both by fiscal drag and by a reduction in the real value of the debt mountain but the treasury is not so much empty as seriously overborrowed so there will be no more than token freebies for anyone.
What does a new post Boris party have to do? I would suggest:
1. Get sensible working arrangements with the EU both generally and specifically in NI. If that involves compromises on our part about standards etc so be it. The anger of natural Tories who were remainers must be defused. Many of these are the people who did not vote on Thursday.
2. Clean up as much as possible of the horrendous backlogs in the NHS that have come as a result of Covid. This affects everyone but specifically their older supporters.
3. Get the Social Care plan actually working. God knows how but do it.
4. Get as many infrastructure plans to the spades in the ground point as we can afford. It won't be many.
5. Try to be more competent. Its a bloody low bar but you look at a lot of the existing cabinet and despair. There must be more talent on the backbenches to bring forward.
6. Calm down a bit. Use softer language, do not unnecessarily create culture wars, talk consensually, acknowledge the many challenges we face and be open about the choices available.
That's one route. The other is to to go full-on American Republican; shout more, rub the left's noses in woke, Europe and Corbyn. State cuts to pay for tax cuts.
I know which one I'd prefer, and which one I suspect works better.
I fear which one the Conservative Party will have more fun doing.
What I am proposing is not a million miles from the program of David Cameron in his largely successful attempts to detoxify the Tory party in the run up to the 2010 election. The problem is that the party went along with that then because they were absolutely desperate to get back into power after more than a decade in opposition. I do not think a party fat on complacency based on 12 years in power would respond the same way or choose a leader that would want to follow that path.
My flat doesn't have a bath. Social mobility is an impossible dream here.
If you were working class you could cobble one together from a couple of car bonnets and a welding torch.
Proper working class would start with you making your own toolbox and the tools* to go in it…
*that’s how apprentices were trained in The Goode Olde Days Of Yore.
Just been sorting out my dad's toolbox and some of the tools. Exactly that.
My grandfather made his tools as an apprentice - still have the hammer somewhere.
I would love to do that as a part time course.
Making tools can great fun - made some lathe tools, and the satisfaction from doing machining with a tool you have made yourself….
Apart from the little brass engraved nameplate on top which he made, I'd add that he was deeply shocked by UKG policy from Mrs T onwards, the abandonment of the proper apprenticeship and training structure.
For proper irony - the apprentice system was opposed by the unions, who saw it as a slave labour system. With the additional purpose of keeping the proles in their place.
There was a certain truth in that. Especially the last bit. Shop floor vs the suited chap on the catwalk above etc….
One of those babies and bath water classics, really.
Does levelling up threaten the Tories in the south west?
It doesn't mean anything it practical terms, so no.
It doesn't mean a great deal in practical terms. But, the more the Tories bang on about it, and the more the PM appears driving a forklift in hi-viz round a widget warehouse Up North, the more folk Down South wonder why they are paying vast taxes for someone else's benefit? It comes back to the issue of the entirely divergent interests of the vast coalition put together in 2019. Not sure that is easily solvable.
I recall sometime last year, before things started going south, ahem, for the Tories, that there was some snide comments about Red Wall MPs getting a bit too much attention, and a bit demanding. The implication was that the BoJo tendency is obsessed with doing well in the Red Wall, recognising it was key to the 2019 success, but to the detriment of the southern base, which had been the heartland but might now feel the government doesn't give a crap about them.
Given the Express's take on these locals, the feeling of lack of care toward the south will continue.
I've got a feeling it's more than a regional issue. Public sector? Underfunded and getting worse. Professional classes? Effete latte sipping, human rights obsessed pansies. Rural areas? Utterly ignored. Cities? Openly scorned. They add up to a vast majority of the nation. Somerset, Cumbria and N Yorkshire were the most fascinating results I entirely didn't see coming. Hat tip to @IshmaelZ who I think had been raising rural lack of love for the PM for a while.
Yet for all this bollocks about levelling up and helping the so called red wall, which seems to piss off the entitled, wealthy, southern middle classes in their large expensive properties, what has actually been done apart from a load of hot air.
Levelling up died the day the eastern leg of HS2 got canned and was replaced with nothing but hot air. A new factory here or there cannot change that.
To play devil’s advocate to some extent, it’s a rather metropolitan view that trains, rather than roads, contribute more to levelling up. The Red Wall want local jobs, not a faster way to get to Manchester, Newcastle, or London.
The Red Wall want the opportunity for better jobs for their children than they have. Just like anybody else does. Simply opening a new factory or a Home Bargains isn't aspirational.
Exactly right. It isn’t jobs, we have those, it’s well paying jobs and great opportunities. We currently lose our aspirational younger people to other places where those opportunities exist. People like sandpit seem to think we just want jobs, whatever they are, be it min wage call centre work or shop work. Not sure how someone can say what we, who live in the region, actually wants when they don’t even live in the region or the country.
Not at all, I was arguing for more better-paid jobs locally, rather than minimum wage work supported by more trains to the big city.
Trouble is this.
There's an argument that the economies of cities are just more productive than those of towns. I'm not an economist, but the data seem to bear it out and the mechanisms sound plausible.
That gives us a choice.
We can run with that, and let cities grow and let people benefit from the enhanced productivity. And since city size is capped by travel time (again, not proven but plausible) we need fairly high density living and rail based commuting, because roads don't give enough reliable peak capacity.
Alternatively, we can turn our back on that and say we want small towns, car based suburbs and business parks. We can do that, and many prefer it. And we don't notice the cost, because the economic growth that didn't happen, didn't happen.
WFH might be the magic key that unlocks that... But look who hates WFH?
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
HYUFD is that you?
Utter classist rubbish. Education is the key to a civil society. Right wing populists demanding education only for the elites (generally themselves) reminds me why I have never voted Conservative.
I also disagree the middle class is only the highest 10% of earners.
The middle class is defined now as about 50% of the population ie upper middle class ABs and lower middle class C1s. You can be AB even if not in the top 10% of earners if a professional still and C1 basically as long as you have a job which is not manual labour
So you think that working in a call centre makes someone middle class? Or scanning groceries at a supermarket checkout?
Working in a call centre can make you lower middle class while being a plumber or electrician makes you skilled working class. Even if earnings wise there is little difference and the latter even earns more than the former
In which case why do we separate them out like that? As I think you are right that is how many people would classify those two jobs, but it seems objectively silly to me.
It's a vestige of a gone time than needs to be swept away. We don't need HYUFD's caste system, we need housing and jobs with dignified pay. Having some prat running around slotting us into imaginary social classes helps nobody.
Slotting people into imaginary social classes is part of the whole point of being English!
That might be true, but if it is it is not a very nice trait - us and them is not attractive.
What distinguishes the English class system however is it is far less based on money, income and wealth than say the US class system, which is not necessarily a bad thing
The latest "definition" of class that I am aware of is "what jobs, if any, were your parents doing when you turned 14?". My dad drove a van, refilling cigarette machines (he had earlier been a brickie/plasterer before a serious injury), and my mum worked part-time in a shop. So I am working class by that definition.
Even that question is in some ways loaded. What about people raised by fewer than two parents? What if you lived in a household with more than two adults? Trying to define these concepts is like trying to grasp smoke.
Ultimately, though, the whole point of "class" is to try to move social prejudice onto an objective level, which is why nobody can ever provide a logically consistent definition. It simply doesn't belong to a category of phenomena that can be consistently defined.
My father defined a gentleman as someone who used a butter knife even when they were on their own.
I'm not sure how useful the definition is, but I know I fail it.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
HYUFD is that you?
Utter classist rubbish. Education is the key to a civil society. Right wing populists demanding education only for the elites (generally themselves) reminds me why I have never voted Conservative.
I also disagree the middle class is only the highest 10% of earners.
The middle class is defined now as about 50% of the population ie upper middle class ABs and lower middle class C1s. You can be AB even if not in the top 10% of earners if a professional still and C1 basically as long as you have a job which is not manual labour
So you think that working in a call centre makes someone middle class? Or scanning groceries at a supermarket checkout?
Working in a call centre can make you lower middle class while being a plumber or electrician makes you skilled working class. Even if earnings wise there is little difference and the latter even earns more than the former
In which case why do we separate them out like that? As I think you are right that is how many people would classify those two jobs, but it seems objectively silly to me.
It's a vestige of a gone time than needs to be swept away. We don't need HYUFD's caste system, we need housing and jobs with dignified pay. Having some prat running around slotting us into imaginary social classes helps nobody.
Slotting people into imaginary social classes is part of the whole point of being English!
That might be true, but if it is it is not a very nice trait - us and them is not attractive.
What distinguishes the English class system however is it is far less based on money, income and wealth than say the US class system, which is not necessarily a bad thing
The latest "definition" of class that I am aware of is "what jobs, if any, were your parents doing when you turned 14?". My dad drove a van, refilling cigarette machines (he had earlier been a brickie/plasterer before a serious injury), and my mum worked part-time in a shop. So I am working class by that definition.
Even that question is in some ways loaded. What about people raised by fewer than two parents? What if you lived in a household with more than two adults? Trying to define these concepts is like trying to grasp smoke.
Ultimately, though, the whole point of "class" is to try to move social prejudice onto an objective level, which is why nobody can ever provide a logically consistent definition. It simply doesn't belong to a category of phenomena that can be consistently defined.
My father defined a gentleman as someone who used a butter knife even when they were on their own.
I'm not sure how useful the definition is, but I know I fail it.
I suggest the second part is more important than the first.
On the topic of the "Westminister bubble", I think that MPs are more immune to it than the media. The MPs go back to their constituencies, the Lobby never does. It is the media that most loves the fetid late night gossip, and this is pretty unhealthy for our democracy. The fact that the PM and various ministers are journalists themselves is also part of the problem. Partygate and other microscandals are deeply unserious and discredit British politics around the world. As a former Finnish PM said last week "Britain needs to pull its socks up".
Well said. The bubble stuff looks ridiculous watching from afar.
Lying to parliament isn't bubble stuff. The Ministerial Code is there for a reason. Standards in public life are there for a reason. And the same pattern of dishonesty and hypocrisy runs through everything this PM and his coterie does. They are poisoning the well of political life in this country. This matters.
“Were there any more ‘parties’?” “No” “But, but two years ago you spent nine minutes being ambushed by your wife with a birthday cake. You’re a lying liar who should resign for lying”
It looks ridiculous watching from afar.
I thought the same when Princess Di met her maker. I was coming back from South Africa and was told by a British Airways stewardess. I could see that being able to tell someone who didn't already know made her day. But within two minutes I'd stopped thinking about it......When I got back I couldn't believe it. It was epic!
Some things just hit a nerve and Boris Partying at that moment did it in a way that few other things have. I suppose if you analysed it it was several things coming together ....an imperious feeling of entitlement when everyone was having a bad time.....and all catalogued with unforgettable images....the smug grin .....the table in the sunshine ..the hapless Aleggra...Rees Mogg......It was quite cinematic. It was the moment Marie Antoinette quaffed one too many buns.
You put out a post like that and think you can cover up your days dogging behind the KFC in West Bromwich.
You're fooling no-one Roger.
How we've missed you! Still selling tractors in Ludlow? Trade must be brisk after the Neil Parish affair.
My tractor videos have been proving enormously successful, I let your friend Giuseppe Veneziano do the editing and it just took off.
Ludlow is just springing back to life but in the week I am now working in Stoke. Etruria to be prcise, which as you know is latin for Tuscany. I fill my days drinking fine reds and eating salsiccia before I go to the welding shop and spend happy hours with an angle grinder.
I didn't realise people worked in Stoke. I thought it only existed to supply 'Leavers' for Johnson's political ambitions. Talking about Johnson sorry to hear about the DUP humiliation. You know what they say about dogs and fleas.
You refer to the Stoke of myth which populates the nightmares of twittering class would-be intellectuals shaking in fear at the products of their conformist ideological fervour. In the real Stoke there is much industry and enterprise and not only Bet365.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
This is a bad example as actually Worcester's a pretty good uni (I worked there for a bit). If people are saying its degrees are not worth anything that merely shows our system of assessing worth is totally wrong.
Yep I agree. I was just directly following Mexicanpete's analogy.
The trouble is that it is now the case that many or even most degrees are not worth what they once were and probably not worth the cost in terms of time and money. Now one might reasonably say that, like diamonds, they were never worth as much as people pretended them to be and, again like diamonds, it was only restricting availability that gave them a nominal worth. But now that we have largely destroyed that value by flooding the market, we need to be honest with those we are selling degrees to about their real world value.
Opening up degrees to 50% of the population was a great way to get rid of youth unemployment but it has brought in far more - and far more serious - problems for which there is no quick or obvious solution.
There is now a class system in degrees.
- Russel Group or equivalent - 2.1 or above - Russel Group lower degree - Non-Russel group mid level uni - University of Bums On Seats
If you aren't in group 1, you won’t get a job at the very high end of white collar work. They filter the CVs….
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
The GE question for me is how badly the Tories lose and who with?
If Boris remains then the Conservatives don't even reach "toast" status, More like stale bread that fails to make it out of the wrapper. In the leafy Conservative seats Boris is seen as a vulgar lying oaf that you'd cross the street to avoid - Advantage LibDems.
In the Red Wall and suburbs some of the spiv shine remains but then it'll be "the economy stupid" that rubs away the remaining gloss - Advantage Labour and Others.
Boris Remains = Electoral Catastrophe Boris Goes = Electoral Hope .. Perhaps.
How Stupid Do The Stupid Party Want To Be?
I agree with this. Boris really has to go to get the Tories in the game.
Even without him, however, it is going to be very difficult with a poor set of cards. Inflation is going to be high from here to the election. It should be past its peak by the election but it will be far higher than we have got used to. The government finances will benefit from that inflation to some degree both by fiscal drag and by a reduction in the real value of the debt mountain but the treasury is not so much empty as seriously overborrowed so there will be no more than token freebies for anyone.
What does a new post Boris party have to do? I would suggest:
1. Get sensible working arrangements with the EU both generally and specifically in NI. If that involves compromises on our part about standards etc so be it. The anger of natural Tories who were remainers must be defused. Many of these are the people who did not vote on Thursday.
2. Clean up as much as possible of the horrendous backlogs in the NHS that have come as a result of Covid. This affects everyone but specifically their older supporters.
3. Get the Social Care plan actually working. God knows how but do it.
4. Get as many infrastructure plans to the spades in the ground point as we can afford. It won't be many.
5. Try to be more competent. Its a bloody low bar but you look at a lot of the existing cabinet and despair. There must be more talent on the backbenches to bring forward.
6. Calm down a bit. Use softer language, do not unnecessarily create culture wars, talk consensually, acknowledge the many challenges we face and be open about the choices available.
That's one route. The other is to to go full-on American Republican; shout more, rub the left's noses in woke, Europe and Corbyn. State cuts to pay for tax cuts.
I know which one I'd prefer, and which one I suspect works better.
I fear which one the Conservative Party will have more fun doing.
What I am proposing is not a million miles from the program of David Cameron in his largely successful attempts to detoxify the Tory party in the run up to the 2010 election. The problem is that the party went along with that then because they were absolutely desperate to get back into power after more than a decade in opposition. I do not think a party fat on complacency based on 12 years in power would respond the same way or choose a leader that would want to follow that path.
Nor would they necessarily win or the government then be that great either.
Only once in the last 100 years has a party won another general election after more than 10 years in power, Major's Tories in 1992. While that kept Kinnock out nobody can say the Major government of 1992 to 1997 was a great success and it just led to landslide defeat by Blair in 1997
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
HYUFD is that you?
Utter classist rubbish. Education is the key to a civil society. Right wing populists demanding education only for the elites (generally themselves) reminds me why I have never voted Conservative.
I also disagree the middle class is only the highest 10% of earners.
The middle class is defined now as about 50% of the population ie upper middle class ABs and lower middle class C1s. You can be AB even if not in the top 10% of earners if a professional still and C1 basically as long as you have a job which is not manual labour
So you think that working in a call centre makes someone middle class? Or scanning groceries at a supermarket checkout?
Working in a call centre can make you lower middle class while being a plumber or electrician makes you skilled working class. Even if earnings wise there is little difference and the latter even earns more than the former
In which case why do we separate them out like that? As I think you are right that is how many people would classify those two jobs, but it seems objectively silly to me.
It's a vestige of a gone time than needs to be swept away. We don't need HYUFD's caste system, we need housing and jobs with dignified pay. Having some prat running around slotting us into imaginary social classes helps nobody.
Slotting people into imaginary social classes is part of the whole point of being English!
That might be true, but if it is it is not a very nice trait - us and them is not attractive.
What distinguishes the English class system however is it is far less based on money, income and wealth than say the US class system, which is not necessarily a bad thing
The latest "definition" of class that I am aware of is "what jobs, if any, were your parents doing when you turned 14?". My dad drove a van, refilling cigarette machines (he had earlier been a brickie/plasterer before a serious injury), and my mum worked part-time in a shop. So I am working class by that definition.
Even that question is in some ways loaded. What about people raised by fewer than two parents? What if you lived in a household with more than two adults? Trying to define these concepts is like trying to grasp smoke.
Ultimately, though, the whole point of "class" is to try to move social prejudice onto an objective level, which is why nobody can ever provide a logically consistent definition. It simply doesn't belong to a category of phenomena that can be consistently defined.
My father defined a gentleman as someone who used a butter knife even when they were on their own.
I'm not sure how useful the definition is, but I know I fail it.
I ONLY use a butter knife when I'm on my own. If my wife catches me using it as a backscratcher she goes mad with me.
🟨 SNP 25.9% (19 seats, 30.2% of seats) 🟧 Lib Dem 20.5% (12 seats, 19%) 🟥 Labour 19.1% (13 seats, 20.6%) 🟦 Conservative 17.5% (9 seats, 14.3%) 🟩 Green 14.2% (10 seats, 19%) ⬛ Other 1.9% (0 seats) ⬜ Independents 0.9% (0)
I believe this is a partial glimpse into the transfers. Don't read too much into the overrepresentation of the SNP, that can come about from being the largest party. Look instead down the list at the Conservatives and Greens. I have a strong suspicion that we're seeing transfers across the union/indy divide more than previously, and unionist tactical voting reduced. Simply: Labour and Lib Dems favouring Greens more and Conservative less than last time.
Caveat: still just a hunch; I haven't dug into the data properly and this is just one council.
There is no question that the Tories were a lot less transfer friendly this time than in the last several elections. Anger at Boris, the fading memory of Ruth, the inconsistencies of Ross and a budget that in the face of a cost of living crisis did not seem to give a damn about the least well off all sickened people. The Tory brand has been retoxified and the price for that in Scotland with its STV and other proportional systems is going to be particularly high.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
HYUFD is that you?
Utter classist rubbish. Education is the key to a civil society. Right wing populists demanding education only for the elites (generally themselves) reminds me why I have never voted Conservative.
I also disagree the middle class is only the highest 10% of earners.
The middle class is defined now as about 50% of the population ie upper middle class ABs and lower middle class C1s. You can be AB even if not in the top 10% of earners if a professional still and C1 basically as long as you have a job which is not manual labour
So you think that working in a call centre makes someone middle class? Or scanning groceries at a supermarket checkout?
Working in a call centre can make you lower middle class while being a plumber or electrician makes you skilled working class. Even if earnings wise there is little difference and the latter even earns more than the former
In which case why do we separate them out like that? As I think you are right that is how many people would classify those two jobs, but it seems objectively silly to me.
It's a vestige of a gone time than needs to be swept away. We don't need HYUFD's caste system, we need housing and jobs with dignified pay. Having some prat running around slotting us into imaginary social classes helps nobody.
Slotting people into imaginary social classes is part of the whole point of being English!
That might be true, but if it is it is not a very nice trait - us and them is not attractive.
What distinguishes the English class system however is it is far less based on money, income and wealth than say the US class system, which is not necessarily a bad thing
The latest "definition" of class that I am aware of is "what jobs, if any, were your parents doing when you turned 14?". My dad drove a van, refilling cigarette machines (he had earlier been a brickie/plasterer before a serious injury), and my mum worked part-time in a shop. So I am working class by that definition.
Even that question is in some ways loaded. What about people raised by fewer than two parents? What if you lived in a household with more than two adults? Trying to define these concepts is like trying to grasp smoke.
Ultimately, though, the whole point of "class" is to try to move social prejudice onto an objective level, which is why nobody can ever provide a logically consistent definition. It simply doesn't belong to a category of phenomena that can be consistently defined.
My father defined a gentleman as someone who used a butter knife even when they were on their own.
I'm not sure how useful the definition is, but I know I fail it.
I ONLY use a butter knife when I'm on my own. If my wife catches me using it as a backscratcher she goes mad with me.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
HYUFD is that you?
Utter classist rubbish. Education is the key to a civil society. Right wing populists demanding education only for the elites (generally themselves) reminds me why I have never voted Conservative.
I also disagree the middle class is only the highest 10% of earners.
The middle class is defined now as about 50% of the population ie upper middle class ABs and lower middle class C1s. You can be AB even if not in the top 10% of earners if a professional still and C1 basically as long as you have a job which is not manual labour
So you think that working in a call centre makes someone middle class? Or scanning groceries at a supermarket checkout?
Working in a call centre can make you lower middle class while being a plumber or electrician makes you skilled working class. Even if earnings wise there is little difference and the latter even earns more than the former
In which case why do we separate them out like that? As I think you are right that is how many people would classify those two jobs, but it seems objectively silly to me.
It's a vestige of a gone time than needs to be swept away. We don't need HYUFD's caste system, we need housing and jobs with dignified pay. Having some prat running around slotting us into imaginary social classes helps nobody.
Slotting people into imaginary social classes is part of the whole point of being English!
That might be true, but if it is it is not a very nice trait - us and them is not attractive.
What distinguishes the English class system however is it is far less based on money, income and wealth than say the US class system, which is not necessarily a bad thing
The latest "definition" of class that I am aware of is "what jobs, if any, were your parents doing when you turned 14?". My dad drove a van, refilling cigarette machines (he had earlier been a brickie/plasterer before a serious injury), and my mum worked part-time in a shop. So I am working class by that definition.
Even that question is in some ways loaded. What about people raised by fewer than two parents? What if you lived in a household with more than two adults? Trying to define these concepts is like trying to grasp smoke.
Ultimately, though, the whole point of "class" is to try to move social prejudice onto an objective level, which is why nobody can ever provide a logically consistent definition. It simply doesn't belong to a category of phenomena that can be consistently defined.
My father defined a gentleman as someone who used a butter knife even when they were on their own.
I'm not sure how useful the definition is, but I know I fail it.
Does using it to butter toast for a late night snack count?
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
HYUFD is that you?
Utter classist rubbish. Education is the key to a civil society. Right wing populists demanding education only for the elites (generally themselves) reminds me why I have never voted Conservative.
I also disagree the middle class is only the highest 10% of earners.
The middle class is defined now as about 50% of the population ie upper middle class ABs and lower middle class C1s. You can be AB even if not in the top 10% of earners if a professional still and C1 basically as long as you have a job which is not manual labour
So you think that working in a call centre makes someone middle class? Or scanning groceries at a supermarket checkout?
Working in a call centre can make you lower middle class while being a plumber or electrician makes you skilled working class. Even if earnings wise there is little difference and the latter even earns more than the former
In which case why do we separate them out like that? As I think you are right that is how many people would classify those two jobs, but it seems objectively silly to me.
It's a vestige of a gone time than needs to be swept away. We don't need HYUFD's caste system, we need housing and jobs with dignified pay. Having some prat running around slotting us into imaginary social classes helps nobody.
Slotting people into imaginary social classes is part of the whole point of being English!
That might be true, but if it is it is not a very nice trait - us and them is not attractive.
What distinguishes the English class system however is it is far less based on money, income and wealth than say the US class system, which is not necessarily a bad thing
The latest "definition" of class that I am aware of is "what jobs, if any, were your parents doing when you turned 14?". My dad drove a van, refilling cigarette machines (he had earlier been a brickie/plasterer before a serious injury), and my mum worked part-time in a shop. So I am working class by that definition.
Even that question is in some ways loaded. What about people raised by fewer than two parents? What if you lived in a household with more than two adults? Trying to define these concepts is like trying to grasp smoke.
Ultimately, though, the whole point of "class" is to try to move social prejudice onto an objective level, which is why nobody can ever provide a logically consistent definition. It simply doesn't belong to a category of phenomena that can be consistently defined.
My father defined a gentleman as someone who used a butter knife even when they were on their own.
I'm not sure how useful the definition is, but I know I fail it.
I suggest the second part is more important than the first.
Do you mean the "even when they are on their own" part, or the "I know that I fail it" part?
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE and a degree from a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
A Cambridge economics or Oxford Maths degree however would certainly qualify you to run a hedge fund.
It is also no surprise we get more Oxford PPE graduates as PM than say politics graduates from Liverpool John Moores
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
In case you hadn't noticed, there are no Cs at GCSE any more.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
HYUFD is that you?
Utter classist rubbish. Education is the key to a civil society. Right wing populists demanding education only for the elites (generally themselves) reminds me why I have never voted Conservative.
I also disagree the middle class is only the highest 10% of earners.
The middle class is defined now as about 50% of the population ie upper middle class ABs and lower middle class C1s. You can be AB even if not in the top 10% of earners if a professional still and C1 basically as long as you have a job which is not manual labour
So you think that working in a call centre makes someone middle class? Or scanning groceries at a supermarket checkout?
Working in a call centre can make you lower middle class while being a plumber or electrician makes you skilled working class. Even if earnings wise there is little difference and the latter even earns more than the former
In which case why do we separate them out like that? As I think you are right that is how many people would classify those two jobs, but it seems objectively silly to me.
It's a vestige of a gone time than needs to be swept away. We don't need HYUFD's caste system, we need housing and jobs with dignified pay. Having some prat running around slotting us into imaginary social classes helps nobody.
Slotting people into imaginary social classes is part of the whole point of being English!
That might be true, but if it is it is not a very nice trait - us and them is not attractive.
What distinguishes the English class system however is it is far less based on money, income and wealth than say the US class system, which is not necessarily a bad thing
The latest "definition" of class that I am aware of is "what jobs, if any, were your parents doing when you turned 14?". My dad drove a van, refilling cigarette machines (he had earlier been a brickie/plasterer before a serious injury), and my mum worked part-time in a shop. So I am working class by that definition.
Even that question is in some ways loaded. What about people raised by fewer than two parents? What if you lived in a household with more than two adults? Trying to define these concepts is like trying to grasp smoke.
Ultimately, though, the whole point of "class" is to try to move social prejudice onto an objective level, which is why nobody can ever provide a logically consistent definition. It simply doesn't belong to a category of phenomena that can be consistently defined.
My father defined a gentleman as someone who used a butter knife even when they were on their own.
I'm not sure how useful the definition is, but I know I fail it.
Does using it to butter toast for a late night snack count?
Are you on your own?
Hang on, why are you using a butter knife to butter something? The idea is to transfer the butter to the toast using the butter knife then use an ordinary knife to spread it.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
HYUFD is that you?
Utter classist rubbish. Education is the key to a civil society. Right wing populists demanding education only for the elites (generally themselves) reminds me why I have never voted Conservative.
I also disagree the middle class is only the highest 10% of earners.
The middle class is defined now as about 50% of the population ie upper middle class ABs and lower middle class C1s. You can be AB even if not in the top 10% of earners if a professional still and C1 basically as long as you have a job which is not manual labour
So you think that working in a call centre makes someone middle class? Or scanning groceries at a supermarket checkout?
Working in a call centre can make you lower middle class while being a plumber or electrician makes you skilled working class. Even if earnings wise there is little difference and the latter even earns more than the former
In which case why do we separate them out like that? As I think you are right that is how many people would classify those two jobs, but it seems objectively silly to me.
It's a vestige of a gone time than needs to be swept away. We don't need HYUFD's caste system, we need housing and jobs with dignified pay. Having some prat running around slotting us into imaginary social classes helps nobody.
Slotting people into imaginary social classes is part of the whole point of being English!
That might be true, but if it is it is not a very nice trait - us and them is not attractive.
What distinguishes the English class system however is it is far less based on money, income and wealth than say the US class system, which is not necessarily a bad thing
The latest "definition" of class that I am aware of is "what jobs, if any, were your parents doing when you turned 14?". My dad drove a van, refilling cigarette machines (he had earlier been a brickie/plasterer before a serious injury), and my mum worked part-time in a shop. So I am working class by that definition.
Even that question is in some ways loaded. What about people raised by fewer than two parents? What if you lived in a household with more than two adults? Trying to define these concepts is like trying to grasp smoke.
Ultimately, though, the whole point of "class" is to try to move social prejudice onto an objective level, which is why nobody can ever provide a logically consistent definition. It simply doesn't belong to a category of phenomena that can be consistently defined.
My father defined a gentleman as someone who used a butter knife even when they were on their own.
I'm not sure how useful the definition is, but I know I fail it.
Does using it to butter toast for a late night snack count?
Are you on your own?
Hang on, why are you using a butter knife to butter something? The idea is to transfer the butter to the toast using the butter knife then use an ordinary knife to spread it.
I am on my own.
The reason I use butter knives is I happen to have several of them and it means I can save the larger knives so I don't need to run the dishwasher so often.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
In case you hadn't noticed, there are no Cs at GCSE any more.
Oh, it's just HYUFD HYUFDsplaining. Don't be unkind, you'll only get him proving to you that there are indeed C grades.
I will also add, Rayner being there strengthens Stsrmer’s case. They hate each other, can’t imagine them socialising at all
I haven't any doubt that he'll be exonerated. I just hope when he is he doesn't waste the opportunity to pour more ordure on the Mail The Express and The Sun than they have ever had poured on them before.
Johnson too but as he's a completely busted flush and it would be to Labour's advantage that he stays on he ought to play it cool. No attacks necessary. 'More in sorrow than in anger'. A perfect platform to show he really is the adult in the place. Remember when Blair used to patronise Major...
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
In case you hadn't noticed, there are no Cs at GCSE any more.
Most of the workforce will still have GCSEs graded by alphabet letters not numbers.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
In case you hadn't noticed, there are no Cs at GCSE any more.
Also I didn't know anyone with an A* when I was there, let alone straight A*s.
The GE question for me is how badly the Tories lose and who with?
If Boris remains then the Conservatives don't even reach "toast" status, More like stale bread that fails to make it out of the wrapper. In the leafy Conservative seats Boris is seen as a vulgar lying oaf that you'd cross the street to avoid - Advantage LibDems.
In the Red Wall and suburbs some of the spiv shine remains but then it'll be "the economy stupid" that rubs away the remaining gloss - Advantage Labour and Others.
Boris Remains = Electoral Catastrophe Boris Goes = Electoral Hope .. Perhaps.
How Stupid Do The Stupid Party Want To Be?
I agree with this. Boris really has to go to get the Tories in the game.
Even without him, however, it is going to be very difficult with a poor set of cards. Inflation is going to be high from here to the election. It should be past its peak by the election but it will be far higher than we have got used to. The government finances will benefit from that inflation to some degree both by fiscal drag and by a reduction in the real value of the debt mountain but the treasury is not so much empty as seriously overborrowed so there will be no more than token freebies for anyone.
What does a new post Boris party have to do? I would suggest:
1. Get sensible working arrangements with the EU both generally and specifically in NI. If that involves compromises on our part about standards etc so be it. The anger of natural Tories who were remainers must be defused. Many of these are the people who did not vote on Thursday.
2. Clean up as much as possible of the horrendous backlogs in the NHS that have come as a result of Covid. This affects everyone but specifically their older supporters.
3. Get the Social Care plan actually working. God knows how but do it.
4. Get as many infrastructure plans to the spades in the ground point as we can afford. It won't be many.
5. Try to be more competent. Its a bloody low bar but you look at a lot of the existing cabinet and despair. There must be more talent on the backbenches to bring forward.
6. Calm down a bit. Use softer language, do not unnecessarily create culture wars, talk consensually, acknowledge the many challenges we face and be open about the choices available.
That's one route. The other is to to go full-on American Republican; shout more, rub the left's noses in woke, Europe and Corbyn. State cuts to pay for tax cuts.
I know which one I'd prefer, and which one I suspect works better.
I fear which one the Conservative Party will have more fun doing.
What I am proposing is not a million miles from the program of David Cameron in his largely successful attempts to detoxify the Tory party in the run up to the 2010 election. The problem is that the party went along with that then because they were absolutely desperate to get back into power after more than a decade in opposition. I do not think a party fat on complacency based on 12 years in power would respond the same way or choose a leader that would want to follow that path.
Nor would they necessarily win or the government then be that great either.
Only once in the last 100 years has a party won another general election after more than 10 years in power, Major's Tories in 1992. While that kept Kinnock out nobody can say the Major government of 1992 to 1997 was a great success and it just led to landslide defeat by Blair in 1997
I have pointed out before I am now 60. I was a few months too young to vote in 1979. In my voting lifetime the principal party in government has changed only twice, 1997 and 2010. If the Tories lose in 2024 they can, on recent history, expect at least a decade in opposition. The party needs to focus for the careers of everyone currently in Parliament, let alone more altruistic reasons, on preventing that. It really is time for a bit of that largely mythical ruthlessness.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
HYUFD is that you?
Utter classist rubbish. Education is the key to a civil society. Right wing populists demanding education only for the elites (generally themselves) reminds me why I have never voted Conservative.
I also disagree the middle class is only the highest 10% of earners.
The middle class is defined now as about 50% of the population ie upper middle class ABs and lower middle class C1s. You can be AB even if not in the top 10% of earners if a professional still and C1 basically as long as you have a job which is not manual labour
So you think that working in a call centre makes someone middle class? Or scanning groceries at a supermarket checkout?
Working in a call centre can make you lower middle class while being a plumber or electrician makes you skilled working class. Even if earnings wise there is little difference and the latter even earns more than the former
In which case why do we separate them out like that? As I think you are right that is how many people would classify those two jobs, but it seems objectively silly to me.
It's a vestige of a gone time than needs to be swept away. We don't need HYUFD's caste system, we need housing and jobs with dignified pay. Having some prat running around slotting us into imaginary social classes helps nobody.
Slotting people into imaginary social classes is part of the whole point of being English!
That might be true, but if it is it is not a very nice trait - us and them is not attractive.
What distinguishes the English class system however is it is far less based on money, income and wealth than say the US class system, which is not necessarily a bad thing
The latest "definition" of class that I am aware of is "what jobs, if any, were your parents doing when you turned 14?". My dad drove a van, refilling cigarette machines (he had earlier been a brickie/plasterer before a serious injury), and my mum worked part-time in a shop. So I am working class by that definition.
Even that question is in some ways loaded. What about people raised by fewer than two parents? What if you lived in a household with more than two adults? Trying to define these concepts is like trying to grasp smoke.
Ultimately, though, the whole point of "class" is to try to move social prejudice onto an objective level, which is why nobody can ever provide a logically consistent definition. It simply doesn't belong to a category of phenomena that can be consistently defined.
My father defined a gentleman as someone who used a butter knife even when they were on their own.
I'm not sure how useful the definition is, but I know I fail it.
I suggest the second part is more important than the first.
Do you mean the "even when they are on their own" part, or the "I know that I fail it" part?
I was thinking of "even on my own", but "even though I know I fail" works too.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
HYUFD is that you?
Utter classist rubbish. Education is the key to a civil society. Right wing populists demanding education only for the elites (generally themselves) reminds me why I have never voted Conservative.
I also disagree the middle class is only the highest 10% of earners.
The middle class is defined now as about 50% of the population ie upper middle class ABs and lower middle class C1s. You can be AB even if not in the top 10% of earners if a professional still and C1 basically as long as you have a job which is not manual labour
So you think that working in a call centre makes someone middle class? Or scanning groceries at a supermarket checkout?
Working in a call centre can make you lower middle class while being a plumber or electrician makes you skilled working class. Even if earnings wise there is little difference and the latter even earns more than the former
In which case why do we separate them out like that? As I think you are right that is how many people would classify those two jobs, but it seems objectively silly to me.
It's a vestige of a gone time than needs to be swept away. We don't need HYUFD's caste system, we need housing and jobs with dignified pay. Having some prat running around slotting us into imaginary social classes helps nobody.
Slotting people into imaginary social classes is part of the whole point of being English!
That might be true, but if it is it is not a very nice trait - us and them is not attractive.
What distinguishes the English class system however is it is far less based on money, income and wealth than say the US class system, which is not necessarily a bad thing
The latest "definition" of class that I am aware of is "what jobs, if any, were your parents doing when you turned 14?". My dad drove a van, refilling cigarette machines (he had earlier been a brickie/plasterer before a serious injury), and my mum worked part-time in a shop. So I am working class by that definition.
Even that question is in some ways loaded. What about people raised by fewer than two parents? What if you lived in a household with more than two adults? Trying to define these concepts is like trying to grasp smoke.
Ultimately, though, the whole point of "class" is to try to move social prejudice onto an objective level, which is why nobody can ever provide a logically consistent definition. It simply doesn't belong to a category of phenomena that can be consistently defined.
My father defined a gentleman as someone who used a butter knife even when they were on their own.
I'm not sure how useful the definition is, but I know I fail it.
Does using it to butter toast for a late night snack count?
Are you on your own?
Hang on, why are you using a butter knife to butter something? The idea is to transfer the butter to the toast using the butter knife then use an ordinary knife to spread it.
I am on my own.
The reason I use butter knives is I happen to have several of them and it means I can save the larger knives so I don't need to run the dishwasher so often.
Then we go to the tie-break: are you ever unintentionally rude?
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
In case you hadn't noticed, there are no Cs at GCSE any more.
Oh, it's just HYUFD HYUFDsplaining. Don't be unkind, you'll only get him proving to you that there are indeed C grades.
To be blunt, GCSEs may be on their way out anyway, so it's irrelevant.
A more pertinent question might be on this subject, would it not make more sense to have professional and university entrance exams, rather than post-16 school qualifications led by exam boards and overseen by the failed and discredited OFQUAL and DfE?
But that's a really radical reform that would bring problems of its own.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
HYUFD is that you?
Utter classist rubbish. Education is the key to a civil society. Right wing populists demanding education only for the elites (generally themselves) reminds me why I have never voted Conservative.
I also disagree the middle class is only the highest 10% of earners.
The middle class is defined now as about 50% of the population ie upper middle class ABs and lower middle class C1s. You can be AB even if not in the top 10% of earners if a professional still and C1 basically as long as you have a job which is not manual labour
So you think that working in a call centre makes someone middle class? Or scanning groceries at a supermarket checkout?
Working in a call centre can make you lower middle class while being a plumber or electrician makes you skilled working class. Even if earnings wise there is little difference and the latter even earns more than the former
In which case why do we separate them out like that? As I think you are right that is how many people would classify those two jobs, but it seems objectively silly to me.
It's a vestige of a gone time than needs to be swept away. We don't need HYUFD's caste system, we need housing and jobs with dignified pay. Having some prat running around slotting us into imaginary social classes helps nobody.
Slotting people into imaginary social classes is part of the whole point of being English!
That might be true, but if it is it is not a very nice trait - us and them is not attractive.
What distinguishes the English class system however is it is far less based on money, income and wealth than say the US class system, which is not necessarily a bad thing
The latest "definition" of class that I am aware of is "what jobs, if any, were your parents doing when you turned 14?". My dad drove a van, refilling cigarette machines (he had earlier been a brickie/plasterer before a serious injury), and my mum worked part-time in a shop. So I am working class by that definition.
Even that question is in some ways loaded. What about people raised by fewer than two parents? What if you lived in a household with more than two adults? Trying to define these concepts is like trying to grasp smoke.
Ultimately, though, the whole point of "class" is to try to move social prejudice onto an objective level, which is why nobody can ever provide a logically consistent definition. It simply doesn't belong to a category of phenomena that can be consistently defined.
My father defined a gentleman as someone who used a butter knife even when they were on their own.
I'm not sure how useful the definition is, but I know I fail it.
Does using it to butter toast for a late night snack count?
Are you on your own?
Hang on, why are you using a butter knife to butter something? The idea is to transfer the butter to the toast using the butter knife then use an ordinary knife to spread it.
I am on my own.
The reason I use butter knives is I happen to have several of them and it means I can save the larger knives so I don't need to run the dishwasher so often.
Do you really need to wash up a butter knife? I'd have thought you could easily wipe any residual butter off with a paper towel.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
HYUFD is that you?
Utter classist rubbish. Education is the key to a civil society. Right wing populists demanding education only for the elites (generally themselves) reminds me why I have never voted Conservative.
I also disagree the middle class is only the highest 10% of earners.
The middle class is defined now as about 50% of the population ie upper middle class ABs and lower middle class C1s. You can be AB even if not in the top 10% of earners if a professional still and C1 basically as long as you have a job which is not manual labour
So you think that working in a call centre makes someone middle class? Or scanning groceries at a supermarket checkout?
Working in a call centre can make you lower middle class while being a plumber or electrician makes you skilled working class. Even if earnings wise there is little difference and the latter even earns more than the former
In which case why do we separate them out like that? As I think you are right that is how many people would classify those two jobs, but it seems objectively silly to me.
It's a vestige of a gone time than needs to be swept away. We don't need HYUFD's caste system, we need housing and jobs with dignified pay. Having some prat running around slotting us into imaginary social classes helps nobody.
Slotting people into imaginary social classes is part of the whole point of being English!
That might be true, but if it is it is not a very nice trait - us and them is not attractive.
What distinguishes the English class system however is it is far less based on money, income and wealth than say the US class system, which is not necessarily a bad thing
The latest "definition" of class that I am aware of is "what jobs, if any, were your parents doing when you turned 14?". My dad drove a van, refilling cigarette machines (he had earlier been a brickie/plasterer before a serious injury), and my mum worked part-time in a shop. So I am working class by that definition.
Even that question is in some ways loaded. What about people raised by fewer than two parents? What if you lived in a household with more than two adults? Trying to define these concepts is like trying to grasp smoke.
Ultimately, though, the whole point of "class" is to try to move social prejudice onto an objective level, which is why nobody can ever provide a logically consistent definition. It simply doesn't belong to a category of phenomena that can be consistently defined.
My father defined a gentleman as someone who used a butter knife even when they were on their own.
I'm not sure how useful the definition is, but I know I fail it.
Does using it to butter toast for a late night snack count?
Are you on your own?
Hang on, why are you using a butter knife to butter something? The idea is to transfer the butter to the toast using the butter knife then use an ordinary knife to spread it.
I am on my own.
The reason I use butter knives is I happen to have several of them and it means I can save the larger knives so I don't need to run the dishwasher so often.
Then we go to the tie-break: are you ever unintentionally rude?
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
In case you hadn't noticed, there are no Cs at GCSE any more.
Most of the workforce will still have GCSEs graded by alphabet letters not numbers.
They were introduced in 2017, so many of this year's graduates will have numbers not letters.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
In case you hadn't noticed, there are no Cs at GCSE any more.
Oh, it's just HYUFD HYUFDsplaining. Don't be unkind, you'll only get him proving to you that there are indeed C grades.
To be blunt, GCSEs may be on their way out anyway, so it's irrelevant.
A more pertinent question might be on this subject, would it not make more sense to have professional and university entrance exams, rather than post-16 school qualifications led by exam boards and overseen by the failed and discredited OFQUAL and DfE?
But that's a really radical reform that would bring problems of its own.
Back to the days of matriculation, or American-style SATs?
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
In case you hadn't noticed, there are no Cs at GCSE any more.
Also I didn't know anyone with an A* when I was there, let alone straight A*s.
I did know lots of people with 2 E offers.
I had one friend who went to Warwick with a 2 Es offer after failing to get a place at Cambridge. None from my school got the offer of 2 Es for Oxbridge. I'm guessing they had prowess in sport or music?
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
In case you hadn't noticed, there are no Cs at GCSE any more.
Oh, it's just HYUFD HYUFDsplaining. Don't be unkind, you'll only get him proving to you that there are indeed C grades.
To be blunt, GCSEs may be on their way out anyway, so it's irrelevant.
A more pertinent question might be on this subject, would it not make more sense to have professional and university entrance exams, rather than post-16 school qualifications led by exam boards and overseen by the failed and discredited OFQUAL and DfE?
But that's a really radical reform that would bring problems of its own.
We already do effectively, A levels, Oxbridge entrance papers, legal and accountancy exams etc.
There are also post 16 apprenticeships for the more practical
🟨 SNP 25.9% (19 seats, 30.2% of seats) 🟧 Lib Dem 20.5% (12 seats, 19%) 🟥 Labour 19.1% (13 seats, 20.6%) 🟦 Conservative 17.5% (9 seats, 14.3%) 🟩 Green 14.2% (10 seats, 19%) ⬛ Other 1.9% (0 seats) ⬜ Independents 0.9% (0)
I believe this is a partial glimpse into the transfers. Don't read too much into the overrepresentation of the SNP, that can come about from being the largest party. Look instead down the list at the Conservatives and Greens. I have a strong suspicion that we're seeing transfers across the union/indy divide more than previously, and unionist tactical voting reduced. Simply: Labour and Lib Dems favouring Greens more and Conservative less than last time.
Caveat: still just a hunch; I haven't dug into the data properly and this is just one council.
There is no question that the Tories were a lot less transfer friendly this time than in the last several elections. Anger at Boris, the fading memory of Ruth, the inconsistencies of Ross and a budget that in the face of a cost of living crisis did not seem to give a damn about the least well off all sickened people. The Tory brand has been retoxified and the price for that in Scotland with its STV and other proportional systems is going to be particularly high.
Are you sure? I'd arsgue that the Scottish setup is actually quite Tory-friendly; the Tories have clung on in ways which would be impossible in full FPTP systems, even to the extent of having senior MSPs totally dependent on the list system for being there in Holyrood at all. Just look at Ms-as-was Davidson and Prof Tomkins - only some of the time did she, at least, have a FPTP seat.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
HYUFD is that you?
Utter classist rubbish. Education is the key to a civil society. Right wing populists demanding education only for the elites (generally themselves) reminds me why I have never voted Conservative.
I also disagree the middle class is only the highest 10% of earners.
The middle class is defined now as about 50% of the population ie upper middle class ABs and lower middle class C1s. You can be AB even if not in the top 10% of earners if a professional still and C1 basically as long as you have a job which is not manual labour
So you think that working in a call centre makes someone middle class? Or scanning groceries at a supermarket checkout?
Working in a call centre can make you lower middle class while being a plumber or electrician makes you skilled working class. Even if earnings wise there is little difference and the latter even earns more than the former
In which case why do we separate them out like that? As I think you are right that is how many people would classify those two jobs, but it seems objectively silly to me.
It's a vestige of a gone time than needs to be swept away. We don't need HYUFD's caste system, we need housing and jobs with dignified pay. Having some prat running around slotting us into imaginary social classes helps nobody.
Slotting people into imaginary social classes is part of the whole point of being English!
That might be true, but if it is it is not a very nice trait - us and them is not attractive.
What distinguishes the English class system however is it is far less based on money, income and wealth than say the US class system, which is not necessarily a bad thing
The latest "definition" of class that I am aware of is "what jobs, if any, were your parents doing when you turned 14?". My dad drove a van, refilling cigarette machines (he had earlier been a brickie/plasterer before a serious injury), and my mum worked part-time in a shop. So I am working class by that definition.
Even that question is in some ways loaded. What about people raised by fewer than two parents? What if you lived in a household with more than two adults? Trying to define these concepts is like trying to grasp smoke.
Ultimately, though, the whole point of "class" is to try to move social prejudice onto an objective level, which is why nobody can ever provide a logically consistent definition. It simply doesn't belong to a category of phenomena that can be consistently defined.
My father defined a gentleman as someone who used a butter knife even when they were on their own.
I'm not sure how useful the definition is, but I know I fail it.
Does using it to butter toast for a late night snack count?
Are you on your own?
Hang on, why are you using a butter knife to butter something? The idea is to transfer the butter to the toast using the butter knife then use an ordinary knife to spread it.
I am on my own.
The reason I use butter knives is I happen to have several of them and it means I can save the larger knives so I don't need to run the dishwasher so often.
Then we go to the tie-break: are you ever unintentionally rude?
Ah great, another outing for "what does working class mean?"
It is an interesting question. Is it about money? - you're working class if you don't have any. Or occupation? - you're working class if your job isn't white collar professional managerial. Or culture? - you're working class if you have "working class values" (tbd).
My view is it's about money. The "occupation" test doesn't fit for how the workplace is these days. And the "values" test is too soft and allows too much bullshit into the equation. So, it's money, pure and simple. You're working class - regardless of whether you actually work - if you don't have much capital and your income is modest or low. All such people are working class and nobody else is.
To stress test this:
A bloke called Frank who's been a labourer for 25 years, just about managing, wins the lottery. No, let's make it more heartwarming, he gets an acca up on the horses and it pays out £2m.
And at about the same time -
Prince Andrew loses everything but his title. Gets kicked out of Windsor Castle and starts a new life on Universal Credit in Slough. Is allocated a bedsit and has £50 a week for extras like food and heating.
Has Frank ceased to be working class? Has Prince Andrew (and he is still a Prince remember) *become* working class?
The answer to both is Yes. The test is passed. My definition is the one to go with.
The question of what defines the class system cannot be answered until you define what the classification of the class system is for.
For a Marxist, primarily concerned with analysing power relations within society, then classes will be defined by how they stand in relation to the exercise of power over one's own work. So white collar professionals ca be considered working class because they don't have control over their own work, whereas an independent plumber is middle class.
Traditionally, in Britain, class distinction was a social imperative, a question of who it was right to mix with socially - hence, "Not Quite Our Class Darling". There is therefore a lot more about whether one can pass as the right class, in terms of accent, knowledge of cutlery, etc, and so a definition based on education, or office/shop floor differences is one that has a lot more meaning to people.
Where money does come into play is with the growth of the rentier class, parasitising on the labour of others.
Money ALWAYS comes into play - but yes you're exactly right that defining 'working class' is about what you're going to do with the definition when you have it.
Eg I need to define what 'working class' means in order to make sense of my core political belief - that the priority objective of government should be shifting wealth and opportunity towards the working class. You have to know what the 'working class' is if you're going to run with that.
I also like the 'money' metric because it gets rid of so much clutter. It's interesting to talk about things like accents and clothes and table habits etc, and they do matter in life, but they don't relate to the above hard policy objective.
If you use money as the yardstick for class you get yourself a good working definition (for political not conversational purposes) and you can also see people with tons of money from working class backgrounds saying "I still consider myself working class" for the fiction it is.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
HYUFD is that you?
Utter classist rubbish. Education is the key to a civil society. Right wing populists demanding education only for the elites (generally themselves) reminds me why I have never voted Conservative.
I also disagree the middle class is only the highest 10% of earners.
The middle class is defined now as about 50% of the population ie upper middle class ABs and lower middle class C1s. You can be AB even if not in the top 10% of earners if a professional still and C1 basically as long as you have a job which is not manual labour
So you think that working in a call centre makes someone middle class? Or scanning groceries at a supermarket checkout?
Working in a call centre can make you lower middle class while being a plumber or electrician makes you skilled working class. Even if earnings wise there is little difference and the latter even earns more than the former
In which case why do we separate them out like that? As I think you are right that is how many people would classify those two jobs, but it seems objectively silly to me.
It's a vestige of a gone time than needs to be swept away. We don't need HYUFD's caste system, we need housing and jobs with dignified pay. Having some prat running around slotting us into imaginary social classes helps nobody.
Slotting people into imaginary social classes is part of the whole point of being English!
That might be true, but if it is it is not a very nice trait - us and them is not attractive.
What distinguishes the English class system however is it is far less based on money, income and wealth than say the US class system, which is not necessarily a bad thing
The latest "definition" of class that I am aware of is "what jobs, if any, were your parents doing when you turned 14?". My dad drove a van, refilling cigarette machines (he had earlier been a brickie/plasterer before a serious injury), and my mum worked part-time in a shop. So I am working class by that definition.
Even that question is in some ways loaded. What about people raised by fewer than two parents? What if you lived in a household with more than two adults? Trying to define these concepts is like trying to grasp smoke.
Ultimately, though, the whole point of "class" is to try to move social prejudice onto an objective level, which is why nobody can ever provide a logically consistent definition. It simply doesn't belong to a category of phenomena that can be consistently defined.
My father defined a gentleman as someone who used a butter knife even when they were on their own.
I'm not sure how useful the definition is, but I know I fail it.
Does using it to butter toast for a late night snack count?
Are you on your own?
Hang on, why are you using a butter knife to butter something? The idea is to transfer the butter to the toast using the butter knife then use an ordinary knife to spread it.
I am on my own.
The reason I use butter knives is I happen to have several of them and it means I can save the larger knives so I don't need to run the dishwasher so often.
Do you really need to wash up a butter knife? I'd have thought you could easily wipe any residual butter off with a paper towel.
It's the Marmite that needs washing off - so I suppose I fail on those grounds anyway!
The GE question for me is how badly the Tories lose and who with?
If Boris remains then the Conservatives don't even reach "toast" status, More like stale bread that fails to make it out of the wrapper. In the leafy Conservative seats Boris is seen as a vulgar lying oaf that you'd cross the street to avoid - Advantage LibDems.
In the Red Wall and suburbs some of the spiv shine remains but then it'll be "the economy stupid" that rubs away the remaining gloss - Advantage Labour and Others.
Boris Remains = Electoral Catastrophe Boris Goes = Electoral Hope .. Perhaps.
How Stupid Do The Stupid Party Want To Be?
I agree with this. Boris really has to go to get the Tories in the game.
Even without him, however, it is going to be very difficult with a poor set of cards. Inflation is going to be high from here to the election. It should be past its peak by the election but it will be far higher than we have got used to. The government finances will benefit from that inflation to some degree both by fiscal drag and by a reduction in the real value of the debt mountain but the treasury is not so much empty as seriously overborrowed so there will be no more than token freebies for anyone.
What does a new post Boris party have to do? I would suggest:
1. Get sensible working arrangements with the EU both generally and specifically in NI. If that involves compromises on our part about standards etc so be it. The anger of natural Tories who were remainers must be defused. Many of these are the people who did not vote on Thursday.
2. Clean up as much as possible of the horrendous backlogs in the NHS that have come as a result of Covid. This affects everyone but specifically their older supporters.
3. Get the Social Care plan actually working. God knows how but do it.
4. Get as many infrastructure plans to the spades in the ground point as we can afford. It won't be many.
5. Try to be more competent. Its a bloody low bar but you look at a lot of the existing cabinet and despair. There must be more talent on the backbenches to bring forward.
6. Calm down a bit. Use softer language, do not unnecessarily create culture wars, talk consensually, acknowledge the many challenges we face and be open about the choices available.
That's one route. The other is to to go full-on American Republican; shout more, rub the left's noses in woke, Europe and Corbyn. State cuts to pay for tax cuts.
I know which one I'd prefer, and which one I suspect works better.
I fear which one the Conservative Party will have more fun doing.
What I am proposing is not a million miles from the program of David Cameron in his largely successful attempts to detoxify the Tory party in the run up to the 2010 election. The problem is that the party went along with that then because they were absolutely desperate to get back into power after more than a decade in opposition. I do not think a party fat on complacency based on 12 years in power would respond the same way or choose a leader that would want to follow that path.
Nor would they necessarily win or the government then be that great either.
Only once in the last 100 years has a party won another general election after more than 10 years in power, Major's Tories in 1992. While that kept Kinnock out nobody can say the Major government of 1992 to 1997 was a great success and it just led to landslide defeat by Blair in 1997
I have pointed out before I am now 60. I was a few months too young to vote in 1979. In my voting lifetime the principal party in government has changed only twice, 1997 and 2010. If the Tories lose in 2024 they can, on recent history, expect at least a decade in opposition. The party needs to focus for the careers of everyone currently in Parliament, let alone more altruistic reasons, on preventing that. It really is time for a bit of that largely mythical ruthlessness.
If the Tories lose in 2024 it will likely be narrow a la 1964 or 2010, if they win in 2024 a la 1992 they will likely face landslide defeat in 2029 a la 1997. That is what historical precedent suggests.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
I think the idea is some people become posher than others, which is a Good Thing to have. Not that I agree (didn't work with me).
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
If you think that's scary try being operated on by a surgeon who introduces themselves "hello sir, you probably don't remember me but you taught me back in..."
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
HYUFD is that you?
Utter classist rubbish. Education is the key to a civil society. Right wing populists demanding education only for the elites (generally themselves) reminds me why I have never voted Conservative.
I also disagree the middle class is only the highest 10% of earners.
The middle class is defined now as about 50% of the population ie upper middle class ABs and lower middle class C1s. You can be AB even if not in the top 10% of earners if a professional still and C1 basically as long as you have a job which is not manual labour
So you think that working in a call centre makes someone middle class? Or scanning groceries at a supermarket checkout?
Working in a call centre can make you lower middle class while being a plumber or electrician makes you skilled working class. Even if earnings wise there is little difference and the latter even earns more than the former
In which case why do we separate them out like that? As I think you are right that is how many people would classify those two jobs, but it seems objectively silly to me.
It's a vestige of a gone time than needs to be swept away. We don't need HYUFD's caste system, we need housing and jobs with dignified pay. Having some prat running around slotting us into imaginary social classes helps nobody.
Slotting people into imaginary social classes is part of the whole point of being English!
That might be true, but if it is it is not a very nice trait - us and them is not attractive.
What distinguishes the English class system however is it is far less based on money, income and wealth than say the US class system, which is not necessarily a bad thing
The latest "definition" of class that I am aware of is "what jobs, if any, were your parents doing when you turned 14?". My dad drove a van, refilling cigarette machines (he had earlier been a brickie/plasterer before a serious injury), and my mum worked part-time in a shop. So I am working class by that definition.
Even that question is in some ways loaded. What about people raised by fewer than two parents? What if you lived in a household with more than two adults? Trying to define these concepts is like trying to grasp smoke.
Ultimately, though, the whole point of "class" is to try to move social prejudice onto an objective level, which is why nobody can ever provide a logically consistent definition. It simply doesn't belong to a category of phenomena that can be consistently defined.
My father defined a gentleman as someone who used a butter knife even when they were on their own.
I'm not sure how useful the definition is, but I know I fail it.
Does using it to butter toast for a late night snack count?
Are you on your own?
Hang on, why are you using a butter knife to butter something? The idea is to transfer the butter to the toast using the butter knife then use an ordinary knife to spread it.
I am on my own.
The reason I use butter knives is I happen to have several of them and it means I can save the larger knives so I don't need to run the dishwasher so often.
Then we go to the tie-break: are you ever unintentionally rude?
Never unintentionally
Then you, sir, are a gentleman.
That's deeply disturbing. To think I could be bracketed in the same group as Jacob Rees Mogg and our favourite ex-army officer...
What rules has Starmer broken? Seems to me that unless there is conclusive proof Starmer was partying and that will be from sources inside the room, there is nothing to see here?
He'll be ok, I think, unless I'm misunderstanding what the law was or there was something more to the occasion than is in the public domain.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
Actually given ages you probably are today. At A levels 1979/80 I had lots of friends who applied to do architecture and got places with Ds and Es they will have built some bg buildings by now. I cant see why lawyers will be much different.
Picking up on the earlier comment on Aaron Bell, a majority of wards in NuL had Lab and Con within 10% (one went to casting vote).
On the new boundaries (NuL - 5 wards in the extreme North and South of the borough), Labour would squeak in by 352 votes, based on the local elections. That first time incumbency would be put to work.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
Actually given ages you probably are today. At A levels 1979/80 I had lots of friends who applied to do architecture and got places with Ds and Es they will have built some bg buildings by now. I cant see why lawyers will be much different.
Yes but we did not have new universities back then and just 10% were graduates not 40% like now and an E grade at A level then would likely be a C grade now and a C grade then would probably be an A now and an A then would now be an A* thanks to grade inflation
Of course, before making your own tools, you have to mine your own ore using antlers for digging.
You sound like a character from James Blish's sorcery-meets-Strangelove novel, Black Easter!
Not heard of it! But in prehistoric times, that is how ore was mined. I think there's somewhere down south where you can go into a prehistoric mine, Grimes Grave? They used antlers there to dig out whatever they were digging out.
The novel has the magician explain to the nuclear strategist that he has to make his own ritual tools, etc., from scratch to be efficacious ...
Yep, Grimes Graves, Norfolk I think. Never been but looks a good day out. Also for digging your actual henge at Stonehenge, Woodhenge etc.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
In case you hadn't noticed, there are no Cs at GCSE any more.
Also I didn't know anyone with an A* when I was there, let alone straight A*s.
I did know lots of people with 2 E offers.
I had one friend who went to Warwick with a 2 Es offer after failing to get a place at Cambridge. None from my school got the offer of 2 Es for Oxbridge. I'm guessing they had prowess in sport or music?
It was back in the days of fourth-term entrance; you did three entrance exams set by Oxford and if they still liked you after the interview(s) then you got an "unconditional" (in practice 2 E) offer.
What rules has Starmer broken? Seems to me that unless there is conclusive proof Starmer was partying and that will be from sources inside the room, there is nothing to see here?
He'll be ok, I think, unless I'm misunderstanding what the law was or there was something more to the occasion than is in the public domain.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
If you think that's scary try being operated on by a surgeon who introduces themselves "hello sir, you probably don't remember me but you taught me back in..."
Once went back to a reunion at my school. I was having a whisky with my old master and a contemporary of mine comes over.
Former master: And what are you doing today?
Old pupil: Officer on HMS ****, the nuclear missile submarine.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
Actually given ages you probably are today. At A levels 1979/80 I had lots of friends who applied to do architecture and got places with Ds and Es they will have built some bg buildings by now. I cant see why lawyers will be much different.
Yes but we did not have new universities back then and just 10% were graduates not 40% like now and an E grade at A level then would likely be a C grade now and a C grade then would probably be an A now and an A then would now be an A* thanks to grade inflation
We had Polytechs which were places where people actually had to do work. I did a language degree and got my classes down to 8 hours a week. The occasional essay and translation disturbed an otherwise tranquil week.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
Actually given ages you probably are today. At A levels 1979/80 I had lots of friends who applied to do architecture and got places with Ds and Es they will have built some bg buildings by now. I cant see why lawyers will be much different.
Yes but we did not have new universities back then and just 10% were graduates not 40% like now and an E grade at A level then would likely be a C grade now and a C grade then would probably be an A now and an A then would now be an A* thanks to grade inflation
Better teaching as well as grade inflation. Mr Chips had no interactive whiteboard and had not even heard of spaced repetition, though perhaps the best teachers did it anyway. Better-motivated students too.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
In case you hadn't noticed, there are no Cs at GCSE any more.
Also I didn't know anyone with an A* when I was there, let alone straight A*s.
I did know lots of people with 2 E offers.
I had one friend who went to Warwick with a 2 Es offer after failing to get a place at Cambridge. None from my school got the offer of 2 Es for Oxbridge. I'm guessing they had prowess in sport or music?
It was back in the days of fourth-term entrance; you did three entrance exams set by Oxford and if they still liked you after the interview(s) then you got an "unconditional" (in practice 2 E) offer.
It made for an unstressed Y13 after Christmas...
And 2/3 of Oxbridge students got straight A*s anyway
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
OH, s\o you would rather be dealt with by a posh incompetent than someone who knew the job?!
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
Actually given ages you probably are today. At A levels 1979/80 I had lots of friends who applied to do architecture and got places with Ds and Es they will have built some bg buildings by now. I cant see why lawyers will be much different.
Yes but we did not have new universities back then and just 10% were graduates not 40% like now and an E grade at A level then would likely be a C grade now and a C grade then would probably be an A now and an A then would now be an A* thanks to grade inflation
We had Polytechs which were places where people actually had to do work. I did a language degree and got my classes down to 8 hours a week. The occasional essay and translation disturbed an otherwise tranquil week.
The old Oxford Poly was known as one of the best places in the country to study Architecture for example.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
In case you hadn't noticed, there are no Cs at GCSE any more.
Oh, it's just HYUFD HYUFDsplaining. Don't be unkind, you'll only get him proving to you that there are indeed C grades.
To be blunt, GCSEs may be on their way out anyway, so it's irrelevant.
A more pertinent question might be on this subject, would it not make more sense to have professional and university entrance exams, rather than post-16 school qualifications led by exam boards and overseen by the failed and discredited OFQUAL and DfE?
But that's a really radical reform that would bring problems of its own.
Last year the TSA my son had to undertake to get into Oxford was at least as demanding and time consuming as any of his advanced highers. It seemed to me to be very similar to the SAT tests, indeed he used some of the SAT papers for practice purposes. As the grades in schools get ever more inflated and unreliable it seems inevitable that the better Universities will adopt your course. Indeed in medicine and law this is already becoming standard in Russel groups, with the odd exception. School exams are no longer fit for purpose in sifting out those that would genuinely benefit from further academic education.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
Actually given ages you probably are today. At A levels 1979/80 I had lots of friends who applied to do architecture and got places with Ds and Es they will have built some bg buildings by now. I cant see why lawyers will be much different.
Yes but we did not have new universities back then and just 10% were graduates not 40% like now and an E grade at A level then would likely be a C grade now and a C grade then would probably be an A now and an A then would now be an A* thanks to grade inflation
Better teaching as well as grade inflation. Mr Chips had no interactive whiteboard and had not even heard of spaced repetition, though perhaps the best teachers did it anyway. Better-motivated students too.
No grades not awarded by percentile but meeting a standard criteria. No more than 10% should ever get an A and no more than 1% an A* in my view
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
Actually given ages you probably are today. At A levels 1979/80 I had lots of friends who applied to do architecture and got places with Ds and Es they will have built some bg buildings by now. I cant see why lawyers will be much different.
Yes but we did not have new universities back then and just 10% were graduates not 40% like now and an E grade at A level then would likely be a C grade now and a C grade then would probably be an A now and an A then would now be an A* thanks to grade inflation
We had Polytechs which were places where people actually had to do work. I did a language degree and got my classes down to 8 hours a week. The occasional essay and translation disturbed an otherwise tranquil week.
Polytechnics did vocational practical courses, now most of them are universities doing academic degrees not what they were created for
It is really sickening to see LBC try to draw equivalence between Starmer and Johnson.
Johnson lied. Repeatedly. He said there were no parties at all. Zero. Zilch. He lied.
Keir Starmer has never lied about this. He’s never denied what happened or that the photos aren’t genuine.
One has been investigated. Found to have lied and been fined.
The other has not lied and has been found not guilty.
I know I’m biased but can anyone sensible honestly conclude Starmer and Johnson are at all alike? I can’t imagine past Tory parties putting up with this kind of thing.
I suspect your probably right, but I would say that Starmer's behaviour that night tells us that he wasn't nearly as worried about COVID as the mask wearing in the Commons would suggest. For all we know, he's only been caught once.
Starmer's problem, if he is fined, isn't Johnson. Perhaps he could argue that Johnson's behaviour is materially worse.
But Starmer called for Sunak to resign. Now, good luck explaining how Starmer's behaviour isn't nearly as bad as Sunak's.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
OH, s\o you would rather be dealt with by a posh incompetent than someone who knew the job?!
Clearly you would rather be dealt with by an incompetent full stop, posh or not
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
In case you hadn't noticed, there are no Cs at GCSE any more.
Also I didn't know anyone with an A* when I was there, let alone straight A*s.
I did know lots of people with 2 E offers.
I had one friend who went to Warwick with a 2 Es offer after failing to get a place at Cambridge. None from my school got the offer of 2 Es for Oxbridge. I'm guessing they had prowess in sport or music?
It was back in the days of fourth-term entrance; you did three entrance exams set by Oxford and if they still liked you after the interview(s) then you got an "unconditional" (in practice 2 E) offer.
It made for an unstressed Y13 after Christmas...
And 2/3 of Oxbridge students got straight A*s anyway
Ah great, another outing for "what does working class mean?"
It is an interesting question. Is it about money? - you're working class if you don't have any. Or occupation? - you're working class if your job isn't white collar professional managerial. Or culture? - you're working class if you have "working class values" (tbd).
My view is it's about money. The "occupation" test doesn't fit for how the workplace is these days. And the "values" test is too soft and allows too much bullshit into the equation. So, it's money, pure and simple. You're working class - regardless of whether you actually work - if you don't have much capital and your income is modest or low. All such people are working class and nobody else is.
To stress test this:
A bloke called Frank who's been a labourer for 25 years, just about managing, wins the lottery. No, let's make it more heartwarming, he gets an acca up on the horses and it pays out £2m.
And at about the same time -
Prince Andrew loses everything but his title. Gets kicked out of Windsor Castle and starts a new life on Universal Credit in Slough. Is allocated a bedsit and has £50 a week for extras like food and heating.
Has Frank ceased to be working class? Has Prince Andrew (and he is still a Prince remember) immediately *become* working class?
The answer to both is Yes.
The stress test is passed. My definition is the one to go with.
No it is not just about money.
In most countries it is about money and wealth and to some extent education level too.
In the UK however money is just a small factor in it, birth is also important and where you went to school also matters. Alan Sugar and David Beckham for example will never be posher than the Duke of Richmond even if they are now richer than him.
Prince Andrew even if he lived in a bedsit on UC would still be posher than Frank the labourer even if Frank won the lottery and became much richer than him
I think this is too woolly. Money clarifies. But we can reconcile your view to mine by uncoupling 'class' from 'background'. Most of what you're talking about is relevant to background and somebody's background is very often different to their class.
Me, for example. I have a working class background - since my family met the acid test of "little or no capital, low to modest income" - but I myself am not working class since I fail that test myself.
It's really easy, this, once you get the hang of it.
You are still working class by background even if you yourself are now middle class
Subtle but absolutely vital edit - I'm not working class by background, I'm not working class at all, only my background is. My background is working class. I am not working class. This formulation successfully uncouples 'background' from 'person'.
So, back to the link to politics - which is the point of this - the priority for government (imo) should be serving the interests of people like I used to be not of people like I am now.
Dodgy PM lies to Parliament over a grave matter of life and death. Mass protests on the streets. Civil war within the Party, poison dripping from every unofficial briefing from “unnamed sources” and more than a few named ones. A perception of cronyism and financial grubbiness takes hold. Rising voter unease at the high tax burden, growing government debt and economist forecasts of an increase in interest rates of 200 or even 300 bps to come. This is what happens when a PM who has become almost bigger than his party is gifted such a massive majority. He swans about the world playing toy soldiers to massage his own ego and disguise domestic shortcomings, with his chancellor littering deficit funded goodies in the direction of his core vote. A mood builds among an angry minority that the man in Downing St would be more appropriately housed behind bars.
The Government then loses +800 seats at local elections, only two years before the next general, as unspectacular and uninspiring leader of oppo soaks up 500+ new seats. And look, even the Lib Dems are on the up.
And…. two years later Tony Blair wins a reduced but comfortable majority at the 2005 general election.
In that example, the PM lost just under 50 seats; a reduction in almost 100 off of his majority.
That'd leave Johnson right back where he started, in a painfully Hung Parliament, but with the DUP unlikely to be large enough to give him confidence and supply. During a period of stagflation and cost of living crisis.
That might not turn out well for the Conservative Party.
🟨 SNP 25.9% (19 seats, 30.2% of seats) 🟧 Lib Dem 20.5% (12 seats, 19%) 🟥 Labour 19.1% (13 seats, 20.6%) 🟦 Conservative 17.5% (9 seats, 14.3%) 🟩 Green 14.2% (10 seats, 19%) ⬛ Other 1.9% (0 seats) ⬜ Independents 0.9% (0)
I believe this is a partial glimpse into the transfers. Don't read too much into the overrepresentation of the SNP, that can come about from being the largest party. Look instead down the list at the Conservatives and Greens. I have a strong suspicion that we're seeing transfers across the union/indy divide more than previously, and unionist tactical voting reduced. Simply: Labour and Lib Dems favouring Greens more and Conservative less than last time.
Caveat: still just a hunch; I haven't dug into the data properly and this is just one council.
There is no question that the Tories were a lot less transfer friendly this time than in the last several elections. Anger at Boris, the fading memory of Ruth, the inconsistencies of Ross and a budget that in the face of a cost of living crisis did not seem to give a damn about the least well off all sickened people. The Tory brand has been retoxified and the price for that in Scotland with its STV and other proportional systems is going to be particularly high.
Are you sure? I'd arsgue that the Scottish setup is actually quite Tory-friendly; the Tories have clung on in ways which would be impossible in full FPTP systems, even to the extent of having senior MSPs totally dependent on the list system for being there in Holyrood at all. Just look at Ms-as-was Davidson and Prof Tomkins - only some of the time did she, at least, have a FPTP seat.
Quite agree, devolution, Holyrood and various associated voting systems have been the making of SCons, more so than the Ruth effect or whatever. Their negativity towards all or some of these things strikes me as most ungrateful.
Without STV this lad wouldn't have been elected in the first place to one of the poorest wards in Glasgow, let alone reelected when his colleagues were being flushed down the toilet all over Scotland.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
In case you hadn't noticed, there are no Cs at GCSE any more.
Also I didn't know anyone with an A* when I was there, let alone straight A*s.
I did know lots of people with 2 E offers.
I had one friend who went to Warwick with a 2 Es offer after failing to get a place at Cambridge. None from my school got the offer of 2 Es for Oxbridge. I'm guessing they had prowess in sport or music?
It was back in the days of fourth-term entrance; you did three entrance exams set by Oxford and if they still liked you after the interview(s) then you got an "unconditional" (in practice 2 E) offer.
It made for an unstressed Y13 after Christmas...
And 2/3 of Oxbridge students got straight A*s anyway
Nope: none of those with a 2 E offer did.
Actually I know someone with an E grade offer who did indeed still get straight A*s.
And the 2 E offer is rarely given to more than a small minority of those given Oxbridge offers. The standard offer is normally at least 2 or 3 A* grades
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
Actually given ages you probably are today. At A levels 1979/80 I had lots of friends who applied to do architecture and got places with Ds and Es they will have built some bg buildings by now. I cant see why lawyers will be much different.
Yes but we did not have new universities back then and just 10% were graduates not 40% like now and an E grade at A level then would likely be a C grade now and a C grade then would probably be an A now and an A then would now be an A* thanks to grade inflation
Better teaching as well as grade inflation. Mr Chips had no interactive whiteboard and had not even heard of spaced repetition, though perhaps the best teachers did it anyway. Better-motivated students too.
Not so much better teaching as teaching how to pass exams more effectively. Much more emphasis on revision techniques and past paper work, less time to go off on an interesting tangent.
🟨 SNP 25.9% (19 seats, 30.2% of seats) 🟧 Lib Dem 20.5% (12 seats, 19%) 🟥 Labour 19.1% (13 seats, 20.6%) 🟦 Conservative 17.5% (9 seats, 14.3%) 🟩 Green 14.2% (10 seats, 19%) ⬛ Other 1.9% (0 seats) ⬜ Independents 0.9% (0)
I believe this is a partial glimpse into the transfers. Don't read too much into the overrepresentation of the SNP, that can come about from being the largest party. Look instead down the list at the Conservatives and Greens. I have a strong suspicion that we're seeing transfers across the union/indy divide more than previously, and unionist tactical voting reduced. Simply: Labour and Lib Dems favouring Greens more and Conservative less than last time.
Caveat: still just a hunch; I haven't dug into the data properly and this is just one council.
There is no question that the Tories were a lot less transfer friendly this time than in the last several elections. Anger at Boris, the fading memory of Ruth, the inconsistencies of Ross and a budget that in the face of a cost of living crisis did not seem to give a damn about the least well off all sickened people. The Tory brand has been retoxified and the price for that in Scotland with its STV and other proportional systems is going to be particularly high.
Are you sure? I'd arsgue that the Scottish setup is actually quite Tory-friendly; the Tories have clung on in ways which would be impossible in full FPTP systems, even to the extent of having senior MSPs totally dependent on the list system for being there in Holyrood at all. Just look at Ms-as-was Davidson and Prof Tomkins - only some of the time did she, at least, have a FPTP seat.
It is true that the Scottish systems are friendly to minority voices. Under FPTP there would not be a single Green, for example. But the extent of that friendliness depends on you not being beyond the pale as a second choice. As the leaders of the Unionist cause the Tories have managed that for the best part of a decade but I fear no longer. On present trends the number of list MSPs for the Tories at the next election could collapse.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
Actually given ages you probably are today. At A levels 1979/80 I had lots of friends who applied to do architecture and got places with Ds and Es they will have built some bg buildings by now. I cant see why lawyers will be much different.
Yes but we did not have new universities back then and just 10% were graduates not 40% like now and an E grade at A level then would likely be a C grade now and a C grade then would probably be an A now and an A then would now be an A* thanks to grade inflation
We had Polytechs which were places where people actually had to do work. I did a language degree and got my classes down to 8 hours a week. The occasional essay and translation disturbed an otherwise tranquil week.
Polytechnics did vocational practical courses, now most of them are universities doing academic degrees not what they were created for
Of course. So would you rather have been served by someone trained in their vocation or a social science grad who is picking it up as they go along ?
🟨 SNP 25.9% (19 seats, 30.2% of seats) 🟧 Lib Dem 20.5% (12 seats, 19%) 🟥 Labour 19.1% (13 seats, 20.6%) 🟦 Conservative 17.5% (9 seats, 14.3%) 🟩 Green 14.2% (10 seats, 19%) ⬛ Other 1.9% (0 seats) ⬜ Independents 0.9% (0)
I believe this is a partial glimpse into the transfers. Don't read too much into the overrepresentation of the SNP, that can come about from being the largest party. Look instead down the list at the Conservatives and Greens. I have a strong suspicion that we're seeing transfers across the union/indy divide more than previously, and unionist tactical voting reduced. Simply: Labour and Lib Dems favouring Greens more and Conservative less than last time.
Caveat: still just a hunch; I haven't dug into the data properly and this is just one council.
There is no question that the Tories were a lot less transfer friendly this time than in the last several elections. Anger at Boris, the fading memory of Ruth, the inconsistencies of Ross and a budget that in the face of a cost of living crisis did not seem to give a damn about the least well off all sickened people. The Tory brand has been retoxified and the price for that in Scotland with its STV and other proportional systems is going to be particularly high.
Are you sure? I'd arsgue that the Scottish setup is actually quite Tory-friendly; the Tories have clung on in ways which would be impossible in full FPTP systems, even to the extent of having senior MSPs totally dependent on the list system for being there in Holyrood at all. Just look at Ms-as-was Davidson and Prof Tomkins - only some of the time did she, at least, have a FPTP seat.
It is true that the Scottish systems are friendly to minority voices. Under FPTP there would not be a single Green, for example. But the extent of that friendliness depends on you not being beyond the pale as a second choice. As the leaders of the Unionist cause the Tories have managed that for the best part of a decade but I fear no longer. On present trends the number of list MSPs for the Tories at the next election could collapse.
Thanks. That's actually very pessimistic - I normally think of the ScoTories as having a hard core of about 22%. But the new BUP and events in NI might, I suppose, attack them further from the right.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
In case you hadn't noticed, there are no Cs at GCSE any more.
Also I didn't know anyone with an A* when I was there, let alone straight A*s.
I did know lots of people with 2 E offers.
I had one friend who went to Warwick with a 2 Es offer after failing to get a place at Cambridge. None from my school got the offer of 2 Es for Oxbridge. I'm guessing they had prowess in sport or music?
It was back in the days of fourth-term entrance; you did three entrance exams set by Oxford and if they still liked you after the interview(s) then you got an "unconditional" (in practice 2 E) offer.
It made for an unstressed Y13 after Christmas...
And 2/3 of Oxbridge students got straight A*s anyway
Nope: none of those with a 2 E offer did.
Actually I know someone with an E grade offer who did indeed still get straight A*s.
And the 2 E offer is rarely given to more than a small minority of those given Oxbridge offers. The standard offer is normally at least 2 or 3 A* grades
The entrance exam was phased out in 1997; the A* was introduced in 2010.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
In case you hadn't noticed, there are no Cs at GCSE any more.
Also I didn't know anyone with an A* when I was there, let alone straight A*s.
I did know lots of people with 2 E offers.
I had one friend who went to Warwick with a 2 Es offer after failing to get a place at Cambridge. None from my school got the offer of 2 Es for Oxbridge. I'm guessing they had prowess in sport or music?
It was back in the days of fourth-term entrance; you did three entrance exams set by Oxford and if they still liked you after the interview(s) then you got an "unconditional" (in practice 2 E) offer.
It made for an unstressed Y13 after Christmas...
And 2/3 of Oxbridge students got straight A*s anyway
Nope: none of those with a 2 E offer did.
Actually I know someone with an E grade offer who did indeed still get straight A*s.
And the 2 E offer is rarely given to more than a small minority of those given Oxbridge offers. The standard offer is normally at least 2 or 3 A* grades
The entrance exam was phased out in 1997; the A* was introduced in 2010.
E grade offers are still given in a few cases even without the entrance exam. Plus the most popular courses like law now have their own entry tests too as has been mentioned
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
OH, s\o you would rather be dealt with by a posh incompetent than someone who knew the job?!
I believe there was/is an etiquette where doctors are always operated on by consultants. My wife made the point that if she was to have her appendix out she would rather it taken out by someone whipping them out day after day.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
OH, s\o you would rather be dealt with by a posh incompetent than someone who knew the job?!
Clearly you would rather be dealt with by an incompetent full stop, posh or not
You're misreading. I want a competent. I don't give a shite if they are cringing Royalists with a MBE that went to Christchurch at Oxford*.
*Friend of mine did. But, despite that, he's highly competent at his profession.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
Actually given ages you probably are today. At A levels 1979/80 I had lots of friends who applied to do architecture and got places with Ds and Es they will have built some bg buildings by now. I cant see why lawyers will be much different.
Yes but we did not have new universities back then and just 10% were graduates not 40% like now and an E grade at A level then would likely be a C grade now and a C grade then would probably be an A now and an A then would now be an A* thanks to grade inflation
We had Polytechs which were places where people actually had to do work. I did a language degree and got my classes down to 8 hours a week. The occasional essay and translation disturbed an otherwise tranquil week.
Polytechnics did vocational practical courses, now most of them are universities doing academic degrees not what they were created for
Of course. So would you rather have been served by someone trained in their vocation or a social science grad who is picking it up as they go along ?
A social science graduate with top grade GCSES and A levels who did a Russell Group degree and the law conversion course where they did well in I would certainly prefer over someone with a 2.2 from a new university as my lawyer.
Polytechnics did practical courses for trades rather than academic degrees and that is what they were good at
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
In case you hadn't noticed, there are no Cs at GCSE any more.
Also I didn't know anyone with an A* when I was there, let alone straight A*s.
I did know lots of people with 2 E offers.
I had one friend who went to Warwick with a 2 Es offer after failing to get a place at Cambridge. None from my school got the offer of 2 Es for Oxbridge. I'm guessing they had prowess in sport or music?
It was back in the days of fourth-term entrance; you did three entrance exams set by Oxford and if they still liked you after the interview(s) then you got an "unconditional" (in practice 2 E) offer.
It made for an unstressed Y13 after Christmas...
And 2/3 of Oxbridge students got straight A*s anyway
Nope: none of those with a 2 E offer did.
Actually I know someone with an E grade offer who did indeed still get straight A*s.
And the 2 E offer is rarely given to more than a small minority of those given Oxbridge offers. The standard offer is normally at least 2 or 3 A* grades
The entrance exam was phased out in 1997; the A* was introduced in 2010.
E grade offers are still given in a few cases even without the entrance exam
But not a matter of routine.
There would have to be truly exceptional circumstances for Oxbridge to do that, though there was spate of universities making such offers to students as long as they made them their first choice. This made sense for the university as it gave them certainty when planning, but it induced too many Y13s to opt for a course they would not have chosen otherwise. Schools didn't like it either as it is difficult to motivate a student to do their best when they only need two Es.
Lots of graduates on here wanting to remove the ladder for future generations of graduates, I suspect.
For what it's worth, the only degree courses I'd ban would be Business Studies and related subjects. Absolute waste of time both intellectually and in terms of future productivity. Much more useless than Sociology, Media Studies, History, 18th Century Peruvian Literature etc.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
OH, s\o you would rather be dealt with by a posh incompetent than someone who knew the job?!
Clearly you would rather be dealt with by an incompetent full stop, posh or not
You're misreading. I want a competent. I don't give a shite if they are cringing Royalists with a MBE that went to Christchurch at Oxford*.
*Friend of mine did. But, despite that, he's highly competent at his profession.
You just said you would be perfectly happy to be operated on by a surgeon who had got no better than C grade GCSEs, 2 E grade A levels and a 2.2 from a new university.
Money ALWAYS comes into play - but yes you're exactly right that defining 'working class' is about what you're going to do with the definition when you have it.
Eg I need to define what 'working class' means in order to make sense of my core political belief - that the priority objective of government should be shifting wealth and opportunity towards the working class. You have to know what the 'working class' is if you're going to run with that.
I think I would suggest that you'd be better off rephrasing your priority objective as "shifting wealth to the less well-off" rather than setting a definition of "working-class" to match what you're really trying to achieve. It makes your aims clearer to others, and avoids the risk that the wider cultural definition of 'working class' bleeds back in and results in policies being mis-targeted, for instance.
I also like the 'money' metric because it gets rid of so much clutter. It's interesting to talk about things like accents and clothes and table habits etc, and they do matter in life, but they don't relate to the above hard policy objective.
It gets rid of clutter by chopping away a lot of the key parts of the phenomenon of 'class', though. Personally I tend to think that class as it is experienced is largely cultural, and it correlates strongly with wealth (for systematic reasons) but isn't defined by it.
Grayson Perry's observation that the cafetiere is an icon of middle-classness is spot-on, incidentally.
🟨 SNP 25.9% (19 seats, 30.2% of seats) 🟧 Lib Dem 20.5% (12 seats, 19%) 🟥 Labour 19.1% (13 seats, 20.6%) 🟦 Conservative 17.5% (9 seats, 14.3%) 🟩 Green 14.2% (10 seats, 19%) ⬛ Other 1.9% (0 seats) ⬜ Independents 0.9% (0)
I believe this is a partial glimpse into the transfers. Don't read too much into the overrepresentation of the SNP, that can come about from being the largest party. Look instead down the list at the Conservatives and Greens. I have a strong suspicion that we're seeing transfers across the union/indy divide more than previously, and unionist tactical voting reduced. Simply: Labour and Lib Dems favouring Greens more and Conservative less than last time.
Caveat: still just a hunch; I haven't dug into the data properly and this is just one council.
There is no question that the Tories were a lot less transfer friendly this time than in the last several elections. Anger at Boris, the fading memory of Ruth, the inconsistencies of Ross and a budget that in the face of a cost of living crisis did not seem to give a damn about the least well off all sickened people. The Tory brand has been retoxified and the price for that in Scotland with its STV and other proportional systems is going to be particularly high.
Are you sure? I'd arsgue that the Scottish setup is actually quite Tory-friendly; the Tories have clung on in ways which would be impossible in full FPTP systems, even to the extent of having senior MSPs totally dependent on the list system for being there in Holyrood at all. Just look at Ms-as-was Davidson and Prof Tomkins - only some of the time did she, at least, have a FPTP seat.
It is true that the Scottish systems are friendly to minority voices. Under FPTP there would not be a single Green, for example. But the extent of that friendliness depends on you not being beyond the pale as a second choice. As the leaders of the Unionist cause the Tories have managed that for the best part of a decade but I fear no longer. On present trends the number of list MSPs for the Tories at the next election could collapse.
Thanks. That's actually very pessimistic - I normally think of the ScoTories as having a hard core of about 22%. But the new BUP and events in NI might, I suppose, attack them further from the right.
I am not so worried about attacks from the right but the Scottish Tories have a lot of serious thinking to do. I think that they need to break away from the UK party (albeit still sit with them in Westminster), make it clear that Holyrood is the centre of their existence and start developing policies that reflect that which go beyond no to a second referendum.
I have a strong interest in education. I really have no idea how the Tories plan to fix the current mess of Scottish schools and Universities. Only party obsessives will because they don't talk about it.
How do we attract consultants to Scotland when they have to pay higher taxes here? What should be done about the desperately underfunded care sector? Most importantly, how do we start to repair the Scottish economy so that there is enough money to address these other problems? How do we attract the inward investment we so desperately need? How do we improve our skills base so that it is competitive and attractive?
Scotland desperately needs some new ideas and thoughts to replace a failing government that survives on the neverendum principle. I would love it if Labour did the same.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
HYUFD is that you?
Utter classist rubbish. Education is the key to a civil society. Right wing populists demanding education only for the elites (generally themselves) reminds me why I have never voted Conservative.
I also disagree the middle class is only the highest 10% of earners.
The middle class is defined now as about 50% of the population ie upper middle class ABs and lower middle class C1s. You can be AB even if not in the top 10% of earners if a professional still and C1 basically as long as you have a job which is not manual labour
Broadly, I'd define the middle class (in the British, not the American sense) as about 25% of the population. A lot of very ill-paid jobs don't involve manual labour.
This stirs a very dim memory of Are You Being Served? where the porter explains his higher wages than Mr Lucas as the penalty you pay for calling yourself middle-class.
🟨 SNP 25.9% (19 seats, 30.2% of seats) 🟧 Lib Dem 20.5% (12 seats, 19%) 🟥 Labour 19.1% (13 seats, 20.6%) 🟦 Conservative 17.5% (9 seats, 14.3%) 🟩 Green 14.2% (10 seats, 19%) ⬛ Other 1.9% (0 seats) ⬜ Independents 0.9% (0)
I believe this is a partial glimpse into the transfers. Don't read too much into the overrepresentation of the SNP, that can come about from being the largest party. Look instead down the list at the Conservatives and Greens. I have a strong suspicion that we're seeing transfers across the union/indy divide more than previously, and unionist tactical voting reduced. Simply: Labour and Lib Dems favouring Greens more and Conservative less than last time.
Caveat: still just a hunch; I haven't dug into the data properly and this is just one council.
There is no question that the Tories were a lot less transfer friendly this time than in the last several elections. Anger at Boris, the fading memory of Ruth, the inconsistencies of Ross and a budget that in the face of a cost of living crisis did not seem to give a damn about the least well off all sickened people. The Tory brand has been retoxified and the price for that in Scotland with its STV and other proportional systems is going to be particularly high.
Are you sure? I'd arsgue that the Scottish setup is actually quite Tory-friendly; the Tories have clung on in ways which would be impossible in full FPTP systems, even to the extent of having senior MSPs totally dependent on the list system for being there in Holyrood at all. Just look at Ms-as-was Davidson and Prof Tomkins - only some of the time did she, at least, have a FPTP seat.
It is true that the Scottish systems are friendly to minority voices. Under FPTP there would not be a single Green, for example. But the extent of that friendliness depends on you not being beyond the pale as a second choice. As the leaders of the Unionist cause the Tories have managed that for the best part of a decade but I fear no longer. On present trends the number of list MSPs for the Tories at the next election could collapse.
I don't think the Scots Conservatives came out of it too badly (in terms of seats). They were only down 20%.
South of the Border, I wonder if the Conservatives will add Croydon Borough Council to the Mayoralty. Six London boroughs would be far from the worst result for London Conservatives in my lifetime.
Very quickly away from beer gate and the local elections - COVID. It looks like it really is over in the UK. The ONS survey is matching the weekly drops seen in the dashboard, just from a higher base. The advanced data says prevalence for thus week is ~1 in 45 in England which would be around 80k per day being infected and falling rapidly.
This can also be seen in the hospitalisation data. The government deserves a lot of credit for ignoring the "experts" in the WHO and across Europe and ploughing ahead with reopening and not having a lockdown or shutdown over the winter because of Omicron.
We're not going on holiday anywhere this summer but I'm really a lot less bothered than I thought, firstly excitement for the baby but also every time I think about going to Europe I get the general sense of foreboding that I'll be going back into a country that still has all of the COVID shite with masks and passes. We met some Italian friends last night and they were shocked at how few people bother with masks and how my wife doesn't bother with them despite being pregnant. They said in Italy mask compliance on public transport is still 100% and indoors in optional places it's close to it. They still scan QR codes etc... We asked them to what end given that in a similarly sized country like the UK having no restrictions hasn't made any difference but they were adamant that Italy has it right and we have it wrong. There was an almost religious response to criticism of ongoing COVID measures so we dropped it.
I fear that countries which made COVID measures part of the fabric of life are going to struggle to remove them. People in these countries seem scared to let go, we had the ridiculous scene of them donning their masks in an Uber from our house to the restaurant, they wore them in the restaurant until we sat down then they took them off for the whole evening. Not to mention they didn't wear them in our living room where we sat together for a couple of hours. I resisted the urge to point out how idiotic the theatre is but my wife and I did have a good chuckle when we got home.
Very quickly away from beer gate and the local elections - COVID. It looks like it really is over in the UK. The ONS survey is matching the weekly drops seen in the dashboard, just from a higher base. The advanced data says prevalence for thus week is ~1 in 45 in England which would be around 80k per day being infected and falling rapidly.
This can also be seen in the hospitalisation data. The government deserves a lot of credit for ignoring the "experts" in the WHO and across Europe and ploughing ahead with reopening and not having a lockdown or shutdown over the winter because of Omicron.
We're not going on holiday anywhere this summer but I'm really a lot less bothered than I thought, firstly excitement for the baby but also every time I think about going to Europe I get the general sense of foreboding that I'll be going back into a country that still has all of the COVID shite with masks and passes. We met some Italian friends last night and they were shocked at how few people bother with masks and how my wife doesn't bother with them despite being pregnant. They said in Italy mask compliance on public transport is still 100% and indoors in optional places it's close to it. They still scan QR codes etc... We asked them to what end given that in a similarly sized country like the UK having no restrictions hasn't made any difference but they were adamant that Italy has it right and we have it wrong. There was an almost religious response to criticism of ongoing COVID measures so we dropped it.
I fear that countries which made COVID measures part of the fabric of life are going to struggle to remove them. People in these countries seem scared to let go, we had the ridiculous scene of them donning their masks in an Uber from our house to the restaurant, they wore them in the restaurant until we sat down then they took them off for the whole evening. Not to mention they didn't wear them in our living room where we sat together for a couple of hours. I resisted the urge to point out how idiotic the theatre is but my wife and I did have a good chuckle when we got home.
My wife tested positive on Thursday having been negative but unwell on Tuesday. So far I have avoided it. She is really tired, got a bad cough and generally feeling crap. I am restricting my movements around the country as much as possible until she is clear.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
OH, s\o you would rather be dealt with by a posh incompetent than someone who knew the job?!
Clearly you would rather be dealt with by an incompetent full stop, posh or not
You're misreading. I want a competent. I don't give a shite if they are cringing Royalists with a MBE that went to Christchurch at Oxford*.
*Friend of mine did. But, despite that, he's highly competent at his profession.
Actually, I think if you want a good advocate, an excellent academic resume might be desirable, but it's far from essential. There are other skills that are more important, such as being able to sift through evidence, and pick out what's relevant; the ability to present an argument coherently, and being well organised. 90% of advocacy is about good preparation.
There *are* specialist areas of law, such as tax, or some of the work relating to land law or inheritance where academic skills are of greater importance.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
That's fine as long as you make clear to those getting Sociology degrees from the University of Worcester that all their degree is good for is a life as a Barista. Stop coning people into thinking a degree is a gateway to a better job and a better life whilst at the same time so completely trashing the value of those degrees that in effect you are lying to them and that all you are really giving them is a lifetime of debt and low pay.
No, we must encourage employers to treat all graduates equally. It will be good for both sides and the country. Unless there really is something about an Oxford humanities degree that qualifies one to run a hedge fund or a country.
That is utter rubbish. Why should an employer put any value on a qualification which has no intrinsic value in itself and which does not in any way reflect the abilities of the candidate as a potential employee.
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Or why should someone with 2 E grade A levels and straight Cs at GCSE at a new university be put on an equal plane for a job as a lawyer or doctor with someone with straight A*s at A level and GCSE with a degree from Oxbridge or another Russell Group university
Not posh enough for some people, I see.
OK if you would like to be operated on or defended in court or have a big commercial deal negotiated by someone with 2 E grades at A level, C grade gcses and a 2.2 from a new university, be my guest
Actually given ages you probably are today. At A levels 1979/80 I had lots of friends who applied to do architecture and got places with Ds and Es they will have built some bg buildings by now. I cant see why lawyers will be much different.
Yes but we did not have new universities back then and just 10% were graduates not 40% like now and an E grade at A level then would likely be a C grade now and a C grade then would probably be an A now and an A then would now be an A* thanks to grade inflation
We had Polytechs which were places where people actually had to do work. I did a language degree and got my classes down to 8 hours a week. The occasional essay and translation disturbed an otherwise tranquil week.
Polytechnics did vocational practical courses, now most of them are universities doing academic degrees not what they were created for
Of course. So would you rather have been served by someone trained in their vocation or a social science grad who is picking it up as they go along ?
A social science graduate with top grade GCSES and A levels who did a Russell Group degree and the law conversion course where they did well in I would certainly prefer over someone with a 2.2 from a new university as my lawyer.
Polytechnics did practical courses for trades rather than academic degrees and that is what they were good at
degrees are no guarantee of ability - see D Cameron. I've met lots of people from good universities and a university is no guarantee of anything. After about 10 years in the workforce degrees are largely irrelevant and ability is all.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
They do, because they’re £50k in debt and earning £10 an hour.
Yes, education is a good thing and we need more of it. That doesn’t mean that we need half of 18 year olds moving across the country, to get £50k into debt in exchange for a mostly worthless piece of paper.
The whole sector is ripe for reform of the products it offers, we need more flexible learning options such as two-year crammer degrees, online-only courses, part time study etc, as well as more of what the US calls Community Colleges.
This Govt was keen on flexible learning approaches before the pandemic, but is now responding to Daily Mail headlines and insisting all teaching has to be face-to-face. Just like it was keen on video calls to GPs before the pandemic but is now insisting GPs must always see patients in the flesh. The Govt simply isn’t serious about anything: it’s all for show.
If the students have paid fo rate in-person experience, then that is what should be delivered to them as soon as the pandemic is over. My argument is that the universities should be making more use of selling different types of courses, which is a very different argument.
Many GPs appear to be still using the pandemic as an excuse to mostly put their feet up while getting paid. Again, the choice is the key thing. People who want an in-person appointment should be seen in-person, and people who are happy to take a remote appointment can be offered that if it’s convenient.
Comments
Sounds like you had perfectly acquired the skills required (and renowned the world over) for British sports car engineering.
Johnson lied. Repeatedly. He said there were no parties at all. Zero. Zilch. He lied.
Keir Starmer has never lied about this. He’s never denied what happened or that the photos aren’t genuine.
One has been investigated. Found to have lied and been fined.
The other has not lied and has been found not guilty.
I know I’m biased but can anyone sensible honestly conclude Starmer and Johnson are at all alike? I can’t imagine past Tory parties putting up with this kind of thing.
It is also no surprise we get more Oxford PPE graduates as PM than say politics graduates from Liverpool John Moores
He will win in a landslide.
Which is why Gove and Cummings in their infinite ignorance and stupidity opening up Russell Group unis to all without a cap was exactly the wrong approach. It should have capped numbers in the Russell Group - even a case for making them postgrad only - and opened it up elsewhere and said, OK, this is about education, not research.
It can't happen now because the Russell Group have sunk so much money into student estate that would bankrupt themselves by trying it, but it could easily have worked and would have been far better all around than what we've ended up with.
*Of course, it doesn't always follow. For many years Oxford Brookes had a much better history department for both research and teaching than Oxford itself, which was mysteriously not always reflected in the rankings put together by (checks notes) Oxford graduates...
There was a certain truth in that. Especially the last bit. Shop floor vs the suited chap on the catwalk above etc….
One of those babies and bath water classics, really.
There's an argument that the economies of cities are just more productive than those of towns. I'm not an economist, but the data seem to bear it out and the mechanisms sound plausible.
That gives us a choice.
We can run with that, and let cities grow and let people benefit from the enhanced productivity. And since city size is capped by travel time (again, not proven but plausible) we need fairly high density living and rail based commuting, because roads don't give enough reliable peak capacity.
Alternatively, we can turn our back on that and say we want small towns, car based suburbs and business parks. We can do that, and many prefer it. And we don't notice the cost, because the economic growth that didn't happen, didn't happen.
WFH might be the magic key that unlocks that... But look who hates WFH?
I'm not sure how useful the definition is, but I know I fail it.
- Russel Group or equivalent - 2.1 or above
- Russel Group lower degree
- Non-Russel group mid level uni
- University of Bums On Seats
If you aren't in group 1, you won’t get a job at the very high end of white collar work. They filter the CVs….
There are plenty of degrees that do have real world value in the specific areas they relate to but the idea that as an employer i should look favourably on someone simply because they have been through the degree factory and stayed out of gainful employment for an extra 3 years is idiotic.
Or put it the other way. Why should I look less favourably on someone who left school at 18 and went out and got a job so that by 21 they have 3 years experience of real employment compared with a graduate? That is what you are actually asking employers to do.
Only once in the last 100 years has a party won another general election after more than 10 years in power, Major's Tories in 1992. While that kept Kinnock out nobody can say the Major government of 1992 to 1997 was a great success and it just led to landslide defeat by Blair in 1997
Hang on, why are you using a butter knife to butter something? The idea is to transfer the butter to the toast using the butter knife then use an ordinary knife to spread it.
The reason I use butter knives is I happen to have several of them and it means I can save the larger knives so I don't need to run the dishwasher so often.
Johnson too but as he's a completely busted flush and it would be to Labour's advantage that he stays on he ought to play it cool. No attacks necessary. 'More in sorrow than in anger'. A perfect platform to show he really is the adult in the place. Remember when Blair used to patronise Major...
I did know lots of people with 2 E offers.
A more pertinent question might be on this subject, would it not make more sense to have professional and university entrance exams, rather than post-16 school qualifications led by exam boards and overseen by the failed and discredited OFQUAL and DfE?
But that's a really radical reform that would bring problems of its own.
There are also post 16 apprenticeships for the more practical
Eg I need to define what 'working class' means in order to make sense of my core political belief - that the priority objective of government should be shifting wealth and opportunity towards the working class. You have to know what the 'working class' is if you're going to run with that.
I also like the 'money' metric because it gets rid of so much clutter. It's interesting to talk about things like accents and clothes and table habits etc, and they do matter in life, but they don't relate to the above hard policy objective.
If you use money as the yardstick for class you get yourself a good working definition (for political not conversational purposes) and you can also see people with tons of money from working class backgrounds saying "I still consider myself working class" for the fiction it is.
Either way they will still lose eventually
On the new boundaries (NuL - 5 wards in the extreme North and South of the borough), Labour would squeak in by 352 votes, based on the local elections. That first time incumbency would be put to work.
Yep, Grimes Graves, Norfolk I think. Never been but looks a good day out. Also for digging your actual henge at Stonehenge, Woodhenge etc.
It made for an unstressed Y13 after Christmas...
Former master: And what are you doing today?
Old pupil: Officer on HMS ****, the nuclear missile submarine.
Now that was scary ...
Starmer's problem, if he is fined, isn't Johnson. Perhaps he could argue that Johnson's behaviour is materially worse.
But Starmer called for Sunak to resign. Now, good luck explaining how Starmer's behaviour isn't nearly as bad as Sunak's.
So, back to the link to politics - which is the point of this - the priority for government (imo) should be serving the interests of people like I used to be not of people like I am now.
That'd leave Johnson right back where he started, in a painfully Hung Parliament, but with the DUP unlikely to be large enough to give him confidence and supply. During a period of stagflation and cost of living crisis.
That might not turn out well for the Conservative Party.
Without STV this lad wouldn't have been elected in the first place to one of the poorest wards in Glasgow, let alone reelected when his colleagues were being flushed down the toilet all over Scotland.
And the 2 E offer is rarely given to more than a small minority of those given Oxbridge offers. The standard offer is normally at least 2 or 3 A* grades
*Friend of mine did. But, despite that, he's highly competent at his profession.
Polytechnics did practical courses for trades rather than academic degrees and that is what they were good at
There would have to be truly exceptional circumstances for Oxbridge to do that, though there was spate of universities making such offers to students as long as they made them their first choice. This made sense for the university as it gave them certainty when planning, but it induced too many Y13s to opt for a course they would not have chosen otherwise. Schools didn't like it either as it is difficult to motivate a student to do their best when they only need two Es.
For what it's worth, the only degree courses I'd ban would be Business Studies and related subjects. Absolute waste of time both intellectually and in terms of future productivity. Much more useless than Sociology, Media Studies, History, 18th Century Peruvian Literature etc.
Grayson Perry's observation that the cafetiere is an icon of middle-classness is spot-on, incidentally.
I have a strong interest in education. I really have no idea how the Tories plan to fix the current mess of Scottish schools and Universities. Only party obsessives will because they don't talk about it.
How do we attract consultants to Scotland when they have to pay higher taxes here? What should be done about the desperately underfunded care sector? Most importantly, how do we start to repair the Scottish economy so that there is enough money to address these other problems? How do we attract the inward investment we so desperately need? How do we improve our skills base so that it is competitive and attractive?
Scotland desperately needs some new ideas and thoughts to replace a failing government that survives on the neverendum principle. I would love it if Labour did the same.
South of the Border, I wonder if the Conservatives will add Croydon Borough Council to the Mayoralty. Six London boroughs would be far from the worst result for London Conservatives in my lifetime.
This can also be seen in the hospitalisation data. The government deserves a lot of credit for ignoring the "experts" in the WHO and across Europe and ploughing ahead with reopening and not having a lockdown or shutdown over the winter because of Omicron.
We're not going on holiday anywhere this summer but I'm really a lot less bothered than I thought, firstly excitement for the baby but also every time I think about going to Europe I get the general sense of foreboding that I'll be going back into a country that still has all of the COVID shite with masks and passes. We met some Italian friends last night and they were shocked at how few people bother with masks and how my wife doesn't bother with them despite being pregnant. They said in Italy mask compliance on public transport is still 100% and indoors in optional places it's close to it. They still scan QR codes etc... We asked them to what end given that in a similarly sized country like the UK having no restrictions hasn't made any difference but they were adamant that Italy has it right and we have it wrong. There was an almost religious response to criticism of ongoing COVID measures so we dropped it.
I fear that countries which made COVID measures part of the fabric of life are going to struggle to remove them. People in these countries seem scared to let go, we had the ridiculous scene of them donning their masks in an Uber from our house to the restaurant, they wore them in the restaurant until we sat down then they took them off for the whole evening. Not to mention they didn't wear them in our living room where we sat together for a couple of hours. I resisted the urge to point out how idiotic the theatre is but my wife and I did have a good chuckle when we got home.
There *are* specialist areas of law, such as tax, or some of the work relating to land law or inheritance where academic skills are of greater importance.
Russia has reacted ferociously to Britain's new sanctions on Russian media outlets
Russia summoned Britain's ambassador and warned that these moves could presage the "final destruction" of British-Russian relations
https://twitter.com/SamRamani2/status/1522905003345723395
Many GPs appear to be still using the pandemic as an excuse to mostly put their feet up while getting paid. Again, the choice is the key thing. People who want an in-person appointment should be seen in-person, and people who are happy to take a remote appointment can be offered that if it’s convenient.