I like that piece from Pidcock. You are working class if you (or earning partner) have to work for a living. There's more to it of course but that imo is a good start point.
The cultural aspect is not irrelevant but it's a soft subjective measure and lends itself to much posturing and affectation in all directions.
So Hyacinth Bucket is working class. Jamie Vardy is not working class.
I disagree with that.
For me, class is not defined by wealth. Beckham, for instance, will always be working class regardless of his riches. (I don`t see working class as in any way a derogatory term by the way.)
I don`t believe you can change your class. But I do believe that a child can be a different class to the parents. I`d say I`m working class (lower middle if you like) but my children are middle class (upper middle if you like).
That's too divorced from the hard realities of power and money and "capital vs labour" for me. But question for you -
When you say a child can be a different class to their parents you picture that one way only - child moving up - am I right?
Clogs to clogs in three generations was an old Lancashire saying. My in-laws are a case study.
Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
You don't need to be a business owner to hope for better for your children. The problems come when business owners treat their employees like they're disposable and prevent them from realising their dreams for their children. Aspiration is not binary. I don't think it's at all helpful to view people as traitors to their class simply because they have made some money. But equally one might question whether they are still members of that class in the way that many people understand it. Although I have always been middle class I have certainly moved from one end of that wide envelope to the other in material terms over the course of my life, so I am certainly no stranger to, or enemy of, aspiration.
But your argument wasnt against bad business owners exploiting workers, it was that you cant be a working class business owner. Take a previously working class brickie who decides to employ five of his mates, they all work the same duties and hours but he happens to be the owner of the firm. On his first day of ownership does he automatically change class? Is he supposed to be aware of this?
Per Pidcock, you leave the working class at the point where you can live off your wealth. So with your example that would not be on the 1st day or anything close to it.
Usual caveat. Life is not so precise. But it's a helpful thought imo.
Under her definition, I'm still working class, then Kinabalu. That doesn't ring true, I own a flat in Hampstead and work for an international bank in investment markets. I'm the very definition of comfortable middle class.
Yes. She is saying you're working class, don't kid yourself otherwise. And so was I until I didn't have to do it anymore.
Totally understand that this is not definitive. It's a complex area that impinges on identity which is always sensitive.
But I do think her Marxist lens on it is a useful one to use. Certainly more useful than the other extreme - that class boils down to attitudes and as such is essentially self-defined. Not sure where that gets us.
Plus on a partisan political note. If Labour is the party of the working class it makes sense for them to define it to include most of the population.
Can someone explain how a duffer like Grayling keeps getting high level positions? The man is a disaster. I fully expect for all national secrets to leak to China.
He can be expected to do his master’s or mistress’s bidding.
Good morning Ms Cyclefree; how did your daughter's business cope last weekend? Apols if you've already dealt with this, but I don't log on all day every day.
I like that piece from Pidcock. You are working class if you (or earning partner) have to work for a living. There's more to it of course but that imo is a good start point.
The cultural aspect is not irrelevant but it's a soft subjective measure and lends itself to much posturing and affectation in all directions.
So Hyacinth Bucket is working class. Jamie Vardy is not working class.
I disagree with that.
For me, class is not defined by wealth. Beckham, for instance, will always be working class regardless of his riches. (I don`t see working class as in any way a derogatory term by the way.)
I don`t believe you can change your class. But I do believe that a child can be a different class to the parents. I`d say I`m working class (lower middle if you like) but my children are middle class (upper middle if you like).
That's too divorced from the hard realities of power and money and "capital vs labour" for me. But question for you -
When you say a child can be a different class to their parents you picture that one way only - child moving up - am I right?
Clogs to clogs in three generations was an old Lancashire saying. My in-laws are a case study.
I think that less true nowadays. Purchase of advantage prevents much downward mobility, even when deserved.
I like that piece from Pidcock. You are working class if you (or earning partner) have to work for a living. There's more to it of course but that imo is a good start point.
The cultural aspect is not irrelevant but it's a soft subjective measure and lends itself to much posturing and affectation in all directions.
So Hyacinth Bucket is working class. Jamie Vardy is not working class.
I disagree with that.
For me, class is not defined by wealth. Beckham, for instance, will always be working class regardless of his riches. (I don`t see working class as in any way a derogatory term by the way.)
I don`t believe you can change your class. But I do believe that a child can be a different class to the parents. I`d say I`m working class (lower middle if you like) but my children are middle class (upper middle if you like).
That's too divorced from the hard realities of power and money and "capital vs labour" for me. But question for you -
When you say a child can be a different class to their parents you picture that one way only - child moving up - am I right?
Clogs to clogs in three generations was an old Lancashire saying. My in-laws are a case study.
I think that less true nowadays. Purchase of advantage prevents much downward mobility, even when deserved.
High house prices, student loans and a squeeze on good jobs may see it make a roaring return in the 2020s.
I am starting to be a seller of Sunak for next leader.
The cracks are appearing in his colossal socialist experiment. The prosecutions for furlough fraud are starting, and reported to be the tip of the iceberg.
Lower down the thread we see the mind boggling sums spent on PPE and track and don;t trace for what looking more and more like dubious rewards every day.
His jobs initiatives and green subsides will be the next to come apart at the seams in my book, in the same way as every government initiative on these there ever was has foundered.
At some juncture he will have to go cap in hand to tory middle England to bankroll these and other socialist follies. A tory middle England that is already paying the highest taxes in fifty years. The push back will be enormous and may well cost Johnson his job. It would be no surprise now if Sunak went with him.
Sunak's position is worsening by the day.
Boris will not increase taxes he will borrow to fund increased spending, Starmer however would raise taxes on middle England
It is not Sunak's fault that people defrauded the system./
I think furlough has been quite widely abused. My spouse employing colleagues in the private sector are raking it in. Presumably true of a lot of small businesses. Not criminally, but not really its intention. I wonder if any MPs have done this.
It is certainly improving SME's cash reserves. The Self Employed who have worked all the time are also very well off.
Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
You don't need to be a business owner to hope for better for your children. The problems come when business owners treat their employees like they're disposable and prevent them from realising their dreams for their children. Aspiration is not binary. I don't think it's at all helpful to view people as traitors to their class simply because they have made some money. But equally one might question whether they are still members of that class in the way that many people understand it. Although I have always been middle class I have certainly moved from one end of that wide envelope to the other in material terms over the course of my life, so I am certainly no stranger to, or enemy of, aspiration.
But your argument wasnt against bad business owners exploiting workers, it was that you cant be a working class business owner. Take a previously working class brickie who decides to employ five of his mates, they all work the same duties and hours but he happens to be the owner of the firm. On his first day of ownership does he automatically change class? Is he supposed to be aware of this?
Per Pidcock, you leave the working class at the point where you can live off your wealth. So with your example that would not be on the 1st day or anything close to it.
Usual caveat. Life is not so precise. But it's a helpful thought imo.
But its nonsense! So on retirement everyone stops being working class?
In this country its also perfectly possible to live off state benefits without ever doing a days work. Not fun or recommended, but do-able. So at birth we are all excluded from being working class.
On a personal level I could certainly retire early today and survive, just not at the level I would like to so will probably end up working another 15 years or so. Which level sets my class, my desired income, historic income or average income, or state sustenance?
I can answer these questions on Laura's behalf. On retirement you carry on being what you were before you retired. Being jobless on benefits does not count as living off your wealth because it is not living comfortably. Which means - let's put this out there - that your capital needs to be sufficient to generate an income of at least the average wage without any labour input from you. If you're in that boat you can only be "cultural" working class - which is the softer, subjective and imo less useful concept (albeit not irrelevant).
How do I know how long Im going to live? If its 75 Im excluded from working class on your definition, if l lived to 95 I would be eligible. This is silly.
The "too early to relax the lockdown-ers" would say 95. The "economy is more important" brigade would say 75.
Sunak is never going to be leader. He is a pencil necked geek who has zero appeal to the slope-browed gravy and chips gobblers upon whom the tories now rely. He's never even been sucked off by a pneumatic blonde like Arcuri for fuck's sake.
True but now he has enormous power the queue of pneumatic blondes must be lengthening. They are very pragmatic bunch.
The blondes may be pragmatic, but I imagine that Rishi takes Hinduism seriously in a way that his boss doesn't.
I like that piece from Pidcock. You are working class if you (or earning partner) have to work for a living. There's more to it of course but that imo is a good start point.
The cultural aspect is not irrelevant but it's a soft subjective measure and lends itself to much posturing and affectation in all directions.
So Hyacinth Bucket is working class. Jamie Vardy is not working class.
I disagree with that.
For me, class is not defined by wealth. Beckham, for instance, will always be working class regardless of his riches. (I don`t see working class as in any way a derogatory term by the way.)
I don`t believe you can change your class. But I do believe that a child can be a different class to the parents. I`d say I`m working class (lower middle if you like) but my children are middle class (upper middle if you like).
That's too divorced from the hard realities of power and money and "capital vs labour" for me. But question for you -
When you say a child can be a different class to their parents you picture that one way only - child moving up - am I right?
Very much no, and I consider myself an example of the other direction.
Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
You don't need to be a business owner to hope for better for your children. The problems come when business owners treat their employees like they're disposable and prevent them from realising their dreams for their children. Aspiration is not binary. I don't think it's at all helpful to view people as traitors to their class simply because they have made some money. But equally one might question whether they are still members of that class in the way that many people understand it. Although I have always been middle class I have certainly moved from one end of that wide envelope to the other in material terms over the course of my life, so I am certainly no stranger to, or enemy of, aspiration.
But your argument wasnt against bad business owners exploiting workers, it was that you cant be a working class business owner. Take a previously working class brickie who decides to employ five of his mates, they all work the same duties and hours but he happens to be the owner of the firm. On his first day of ownership does he automatically change class? Is he supposed to be aware of this?
Per Pidcock, you leave the working class at the point where you can live off your wealth. So with your example that would not be on the 1st day or anything close to it.
Usual caveat. Life is not so precise. But it's a helpful thought imo.
Under her definition, I'm still working class, then Kinabalu. That doesn't ring true, I own a flat in Hampstead and work for an international bank in investment markets. I'm the very definition of comfortable middle class.
Yes. She is saying you're working class, don't kid yourself otherwise. And so was I until I didn't have to do it anymore.
Totally understand that this is not definitive. It's a complex area that impinges on identity which is always sensitive.
But I do think her Marxist lens on it is a useful one to use. Certainly more useful than the other extreme - that class boils down to attitudes and as such is essentially self-defined. Not sure where that gets us.
Plus on a partisan political note. If Labour is the party of the working class it makes sense for them to define it to include most of the population.
At the moment Labour is the party of no class, it lost every class at the last general election including failing to win DEs for the first time, the Tories had their highest voteshare with skilled working class C2s which they won convincingly, so the Tories are now a more working class party than Labour
I am starting to be a seller of Sunak for next leader.
The cracks are appearing in his colossal socialist experiment. The prosecutions for furlough fraud are starting, and reported to be the tip of the iceberg.
Lower down the thread we see the mind boggling sums spent on PPE and track and don;t trace for what looking more and more like dubious rewards every day.
His jobs initiatives and green subsides will be the next to come apart at the seams in my book, in the same way as every government initiative on these there ever was has foundered.
At some juncture he will have to go cap in hand to tory middle England to bankroll these and other socialist follies. A tory middle England that is already paying the highest taxes in fifty years. The push back will be enormous and may well cost Johnson his job. It would be no surprise now if Sunak went with him.
Sunak's position is worsening by the day.
Boris will not increase taxes he will borrow to fund increased spending, Starmer however would raise taxes on middle England
I liked that poll you posted on defunding the police in New York State. Paints a different picture to some of the US polling we have seen.
can Trump hang defund around Biden's neck? that has to be his strategy.
Indeed, outside the inner cities that message works for Trump
I like that piece from Pidcock. You are working class if you (or earning partner) have to work for a living. There's more to it of course but that imo is a good start point.
The cultural aspect is not irrelevant but it's a soft subjective measure and lends itself to much posturing and affectation in all directions.
So Hyacinth Bucket is working class. Jamie Vardy is not working class.
I disagree with that.
For me, class is not defined by wealth. Beckham, for instance, will always be working class regardless of his riches. (I don`t see working class as in any way a derogatory term by the way.)
I don`t believe you can change your class. But I do believe that a child can be a different class to the parents. I`d say I`m working class (lower middle if you like) but my children are middle class (upper middle if you like).
That's too divorced from the hard realities of power and money and "capital vs labour" for me. But question for you -
When you say a child can be a different class to their parents you picture that one way only - child moving up - am I right?
Very much no, and I consider myself an example of the other direction.
That's interesting. But by which token - the Pidcock (money) or the Stocky (culture)?
I don't think it matters - Sunak is showing what the Next Generation can do. Locally my new Tory MP is a bit of a mixed bag. As an MP he's night and day better than James "Where's" Wharton his predecessor to 2017. He's backed the ExcludedUK group, he actually corresponds with constituents, he's held street surgeries in my town whereas Wharton utterly ignored any parts of the constituency that weren't solid Tory. Combine tht6with the promise of millions for regeration and I can see him building a solid base.
Expect she would be too left wing for a certain prominent poster who has rejoined recently after being rejected by Labour.
No I'd be fine with Layla. She wouldn't be as good or as successful as Ed but she'd be ok.
As with the Leigh piece in the Grauniad there is a real problem for Labour where so many of their activists cannot comprehend why towns voted Tory, and their only response is disdain and sneering abuse. I am clearly verboten having been a Labour member activist official and councillor for 25 years. Kill the defector - which would be ok except that you have people who voted Labour for ever going Tory, this government so far has more than delivered for them, and the Labour response is abuse.
I get the sense that moat of the stick that Johnson gets - fair as it is - goes over the head of many normals as just politics. What delivers for them is what motivates them, and providing Johnson and Sunak don't screw up when switching the money hose off im not sure it matters if Johnson stays on or not. These places are perfectly capable of staying blue, especially with BJO type activists knocking on doors
I did initially sympathise with you over you being prevented from rejoining. However, upon the news that your response was to rejoin the LDs having coincidentally experienced an immediate Damascene conversion such that never again would you buy anything coloured even the pinkest shade of red, I'm afraid that that sympathy disappeared.
I too left Labour in 2019 having had longer period of membership than you (35 years), but unlike you I didn't spend my time openly and visibly campaigning for another party against them at a local level before I rejoined immediately after the GE. Not only did you do that, but you also then had no qualms about immediately joining the LDs (again?) on being rejected by your local CLP. Had you waited a bit and then reapplied after a decent interval in a year or so I suspect you would have been accepted. So it's hard not to reach a conclusion that your local CLP were vindicated by your subsequent actions, and even the members who encouraged you to come back will surely be feeling the same.
It's worth bearing in mind that your case is also wholly exceptional. I'm not aware of any membership applications having been rejected here and there have been well over 100 joiners into the CLP since December. There have been over 100,000 new members joining nationally, and according to YouGov only 11% of those were intending to vote for Long-Bailey.
A few points: 1. I do keep pointing out that I am irrelevant. I do not make any claim to others being as mad as me to end up in a similar place, but as I keep being the topic of conversation... 2. The party were right to reject my lunatic attempt to rejoin for the wrong reasons. But that wasn't the CLP - I had the EC on board with voting in my favour. One of the "lets shout at Labour voters on the doorstep, vote Labour" types nobbled me at national level - the GC has absolute power to reject anyone they see fit for any reason. And she did, which is (was) entirely her right. My friends in the CLP were appalled 3. I had a mental crisis. I'd been part of something my entire adult life. I walked away and was comfortable having joined the LDs. Then a combination of being caged up at home, dealing with a pain in the bum Electoral Commission return and an increasingly acute need to Stop the absolute Hell that my existence has turned into pushed me over the edge. Starmer got elected, didn't impress me that much but was Not Corbyn, and my friends in Labour implored me to "come home". So a quick call to the CLP chair and I pulled the trigger. Madness. 4. I am not a socialist. Not any more. When you're in something, or you're trying to justify something to yourself you can find yourself saying stuff because you're supposed to rather than because you wisely should do. I'm not sure what that Damascean conversion you mention is. I want Starmer to succeed - we need to purge lunatics of all colours from politics. The LibDems couldn't work with Corbyn, but could work with Starmer.
Again, I'm irrelevant to what is going on out there. You good people have been a safe space for me to express myself during this rather interesting period in my political life, and I thank you all for it. But less about me would probably be a Good Thing!
Fair enough, I appreciate your frankness. From those comments though I think you should still leave the door slightly ajar to reassess things in a couple of years, once you've seen how things pan out under Starmer. Starmer will almost certainly succeed and for there to be anything other than perpetual Conservative government he will need to. I am sure the Lib Dems could work with a minority Starmer-led government but I am also pretty sure that if they are attracting away the votes of people like you the prospect of there being such a government will be more remote, thanks to the electoral mathematics.
I like that piece from Pidcock. You are working class if you (or earning partner) have to work for a living. There's more to it of course but that imo is a good start point.
The cultural aspect is not irrelevant but it's a soft subjective measure and lends itself to much posturing and affectation in all directions.
So Hyacinth Bucket is working class. Jamie Vardy is not working class.
I disagree with that.
For me, class is not defined by wealth. Beckham, for instance, will always be working class regardless of his riches. (I don`t see working class as in any way a derogatory term by the way.)
I don`t believe you can change your class. But I do believe that a child can be a different class to the parents. I`d say I`m working class (lower middle if you like) but my children are middle class (upper middle if you like).
That's too divorced from the hard realities of power and money and "capital vs labour" for me. But question for you -
When you say a child can be a different class to their parents you picture that one way only - child moving up - am I right?
Clogs to clogs in three generations was an old Lancashire saying. My in-laws are a case study.
I think that less true nowadays. Purchase of advantage prevents much downward mobility, even when deserved.
Maybe, but certainly happens. Not, perchance, quite as obvious. Interestingly Eldest Granddaughter lives in a bijou residence in a conservation area in Leeds. It's a significantly remodelled 'back to back'; her Leeds-living gt gt grandfather would, I suspect, have been horrified at the thought of one of his family in a 'back to back'.
Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
You don't need to be a business owner to hope for better for your children. The problems come when business owners treat their employees like they're disposable and prevent them from realising their dreams for their children. Aspiration is not binary. I don't think it's at all helpful to view people as traitors to their class simply because they have made some money. But equally one might question whether they are still members of that class in the way that many people understand it. Although I have always been middle class I have certainly moved from one end of that wide envelope to the other in material terms over the course of my life, so I am certainly no stranger to, or enemy of, aspiration.
But your argument wasnt against bad business owners exploiting workers, it was that you cant be a working class business owner. Take a previously working class brickie who decides to employ five of his mates, they all work the same duties and hours but he happens to be the owner of the firm. On his first day of ownership does he automatically change class? Is he supposed to be aware of this?
Per Pidcock, you leave the working class at the point where you can live off your wealth. So with your example that would not be on the 1st day or anything close to it.
Usual caveat. Life is not so precise. But it's a helpful thought imo.
But its nonsense! So on retirement everyone stops being working class?
In this country its also perfectly possible to live off state benefits without ever doing a days work. Not fun or recommended, but do-able. So at birth we are all excluded from being working class.
On a personal level I could certainly retire early today and survive, just not at the level I would like to so will probably end up working another 15 years or so. Which level sets my class, my desired income, historic income or average income, or state sustenance?
I can answer these questions on Laura's behalf. On retirement you carry on being what you were before you retired. Being jobless on benefits does not count as living off your wealth because it is not living comfortably. Which means - let's put this out there - that your capital needs to be sufficient to generate an income of at least the average wage without any labour input from you. If you're in that boat you can only be "cultural" working class - which is the softer, subjective and imo less useful concept (albeit not irrelevant).
Perhaps it is my youth in the less class obsessed USA, but I find these odd distinctions. It is perfectly possible to be both blue collar and middle class there.
Yes, their "middle class" is our "working people", isn't it. Which is the trouble with categories that are too broad. And you could say Pidcock's is too broad since it includes most people. If we're not careful it plays into the hands of those who say class is irrelevant. That we're all just individuals, end of story.
I like that piece from Pidcock. You are working class if you (or earning partner) have to work for a living. There's more to it of course but that imo is a good start point.
The cultural aspect is not irrelevant but it's a soft subjective measure and lends itself to much posturing and affectation in all directions.
So Hyacinth Bucket is working class. Jamie Vardy is not working class.
I disagree with that.
For me, class is not defined by wealth. Beckham, for instance, will always be working class regardless of his riches. (I don`t see working class as in any way a derogatory term by the way.)
I don`t believe you can change your class. But I do believe that a child can be a different class to the parents. I`d say I`m working class (lower middle if you like) but my children are middle class (upper middle if you like).
That's too divorced from the hard realities of power and money and "capital vs labour" for me. But question for you -
When you say a child can be a different class to their parents you picture that one way only - child moving up - am I right?
Very much no, and I consider myself an example of the other direction.
That's interesting. But by which token - the Pidcock (money) or the Stocky (culture)?
Probably more culture, although I would note that when my grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, it made financial sense for my parents to have her live with us and my mum cared for her.
I'd say it's more about the sort of comprehensives that I went to. It wasn't until I took myself off to Godalming Sixth Form College is nice leafy Surrey that my education stopped being about making sure I got 5 A to Cs and started to be about what I should be aiming for. Sadly, that only came after I picked my A Levels and I regret some of the choices I made.
I like that piece from Pidcock. You are working class if you (or earning partner) have to work for a living. There's more to it of course but that imo is a good start point.
The cultural aspect is not irrelevant but it's a soft subjective measure and lends itself to much posturing and affectation in all directions.
So Hyacinth Bucket is working class. Jamie Vardy is not working class.
I disagree with that.
For me, class is not defined by wealth. Beckham, for instance, will always be working class regardless of his riches. (I don`t see working class as in any way a derogatory term by the way.)
I don`t believe you can change your class. But I do believe that a child can be a different class to the parents. I`d say I`m working class (lower middle if you like) but my children are middle class (upper middle if you like).
If you cannot change your class its defined entirely by your upbringing presumably, but theres just too much variety in that even among those if the same wealth level to make it useful in my view
I agree. I don`t find class useful.
Pidcock looks through a Marxist lens, of course. If you are merely separating the plebs from the bourgeoisie, those who work and those who own capital, that`s pretty unhelpful. Doesn`t get you far given the proportions of the population which fit each category.
I think it's substantially more useful, because those different groups have different material interests. Whereas you'd group together Beckham and the people he pays to clean his house.
Yes I would. And Hyacinth Bucket.
It may be useful to group people in terms of wealth, I agree, but then (I`d argue) we are not talking about class.
Hang on are you agreeing with me that Bucket is working class? That her modest means trumps her cultural pretensions?
People cannot even consistently agree on what left and right wing mean, theres no hope of agreeing the 3 or 7 or whatever classes we now have.
I would like to see the ONS take a lead on this. Create some new measures with distinct and clearly definited terms, not using the word "class" at all, one based on background and education, another on wealth, another on employment status. Standardise and promote awareness of them so this discussion isnt repeated with chaotic personal definitions of class in 20 years time.
I believe there are now seven social classes. You can even find out which one you are part of here:
I am a member of the Elite group, much to my dismay...
I am established middle class which is probably about right. But that is just yet another definition - it is not backed by the govt or ONS nor is it widely used.
My argument is that because we are all wedded to our own preferred and as this thread shows completely different definitions of class, its time to create alternative measures that are clear, specific and dont use the word class at all. It then needs to be promoted over a number of years by govt and ONS.
Is that the one from a few years ago, where some Professor from the established middle class created a new system with an idea to ease class stigma - then gave such a horrendously snobbish write up for the Technical Middle Classes (not cultured, don't do anything I'm interested in etc.) that he basically destroyed his ideals at a stroke.
There is no class 'system' worthy of the label anymore. That no two posters seem to be able to agree even on the loosest definition is fair evidence for that. Money, education and influence/power of course differentiate people, but such metrics bear little relation to any fixed ideas of class.
Mr. B, but that might be indicative (or additionally or alternatively) to the divisive nature of language.
Just look at human rights. The UN criticised the UK on these grounds when we had the temerity to evict squatting gypsies after a decade at Dale Farm, yet most people would think of North Korean concentration camps and the like when such a term is used.
Or social justice. It might be argued that vocabulary has never been as contentious.
I like that piece from Pidcock. You are working class if you (or earning partner) have to work for a living. There's more to it of course but that imo is a good start point.
The cultural aspect is not irrelevant but it's a soft subjective measure and lends itself to much posturing and affectation in all directions.
So Hyacinth Bucket is working class. Jamie Vardy is not working class.
The problem with Pillock is that she she's everything as class based, "the single most important aspect of a person’s life" which is rampant nonsense. She is right that many comfortably off people won't be if their income ceases and they can't replace it, but that isn't class based.
She concludes "For years, it was unfashionable, but in an economy like ours, it makes more and more sense. I am happy that the Labour Party, too, now foregrounds class politics and that we will go into a general election to speak for our class — working-class people, the majority of people."
Tell normals like in Leigh that they are working class and that is "about focusing on the collective power we have, and on solidarity" and they'll tell you to do one. And rightly so. Unless Starmer can bad aside that kind of language Labour are really going to lose their ability to speak to these voters in these places.
Totally agree with you about the challenge of presentation.
However, I concur with her that linking "working class" to how much money you have is a politically more useful concept than linking it to culture and attitudes.
Interesting in its own right, but gives some insight on how the November election is likely to be fought. Politico will be running a series of such articles on likely close contested House seats, and it looks well worth watching out for if you're interested in the contest.
I like that piece from Pidcock. You are working class if you (or earning partner) have to work for a living. There's more to it of course but that imo is a good start point.
The cultural aspect is not irrelevant but it's a soft subjective measure and lends itself to much posturing and affectation in all directions.
So Hyacinth Bucket is working class. Jamie Vardy is not working class.
The problem with Pillock is that she she's everything as class based, "the single most important aspect of a person’s life" which is rampant nonsense. She is right that many comfortably off people won't be if their income ceases and they can't replace it, but that isn't class based.
She concludes "For years, it was unfashionable, but in an economy like ours, it makes more and more sense. I am happy that the Labour Party, too, now foregrounds class politics and that we will go into a general election to speak for our class — working-class people, the majority of people."
Tell normals like in Leigh that they are working class and that is "about focusing on the collective power we have, and on solidarity" and they'll tell you to do one. And rightly so. Unless Starmer can bad aside that kind of language Labour are really going to lose their ability to speak to these voters in these places.
Totally agree with you about the challenge of presentation.
However, I concur with her that linking "working class" to how much money you have is a politically more useful concept than linking it to culture and attitudes.
If it includes debt Donald Trump would be working class for most of his life by her definition despite being one of the most exploitative capitalists in the world.
Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
You don't need to be a business owner to hope for better for your children. The problems come when business owners treat their employees like they're disposable and prevent them from realising their dreams for their children. Aspiration is not binary. I don't think it's at all helpful to view people as traitors to their class simply because they have made some money. But equally one might question whether they are still members of that class in the way that many people understand it. Although I have always been middle class I have certainly moved from one end of that wide envelope to the other in material terms over the course of my life, so I am certainly no stranger to, or enemy of, aspiration.
But your argument wasnt against bad business owners exploiting workers, it was that you cant be a working class business owner. Take a previously working class brickie who decides to employ five of his mates, they all work the same duties and hours but he happens to be the owner of the firm. On his first day of ownership does he automatically change class? Is he supposed to be aware of this?
Per Pidcock, you leave the working class at the point where you can live off your wealth. So with your example that would not be on the 1st day or anything close to it.
Usual caveat. Life is not so precise. But it's a helpful thought imo.
Under her definition, I'm still working class, then Kinabalu. That doesn't ring true, I own a flat in Hampstead and work for an international bank in investment markets. I'm the very definition of comfortable middle class.
Yes. She is saying you're working class, don't kid yourself otherwise. And so was I until I didn't have to do it anymore.
Totally understand that this is not definitive. It's a complex area that impinges on identity which is always sensitive.
But I do think her Marxist lens on it is a useful one to use. Certainly more useful than the other extreme - that class boils down to attitudes and as such is essentially self-defined. Not sure where that gets us.
Plus on a partisan political note. If Labour is the party of the working class it makes sense for them to define it to include most of the population.
At the moment Labour is the party of no class, it lost every class at the last general election including failing to win DEs for the first time, the Tories had their highest voteshare with skilled working class C2s which they won convincingly, so the Tories are now a more working class party than Labour
Labour have no class? I'm not sure how to take that.
I don't think it matters - Sunak is showing what the Next Generation can do. Locally my new Tory MP is a bit of a mixed bag. As an MP he's night and day better than James "Where's" Wharton his predecessor to 2017. He's backed the ExcludedUK group, he actually corresponds with constituents, he's held street surgeries in my town whereas Wharton utterly ignored any parts of the constituency that weren't solid Tory. Combine tht6with the promise of millions for regeration and I can see him building a solid base.
Expect she would be too left wing for a certain prominent poster who has rejoined recently after being rejected by Labour.
No I'd be fine with Layla. She wouldn't be as good or as successful as Ed but she'd be ok.
As with the Leigh piece in the Grauniad there is a real problem for Labour where so many of their activists cannot comprehend why towns voted Tory, and their only response is disdain and sneering abuse. I am clearly verboten having been a Labour member activist official and councillor for 25 years. Kill the defector - which would be ok except that you have people who voted Labour for ever going Tory, this government so far has more than delivered for them, and the Labour response is abuse.
I get the sense that moat of the stick that Johnson gets - fair as it is - goes over the head of many normals as just politics. What delivers for them is what motivates them, and providing Johnson and Sunak don't screw up when switching the money hose off im not sure it matters if Johnson stays on or not. These places are perfectly capable of staying blue, especially with BJO type activists knocking on doors
I did initially sympathise with you over you being prevented from rejoining. However, upon the news that your response was to rejoin the LDs having coincidentally experienced an immediate Damascene conversion such that never again would you buy anything coloured even the pinkest shade of red, I'm afraid that that sympathy disappeared.
I too left Labour in 2019 having had longer period of membership than you (35 years), but unlike you I didn't spend my time openly and visibly campaigning for another party against them at a local level before I rejoined immediately after the GE. Not only did you do that, but you also then had no qualms about immediately joining the LDs (again?) on being rejected by your local CLP. Had you waited a bit and then reapplied after a decent interval in a year or so I suspect you would have been accepted. So it's hard not to reach a conclusion that your local CLP were vindicated by your subsequent actions, and even the members who encouraged you to come back will surely be feeling the same.
It's worth bearing in mind that your case is also wholly exceptional. I'm not aware of any membership applications having been rejected here and there have been well over 100 joiners into the CLP since December. There have been over 100,000 new members joining nationally, and according to YouGov only 11% of those were intending to vote for Long-Bailey.
A few points: 1. I do keep pointing out that I am irrelevant. I do not make any claim to others being as mad as me to end up in a similar place, but as I keep being the topic of conversation... 2. The party were right to reject my lunatic attempt to rejoin for the wrong reasons. But that wasn't the CLP - I had the EC on board with voting in my favour. One of the "lets shout at Labour voters on the doorstep, vote Labour" types nobbled me at national level - the GC has absolute power to reject anyone they see fit for any reason. And she did, which is (was) entirely her right. My friends in the CLP were appalled 3. I had a mental crisis. I'd been part of something my entire adult life. I walked away and was comfortable having joined the LDs. Then a combination of being caged up at home, dealing with a pain in the bum Electoral Commission return and an increasingly acute need to Stop the absolute Hell that my existence has turned into pushed me over the edge. Starmer got elected, didn't impress me that much but was Not Corbyn, and my friends in Labour implored me to "come home". So a quick call to the CLP chair and I pulled the trigger. Madness. 4. I am not a socialist. Not any more. When you're in something, or you're trying to justify something to yourself you can find yourself saying stuff because you're supposed to rather than because you wisely should do. I'm not sure what that Damascean conversion you mention is. I want Starmer to succeed - we need to purge lunatics of all colours from politics. The LibDems couldn't work with Corbyn, but could work with Starmer.
Again, I'm irrelevant to what is going on out there. You good people have been a safe space for me to express myself during this rather interesting period in my political life, and I thank you all for it. But less about me would probably be a Good Thing!
Fair enough, I appreciate your frankness. From those comments though I think you should still leave the door slightly ajar to reassess things in a couple of years, once you've seen how things pan out under Starmer. Starmer will almost certainly succeed and for there to be anything other than perpetual Conservative government he will need to. I am sure the Lib Dems could work with a minority Starmer-led government but I am also pretty sure that if they are attracting away the votes of people like you the prospect of there being such a government will be more remote, thanks to the electoral mathematics.
My time in Labour is done. I realised that last year (it had been a steady build towards the point I walked) and it was screamingly obvious once my delusional "hey lets rejoin and smite the left" action kicked in. I would be very happy to see Starmer replace Johnson as PM and its good for everyone in politics including the Tories for Labour get its shit together finally.
I want to build something new. Can't do that in Labour. Can't pay lip service to stuff I don't believe in because they do.
I like that piece from Pidcock. You are working class if you (or earning partner) have to work for a living. There's more to it of course but that imo is a good start point.
The cultural aspect is not irrelevant but it's a soft subjective measure and lends itself to much posturing and affectation in all directions.
So Hyacinth Bucket is working class. Jamie Vardy is not working class.
I disagree with that.
For me, class is not defined by wealth. Beckham, for instance, will always be working class regardless of his riches. (I don`t see working class as in any way a derogatory term by the way.)
I don`t believe you can change your class. But I do believe that a child can be a different class to the parents. I`d say I`m working class (lower middle if you like) but my children are middle class (upper middle if you like).
That's too divorced from the hard realities of power and money and "capital vs labour" for me. But question for you -
When you say a child can be a different class to their parents you picture that one way only - child moving up - am I right?
Very much no, and I consider myself an example of the other direction.
That's interesting. But by which token - the Pidcock (money) or the Stocky (culture)?
Probably more culture, although I would note that when my grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, it made financial sense for my parents to have her live with us and my mum cared for her.
I'd say it's more about the sort of comprehensives that I went to. It wasn't until I took myself off to Godalming Sixth Form College is nice leafy Surrey that my education stopped being about making sure I got 5 A to Cs and started to be about what I should be aiming for. Sadly, that only came after I picked my A Levels and I regret some of the choices I made.
Ah, I see. Well I sense you're still young and therefore much can go right from here.
I like that piece from Pidcock. You are working class if you (or earning partner) have to work for a living. There's more to it of course but that imo is a good start point.
The cultural aspect is not irrelevant but it's a soft subjective measure and lends itself to much posturing and affectation in all directions.
So Hyacinth Bucket is working class. Jamie Vardy is not working class.
I disagree with that.
For me, class is not defined by wealth. Beckham, for instance, will always be working class regardless of his riches. (I don`t see working class as in any way a derogatory term by the way.)
I don`t believe you can change your class. But I do believe that a child can be a different class to the parents. I`d say I`m working class (lower middle if you like) but my children are middle class (upper middle if you like).
That's too divorced from the hard realities of power and money and "capital vs labour" for me. But question for you -
When you say a child can be a different class to their parents you picture that one way only - child moving up - am I right?
Clogs to clogs in three generations was an old Lancashire saying. My in-laws are a case study.
I think that less true nowadays. Purchase of advantage prevents much downward mobility, even when deserved.
I think that is one of the impacts of private education. It puts quite a high floor on downward mobility.
I like that piece from Pidcock. You are working class if you (or earning partner) have to work for a living. There's more to it of course but that imo is a good start point.
The cultural aspect is not irrelevant but it's a soft subjective measure and lends itself to much posturing and affectation in all directions.
So Hyacinth Bucket is working class. Jamie Vardy is not working class.
I disagree with that.
For me, class is not defined by wealth. Beckham, for instance, will always be working class regardless of his riches. (I don`t see working class as in any way a derogatory term by the way.)
I don`t believe you can change your class. But I do believe that a child can be a different class to the parents. I`d say I`m working class (lower middle if you like) but my children are middle class (upper middle if you like).
That's too divorced from the hard realities of power and money and "capital vs labour" for me. But question for you -
When you say a child can be a different class to their parents you picture that one way only - child moving up - am I right?
Very much no, and I consider myself an example of the other direction.
That's interesting. But by which token - the Pidcock (money) or the Stocky (culture)?
Probably more culture, although I would note that when my grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, it made financial sense for my parents to have her live with us and my mum cared for her.
I'd say it's more about the sort of comprehensives that I went to. It wasn't until I took myself off to Godalming Sixth Form College is nice leafy Surrey that my education stopped being about making sure I got 5 A to Cs and started to be about what I should be aiming for. Sadly, that only came after I picked my A Levels and I regret some of the choices I made.
Ah, I see. Well I sense you're still young and therefore much can go right from here.
Oh, don't worry, if I had kids they'd be middle class or whatever. No, it's more that so much of where your life goes is determined by decisions you make when you're young.
I can't remember where I read it, but someone made an observation at the BBC that there is a big class divide. Basically, those from a working class background tend to get jobs that require technical expertise. The fluffier bullshitty type of jobs are the preserve of the middle to upper classes.
I think that's probably true in a lot of organisations, both in the public and private sector.
I am starting to be a seller of Sunak for next leader.
The cracks are appearing in his colossal socialist experiment. The prosecutions for furlough fraud are starting, and reported to be the tip of the iceberg.
Lower down the thread we see the mind boggling sums spent on PPE and track and don;t trace for what looking more and more like dubious rewards every day.
His jobs initiatives and green subsides will be the next to come apart at the seams in my book, in the same way as every government initiative on these there ever was has foundered.
At some juncture he will have to go cap in hand to tory middle England to bankroll these and other socialist follies. A tory middle England that is already paying the highest taxes in fifty years. The push back will be enormous and may well cost Johnson his job. It would be no surprise now if Sunak went with him.
Sunak's position is worsening by the day.
Boris will not increase taxes he will borrow to fund increased spending, Starmer however would raise taxes on middle England
It is not Sunak's fault that people defrauded the system./
I think furlough has been quite widely abused. My spouse employing colleagues in the private sector are raking it in. Presumably true of a lot of small businesses. Not criminally, but not really its intention. I wonder if any MPs have done this.
I'm a director of a small business on a voluntary basis - a private members golf club (with most of our members definitely C2s, not your usual stereotype of golfers). We furloughed 7 of our 11 employees originally, 2 came back in May when the course reopened, 4 this month when the clubhouse and bar reopened, and 1 is going to return next month. It looks like we're now going to get a £7k from the public purse because we're re-employing all of them, but we were always going to do that anyway. Ker-ching.
Firms will re-employ staff, or not, based on the needs of their business going forward, not on whether the government is going to bung them enough to pay a couple of weeks' wages if they do so.
It's not abuse, but it's still a use of public money to reward the lucky recipient to no obvious public benefit. You could say exactly the same about public money lost to fraud.
Can someone explain how a duffer like Grayling keeps getting high level positions? The man is a disaster. I fully expect for all national secrets to leak to China.
He can be expected to do his master’s or mistress’s bidding.
Good morning Ms Cyclefree; how did your daughter's business cope last weekend? Apols if you've already dealt with this, but I don't log on all day every day.
You don't log on all day every day? Bizarre attitude.
I like that piece from Pidcock. You are working class if you (or earning partner) have to work for a living. There's more to it of course but that imo is a good start point.
The cultural aspect is not irrelevant but it's a soft subjective measure and lends itself to much posturing and affectation in all directions.
So Hyacinth Bucket is working class. Jamie Vardy is not working class.
I disagree with that.
For me, class is not defined by wealth. Beckham, for instance, will always be working class regardless of his riches. (I don`t see working class as in any way a derogatory term by the way.)
I don`t believe you can change your class. But I do believe that a child can be a different class to the parents. I`d say I`m working class (lower middle if you like) but my children are middle class (upper middle if you like).
That's too divorced from the hard realities of power and money and "capital vs labour" for me. But question for you -
When you say a child can be a different class to their parents you picture that one way only - child moving up - am I right?
Very much no, and I consider myself an example of the other direction.
That's interesting. But by which token - the Pidcock (money) or the Stocky (culture)?
Probably more culture, although I would note that when my grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, it made financial sense for my parents to have her live with us and my mum cared for her.
I'd say it's more about the sort of comprehensives that I went to. It wasn't until I took myself off to Godalming Sixth Form College is nice leafy Surrey that my education stopped being about making sure I got 5 A to Cs and started to be about what I should be aiming for. Sadly, that only came after I picked my A Levels and I regret some of the choices I made.
Ah, I see. Well I sense you're still young and therefore much can go right from here.
Oh, don't worry, if I had kids they'd be middle class or whatever. No, it's more that so much of where your life goes is determined by decisions you make when you're young.
I can't remember where I read it, but someone made an observation at the BBC that there is a big class divide. Basically, those from a working class background tend to get jobs that require technical expertise. The fluffier bullshitty type of jobs are the preserve of the middle to upper classes.
I think that's probably true in a lot of organisations, both in the public and private sector.
Is that class or public school? Obviously heavily linked but dont think a middle class state school kid gets the bullshitter high paying jobs either.
I like that piece from Pidcock. You are working class if you (or earning partner) have to work for a living. There's more to it of course but that imo is a good start point.
The cultural aspect is not irrelevant but it's a soft subjective measure and lends itself to much posturing and affectation in all directions.
So Hyacinth Bucket is working class. Jamie Vardy is not working class.
I disagree with that.
For me, class is not defined by wealth. Beckham, for instance, will always be working class regardless of his riches. (I don`t see working class as in any way a derogatory term by the way.)
I don`t believe you can change your class. But I do believe that a child can be a different class to the parents. I`d say I`m working class (lower middle if you like) but my children are middle class (upper middle if you like).
That's too divorced from the hard realities of power and money and "capital vs labour" for me. But question for you -
When you say a child can be a different class to their parents you picture that one way only - child moving up - am I right?
Clogs to clogs in three generations was an old Lancashire saying. My in-laws are a case study.
I think that less true nowadays. Purchase of advantage prevents much downward mobility, even when deserved.
I think that is one of the impacts of private education. It puts quite a high floor on downward mobility.
That is its primary function. Smart and motivated kids do perfectly well at all but the most dysfunctional state schools. Private education is there to create a glass floor and promote the spread of well-spoken mediocrities across privileged positions in society.
I like that piece from Pidcock. You are working class if you (or earning partner) have to work for a living. There's more to it of course but that imo is a good start point.
The cultural aspect is not irrelevant but it's a soft subjective measure and lends itself to much posturing and affectation in all directions.
So Hyacinth Bucket is working class. Jamie Vardy is not working class.
I disagree with that.
For me, class is not defined by wealth. Beckham, for instance, will always be working class regardless of his riches. (I don`t see working class as in any way a derogatory term by the way.)
I don`t believe you can change your class. But I do believe that a child can be a different class to the parents. I`d say I`m working class (lower middle if you like) but my children are middle class (upper middle if you like).
That's too divorced from the hard realities of power and money and "capital vs labour" for me. But question for you -
When you say a child can be a different class to their parents you picture that one way only - child moving up - am I right?
Very much no, and I consider myself an example of the other direction.
That's interesting. But by which token - the Pidcock (money) or the Stocky (culture)?
Probably more culture, although I would note that when my grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, it made financial sense for my parents to have her live with us and my mum cared for her.
I'd say it's more about the sort of comprehensives that I went to. It wasn't until I took myself off to Godalming Sixth Form College is nice leafy Surrey that my education stopped being about making sure I got 5 A to Cs and started to be about what I should be aiming for. Sadly, that only came after I picked my A Levels and I regret some of the choices I made.
Ah, I see. Well I sense you're still young and therefore much can go right from here.
Oh, don't worry, if I had kids they'd be middle class or whatever. No, it's more that so much of where your life goes is determined by decisions you make when you're young.
I can't remember where I read it, but someone made an observation at the BBC that there is a big class divide. Basically, those from a working class background tend to get jobs that require technical expertise. The fluffier bullshitty type of jobs are the preserve of the middle to upper classes.
I think that's probably true in a lot of organisations, both in the public and private sector.
Is that class or public school? Obviously heavily linked but dont think a middle class state school kid gets the bullshitter high paying jobs either.
I don't know, to be honest. Clearly the public schools contribute a decent number, but I think the Milibands show what can be achieved by those who go to the right kind of comps and have the right type of parents.
I don't think it matters - Sunak is showing what the Next Generation can do. Locally my new Tory MP is a bit of a mixed bag. As an MP he's night and day better than James "Where's" Wharton his predecessor to 2017. He's backed the ExcludedUK group, he actually corresponds with constituents, he's held street surgeries in my town whereas Wharton utterly ignored any parts of the constituency that weren't solid Tory. Combine tht6with the promise of millions for regeration and I can see him building a solid base.
Expect she would be too left wing for a certain prominent poster who has rejoined recently after being rejected by Labour.
No I'd be fine with Layla. She wouldn't be as good or as successful as Ed but she'd be ok.
As with the Leigh piece in the Grauniad there is a real problem for Labour where so many of their activists cannot comprehend why towns voted Tory, and their only response is disdain and sneering abuse. I am clearly verboten having been a Labour member activist official and councillor for 25 years. Kill the defector - which would be ok except that you have people who voted Labour for ever going Tory, this government so far has more than delivered for them, and the Labour response is abuse.
I get the sense that moat of the stick that Johnson gets - fair as it is - goes over the head of many normals as just politics. What delivers for them is what motivates them, and providing Johnson and Sunak don't screw up when switching the money hose off im not sure it matters if Johnson stays on or not. These places are perfectly capable of staying blue, especially with BJO type activists knocking on doors
I did initially sympathise with you over you being prevented from rejoining. However, upon the news that your response was to rejoin the LDs having coincidentally experienced an immediate Damascene conversion such that never again would you buy anything coloured even the pinkest shade of red, I'm afraid that that sympathy disappeared.
I too left Labour in 2019 having had longer period of membership than you (35 years), but unlike you I didn't spend my time openly and visibly campaigning for another party against them at a local level before I rejoined immediately after the GE. Not only did you do that, but you also then had no qualms about immediately joining the LDs (again?) on being rejected by your local CLP. Had you waited a bit and then reapplied after a decent interval in a year or so I suspect you would have been accepted. So it's hard not to reach a conclusion that your local CLP were vindicated by your subsequent actions, and even the members who encouraged you to come back will surely be feeling the same.
It's worth bearing in mind that your case is also wholly exceptional. I'm not aware of any membership applications having been rejected here and there have been well over 100 joiners into the CLP since December. There have been over 100,000 new members joining nationally, and according to YouGov only 11% of those were intending to vote for Long-Bailey.
A few points: 1. I do keep pointing out that I am irrelevant. I do not make any claim to others being as mad as me to end up in a similar place, but as I keep being the topic of conversation... 2. The party were right to reject my lunatic attempt to rejoin for the wrong reasons. But that wasn't the CLP - I had the EC on board with voting in my favour. One of the "lets shout at Labour voters on the doorstep, vote Labour" types nobbled me at national level - the GC has absolute power to reject anyone they see fit for any reason. And she did, which is (was) entirely her right. My friends in the CLP were appalled 3. I had a mental crisis. I'd been part of something my entire adult life. I walked away and was comfortable having joined the LDs. Then a combination of being caged up at home, dealing with a pain in the bum Electoral Commission return and an increasingly acute need to Stop the absolute Hell that my existence has turned into pushed me over the edge. Starmer got elected, didn't impress me that much but was Not Corbyn, and my friends in Labour implored me to "come home". So a quick call to the CLP chair and I pulled the trigger. Madness. 4. I am not a socialist. Not any more. When you're in something, or you're trying to justify something to yourself you can find yourself saying stuff because you're supposed to rather than because you wisely should do. I'm not sure what that Damascean conversion you mention is. I want Starmer to succeed - we need to purge lunatics of all colours from politics. The LibDems couldn't work with Corbyn, but could work with Starmer.
Again, I'm irrelevant to what is going on out there. You good people have been a safe space for me to express myself during this rather interesting period in my political life, and I thank you all for it. But less about me would probably be a Good Thing!
Fair enough, I appreciate your frankness. From those comments though I think you should still leave the door slightly ajar to reassess things in a couple of years, once you've seen how things pan out under Starmer. Starmer will almost certainly succeed and for there to be anything other than perpetual Conservative government he will need to. I am sure the Lib Dems could work with a minority Starmer-led government but I am also pretty sure that if they are attracting away the votes of people like you the prospect of there being such a government will be more remote, thanks to the electoral mathematics.
Simple answer and one which would give Starmer a boost (and the LibDems too) is for Labour to promise to bring in proportional representation - and not a top-down List system, STV.
I am starting to be a seller of Sunak for next leader.
The cracks are appearing in his colossal socialist experiment. The prosecutions for furlough fraud are starting, and reported to be the tip of the iceberg.
Lower down the thread we see the mind boggling sums spent on PPE and track and don;t trace for what looking more and more like dubious rewards every day.
His jobs initiatives and green subsides will be the next to come apart at the seams in my book, in the same way as every government initiative on these there ever was has foundered.
At some juncture he will have to go cap in hand to tory middle England to bankroll these and other socialist follies. A tory middle England that is already paying the highest taxes in fifty years. The push back will be enormous and may well cost Johnson his job. It would be no surprise now if Sunak went with him.
Sunak's position is worsening by the day.
Boris will not increase taxes he will borrow to fund increased spending, Starmer however would raise taxes on middle England
I liked that poll you posted on defunding the police in New York State. Paints a different picture to some of the US polling we have seen.
can Trump hang defund around Biden's neck? that has to be his strategy.
I like that piece from Pidcock. You are working class if you (or earning partner) have to work for a living. There's more to it of course but that imo is a good start point.
The cultural aspect is not irrelevant but it's a soft subjective measure and lends itself to much posturing and affectation in all directions.
So Hyacinth Bucket is working class. Jamie Vardy is not working class.
I disagree with that.
For me, class is not defined by wealth. Beckham, for instance, will always be working class regardless of his riches. (I don`t see working class as in any way a derogatory term by the way.)
I don`t believe you can change your class. But I do believe that a child can be a different class to the parents. I`d say I`m working class (lower middle if you like) but my children are middle class (upper middle if you like).
That's too divorced from the hard realities of power and money and "capital vs labour" for me. But question for you -
When you say a child can be a different class to their parents you picture that one way only - child moving up - am I right?
Very much no, and I consider myself an example of the other direction.
That's interesting. But by which token - the Pidcock (money) or the Stocky (culture)?
Probably more culture, although I would note that when my grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, it made financial sense for my parents to have her live with us and my mum cared for her.
I'd say it's more about the sort of comprehensives that I went to. It wasn't until I took myself off to Godalming Sixth Form College is nice leafy Surrey that my education stopped being about making sure I got 5 A to Cs and started to be about what I should be aiming for. Sadly, that only came after I picked my A Levels and I regret some of the choices I made.
Ah, I see. Well I sense you're still young and therefore much can go right from here.
Oh, don't worry, if I had kids they'd be middle class or whatever. No, it's more that so much of where your life goes is determined by decisions you make when you're young.
I can't remember where I read it, but someone made an observation at the BBC that there is a big class divide. Basically, those from a working class background tend to get jobs that require technical expertise. The fluffier bullshitty type of jobs are the preserve of the middle to upper classes.
I think that's probably true in a lot of organisations, both in the public and private sector.
Is that class or public school? Obviously heavily linked but dont think a middle class state school kid gets the bullshitter high paying jobs either.
State school middle class kids need a veneer of technical expertise even if there is a strong fluffy bullshit element. Eg in finance, economists=frequently state school; sales=almost always private. Public school people always give each other jobs, though. The one Old Etonian I know works for another one.
Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
You don't need to be a business owner to hope for better for your children. The problems come when business owners treat their employees like they're disposable and prevent them from realising their dreams for their children. Aspiration is not binary. I don't think it's at all helpful to view people as traitors to their class simply because they have made some money. But equally one might question whether they are still members of that class in the way that many people understand it. Although I have always been middle class I have certainly moved from one end of that wide envelope to the other in material terms over the course of my life, so I am certainly no stranger to, or enemy of, aspiration.
But your argument wasnt against bad business owners exploiting workers, it was that you cant be a working class business owner. Take a previously working class brickie who decides to employ five of his mates, they all work the same duties and hours but he happens to be the owner of the firm. On his first day of ownership does he automatically change class? Is he supposed to be aware of this?
Per Pidcock, you leave the working class at the point where you can live off your wealth. So with your example that would not be on the 1st day or anything close to it.
Usual caveat. Life is not so precise. But it's a helpful thought imo.
But its nonsense! So on retirement everyone stops being working class?
In this country its also perfectly possible to live off state benefits without ever doing a days work. Not fun or recommended, but do-able. So at birth we are all excluded from being working class.
On a personal level I could certainly retire early today and survive, just not at the level I would like to so will probably end up working another 15 years or so. Which level sets my class, my desired income, historic income or average income, or state sustenance?
I can answer these questions on Laura's behalf. On retirement you carry on being what you were before you retired. Being jobless on benefits does not count as living off your wealth because it is not living comfortably. Which means - let's put this out there - that your capital needs to be sufficient to generate an income of at least the average wage without any labour input from you. If you're in that boat you can only be "cultural" working class - which is the softer, subjective and imo less useful concept (albeit not irrelevant).
How do I know how long Im going to live? If its 75 Im excluded from working class on your definition, if l lived to 95 I would be eligible. This is silly.
It's silly if we get too literal about it. My point is mainly that of the 2 extremes - class is all about money or all about attitudes - I prefer the 1st one. I think that's more useful when it comes to the true economic interest of people (whether they see it or not).
But OK, since I don't like to dodge questions. We don't know how long you're going to live. But remember we've said that when you become a pensioner - at say 65 - you remain in the class you were in on the day before that event. Thus at this point we only need to ascertain if your wealth is sufficient to live comfortably on UNTIL you reach 65. If it is, you can be "Stocky" working class but not "Pidcock" working class.
I like that piece from Pidcock. You are working class if you (or earning partner) have to work for a living. There's more to it of course but that imo is a good start point.
The cultural aspect is not irrelevant but it's a soft subjective measure and lends itself to much posturing and affectation in all directions.
So Hyacinth Bucket is working class. Jamie Vardy is not working class.
I disagree with that.
For me, class is not defined by wealth. Beckham, for instance, will always be working class regardless of his riches. (I don`t see working class as in any way a derogatory term by the way.)
I don`t believe you can change your class. But I do believe that a child can be a different class to the parents. I`d say I`m working class (lower middle if you like) but my children are middle class (upper middle if you like).
That's too divorced from the hard realities of power and money and "capital vs labour" for me. But question for you -
When you say a child can be a different class to their parents you picture that one way only - child moving up - am I right?
Very much no, and I consider myself an example of the other direction.
That's interesting. But by which token - the Pidcock (money) or the Stocky (culture)?
Probably more culture, although I would note that when my grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, it made financial sense for my parents to have her live with us and my mum cared for her.
I'd say it's more about the sort of comprehensives that I went to. It wasn't until I took myself off to Godalming Sixth Form College is nice leafy Surrey that my education stopped being about making sure I got 5 A to Cs and started to be about what I should be aiming for. Sadly, that only came after I picked my A Levels and I regret some of the choices I made.
Ah, I see. Well I sense you're still young and therefore much can go right from here.
Oh, don't worry, if I had kids they'd be middle class or whatever. No, it's more that so much of where your life goes is determined by decisions you make when you're young.
I can't remember where I read it, but someone made an observation at the BBC that there is a big class divide. Basically, those from a working class background tend to get jobs that require technical expertise. The fluffier bullshitty type of jobs are the preserve of the middle to upper classes.
I think that's probably true in a lot of organisations, both in the public and private sector.
Is that class or public school? Obviously heavily linked but dont think a middle class state school kid gets the bullshitter high paying jobs either.
State school middle class kids need a veneer of technical expertise even if there is a strong fluffy bullshit element. Eg in finance, economists=frequently state school; sales=almost always private. Public school people always give each other jobs, though. The one Old Etonian I know works for another one.
That's an interesting observation. I always think of economists as being more likely to come from a middle class background because it isn't something taught at GCSE.
Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
You don't need to be a business owner to hope for better for your children. The problems come when business owners treat their employees like they're disposable and prevent them from realising their dreams for their children. Aspiration is not binary. I don't think it's at all helpful to view people as traitors to their class simply because they have made some money. But equally one might question whether they are still members of that class in the way that many people understand it. Although I have always been middle class I have certainly moved from one end of that wide envelope to the other in material terms over the course of my life, so I am certainly no stranger to, or enemy of, aspiration.
But your argument wasnt against bad business owners exploiting workers, it was that you cant be a working class business owner. Take a previously working class brickie who decides to employ five of his mates, they all work the same duties and hours but he happens to be the owner of the firm. On his first day of ownership does he automatically change class? Is he supposed to be aware of this?
Per Pidcock, you leave the working class at the point where you can live off your wealth. So with your example that would not be on the 1st day or anything close to it.
Usual caveat. Life is not so precise. But it's a helpful thought imo.
Under her definition, I'm still working class, then Kinabalu. That doesn't ring true, I own a flat in Hampstead and work for an international bank in investment markets. I'm the very definition of comfortable middle class.
Yes. She is saying you're working class, don't kid yourself otherwise. And so was I until I didn't have to do it anymore.
Totally understand that this is not definitive. It's a complex area that impinges on identity which is always sensitive.
But I do think her Marxist lens on it is a useful one to use. Certainly more useful than the other extreme - that class boils down to attitudes and as such is essentially self-defined. Not sure where that gets us.
Plus on a partisan political note. If Labour is the party of the working class it makes sense for them to define it to include most of the population.
Just occurred to me. If nowadays you can choose your Gender, surely you should be allowed to choose your Class. I suspect that those allowing the former might be against allowing the latter.
I am starting to be a seller of Sunak for next leader.
The cracks are appearing in his colossal socialist experiment. The prosecutions for furlough fraud are starting, and reported to be the tip of the iceberg.
Lower down the thread we see the mind boggling sums spent on PPE and track and don;t trace for what looking more and more like dubious rewards every day.
His jobs initiatives and green subsides will be the next to come apart at the seams in my book, in the same way as every government initiative on these there ever was has foundered.
At some juncture he will have to go cap in hand to tory middle England to bankroll these and other socialist follies. A tory middle England that is already paying the highest taxes in fifty years. The push back will be enormous and may well cost Johnson his job. It would be no surprise now if Sunak went with him.
Sunak's position is worsening by the day.
Boris will not increase taxes he will borrow to fund increased spending, Starmer however would raise taxes on middle England
It is not Sunak's fault that people defrauded the system./
I think furlough has been quite widely abused. My spouse employing colleagues in the private sector are raking it in. Presumably true of a lot of small businesses. Not criminally, but not really its intention. I wonder if any MPs have done this.
I'm a director of a small business on a voluntary basis - a private members golf club (with most of our members definitely C2s, not your usual stereotype of golfers). We furloughed 7 of our 11 employees originally, 2 came back in May when the course reopened, 4 this month when the clubhouse and bar reopened, and 1 is going to return next month. It looks like we're now going to get a £7k from the public purse because we're re-employing all of them, but we were always going to do that anyway. Ker-ching.
Firms will re-employ staff, or not, based on the needs of their business going forward, not on whether the government is going to bung them enough to pay a couple of weeks' wages if they do so.
It's not abuse, but it's still a use of public money to reward the lucky recipient to no obvious public benefit. You could say exactly the same about public money lost to fraud.
Grandson Two, as a sixth former, is employed part-time by the local golf club and of course has been furloughed, much to his father's surprise. And, to some degree, envy since he's been working right though and didn't furlough any of his staff for some time.
I am starting to be a seller of Sunak for next leader.
The cracks are appearing in his colossal socialist experiment. The prosecutions for furlough fraud are starting, and reported to be the tip of the iceberg.
Lower down the thread we see the mind boggling sums spent on PPE and track and don;t trace for what looking more and more like dubious rewards every day.
His jobs initiatives and green subsides will be the next to come apart at the seams in my book, in the same way as every government initiative on these there ever was has foundered.
At some juncture he will have to go cap in hand to tory middle England to bankroll these and other socialist follies. A tory middle England that is already paying the highest taxes in fifty years. The push back will be enormous and may well cost Johnson his job. It would be no surprise now if Sunak went with him.
Sunak's position is worsening by the day.
Boris will not increase taxes he will borrow to fund increased spending, Starmer however would raise taxes on middle England
It is not Sunak's fault that people defrauded the system./
I think furlough has been quite widely abused. My spouse employing colleagues in the private sector are raking it in. Presumably true of a lot of small businesses. Not criminally, but not really its intention. I wonder if any MPs have done this.
I'm a director of a small business on a voluntary basis - a private members golf club (with most of our members definitely C2s, not your usual stereotype of golfers). We furloughed 7 of our 11 employees originally, 2 came back in May when the course reopened, 4 this month when the clubhouse and bar reopened, and 1 is going to return next month. It looks like we're now going to get a £7k from the public purse because we're re-employing all of them, but we were always going to do that anyway. Ker-ching.
Firms will re-employ staff, or not, based on the needs of their business going forward, not on whether the government is going to bung them enough to pay a couple of weeks' wages if they do so.
It's not abuse, but it's still a use of public money to reward the lucky recipient to no obvious public benefit. You could say exactly the same about public money lost to fraud.
It's not abuse by the businesses I agree, more like a sugary treat for Tory supporters. Can't imagine the punters getting anything out of it.
I like that piece from Pidcock. You are working class if you (or earning partner) have to work for a living. There's more to it of course but that imo is a good start point.
The cultural aspect is not irrelevant but it's a soft subjective measure and lends itself to much posturing and affectation in all directions.
So Hyacinth Bucket is working class. Jamie Vardy is not working class.
I disagree with that.
For me, class is not defined by wealth. Beckham, for instance, will always be working class regardless of his riches. (I don`t see working class as in any way a derogatory term by the way.)
I don`t believe you can change your class. But I do believe that a child can be a different class to the parents. I`d say I`m working class (lower middle if you like) but my children are middle class (upper middle if you like).
That's too divorced from the hard realities of power and money and "capital vs labour" for me. But question for you -
When you say a child can be a different class to their parents you picture that one way only - child moving up - am I right?
Very much no, and I consider myself an example of the other direction.
That's interesting. But by which token - the Pidcock (money) or the Stocky (culture)?
Probably more culture, although I would note that when my grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, it made financial sense for my parents to have her live with us and my mum cared for her.
I'd say it's more about the sort of comprehensives that I went to. It wasn't until I took myself off to Godalming Sixth Form College is nice leafy Surrey that my education stopped being about making sure I got 5 A to Cs and started to be about what I should be aiming for. Sadly, that only came after I picked my A Levels and I regret some of the choices I made.
Ah, I see. Well I sense you're still young and therefore much can go right from here.
Oh, don't worry, if I had kids they'd be middle class or whatever. No, it's more that so much of where your life goes is determined by decisions you make when you're young.
I can't remember where I read it, but someone made an observation at the BBC that there is a big class divide. Basically, those from a working class background tend to get jobs that require technical expertise. The fluffier bullshitty type of jobs are the preserve of the middle to upper classes.
I think that's probably true in a lot of organisations, both in the public and private sector.
Is that class or public school? Obviously heavily linked but dont think a middle class state school kid gets the bullshitter high paying jobs either.
State school middle class kids need a veneer of technical expertise even if there is a strong fluffy bullshit element. Eg in finance, economists=frequently state school; sales=almost always private. Public school people always give each other jobs, though. The one Old Etonian I know works for another one.
That's an interesting observation. I always think of economists as being more likely to come from a middle class background because it isn't something taught at GCSE.
It might not often be taught, but it's available. Partly covered by Business Studies.
Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
You don't need to be a business owner to hope for better for your children. The problems come when business owners treat their employees like they're disposable and prevent them from realising their dreams for their children. Aspiration is not binary. I don't think it's at all helpful to view people as traitors to their class simply because they have made some money. But equally one might question whether they are still members of that class in the way that many people understand it. Although I have always been middle class I have certainly moved from one end of that wide envelope to the other in material terms over the course of my life, so I am certainly no stranger to, or enemy of, aspiration.
But your argument wasnt against bad business owners exploiting workers, it was that you cant be a working class business owner. Take a previously working class brickie who decides to employ five of his mates, they all work the same duties and hours but he happens to be the owner of the firm. On his first day of ownership does he automatically change class? Is he supposed to be aware of this?
Per Pidcock, you leave the working class at the point where you can live off your wealth. So with your example that would not be on the 1st day or anything close to it.
Usual caveat. Life is not so precise. But it's a helpful thought imo.
But its nonsense! So on retirement everyone stops being working class?
In this country its also perfectly possible to live off state benefits without ever doing a days work. Not fun or recommended, but do-able. So at birth we are all excluded from being working class.
On a personal level I could certainly retire early today and survive, just not at the level I would like to so will probably end up working another 15 years or so. Which level sets my class, my desired income, historic income or average income, or state sustenance?
I can answer these questions on Laura's behalf. On retirement you carry on being what you were before you retired. Being jobless on benefits does not count as living off your wealth because it is not living comfortably. Which means - let's put this out there - that your capital needs to be sufficient to generate an income of at least the average wage without any labour input from you. If you're in that boat you can only be "cultural" working class - which is the softer, subjective and imo less useful concept (albeit not irrelevant).
How do I know how long Im going to live? If its 75 Im excluded from working class on your definition, if l lived to 95 I would be eligible. This is silly.
It's silly if we get too literal about it. My point is mainly that of the 2 extremes - class is all about money or all about attitudes - I prefer the 1st one. I think that's more useful when it comes to the true economic interest of people (whether they see it or not).
But OK, since I don't like to dodge questions. We don't know how long you're going to live. But remember we've said that when you become a pensioner - at say 65 - you remain in the class you were in on the day before that event. Thus at this point we only need to ascertain if your wealth is sufficient to live comfortably on UNTIL you reach 65. If it is, you can be "Stocky" working class but not "Pidcock" working class.
Sorry to be a literal pedant and all that but it really is still nonsensical. At 64y 11m everyone is no longer working class, as they only need a months average wages. By the last day they only need one days average wages to prevent them being working class. At retirement date their class is fixed, so you have no working class retirees.
The group the Labour party has really lost are working class retirees.
I like that piece from Pidcock. You are working class if you (or earning partner) have to work for a living. There's more to it of course but that imo is a good start point.
The cultural aspect is not irrelevant but it's a soft subjective measure and lends itself to much posturing and affectation in all directions.
So Hyacinth Bucket is working class. Jamie Vardy is not working class.
I disagree with that.
For me, class is not defined by wealth. Beckham, for instance, will always be working class regardless of his riches. (I don`t see working class as in any way a derogatory term by the way.)
I don`t believe you can change your class. But I do believe that a child can be a different class to the parents. I`d say I`m working class (lower middle if you like) but my children are middle class (upper middle if you like).
If you cannot change your class its defined entirely by your upbringing presumably, but theres just too much variety in that even among those if the same wealth level to make it useful in my view
I agree. I don`t find class useful.
Pidcock looks through a Marxist lens, of course. If you are merely separating the plebs from the bourgeoisie, those who work and those who own capital, that`s pretty unhelpful. Doesn`t get you far given the proportions of the population which fit each category.
I think it's substantially more useful, because those different groups have different material interests. Whereas you'd group together Beckham and the people he pays to clean his house.
Yes I would. And Hyacinth Bucket.
It may be useful to group people in terms of wealth, I agree, but then (I`d argue) we are not talking about class.
Hang on are you agreeing with me that Bucket is working class? That her modest means trumps her cultural pretensions?
I`m not knowledgeable about the Bucket character - but I understand the joke is that she is working class pretending to be middle class? So, yes, I`m agreeing with you - she is and will always be working class. No matter what she thinks and no matter the wealth she has. But, as I`ve said, I don`t find class a particularly useful topic of discussion.
I am starting to be a seller of Sunak for next leader.
The cracks are appearing in his colossal socialist experiment. The prosecutions for furlough fraud are starting, and reported to be the tip of the iceberg.
Lower down the thread we see the mind boggling sums spent on PPE and track and don;t trace for what looking more and more like dubious rewards every day.
His jobs initiatives and green subsides will be the next to come apart at the seams in my book, in the same way as every government initiative on these there ever was has foundered.
At some juncture he will have to go cap in hand to tory middle England to bankroll these and other socialist follies. A tory middle England that is already paying the highest taxes in fifty years. The push back will be enormous and may well cost Johnson his job. It would be no surprise now if Sunak went with him.
Sunak's position is worsening by the day.
Boris will not increase taxes he will borrow to fund increased spending, Starmer however would raise taxes on middle England
It is not Sunak's fault that people defrauded the system./
I think furlough has been quite widely abused. My spouse employing colleagues in the private sector are raking it in. Presumably true of a lot of small businesses. Not criminally, but not really its intention. I wonder if any MPs have done this.
I'm a director of a small business on a voluntary basis - a private members golf club (with most of our members definitely C2s, not your usual stereotype of golfers). We furloughed 7 of our 11 employees originally, 2 came back in May when the course reopened, 4 this month when the clubhouse and bar reopened, and 1 is going to return next month. It looks like we're now going to get a £7k from the public purse because we're re-employing all of them, but we were always going to do that anyway. Ker-ching.
Firms will re-employ staff, or not, based on the needs of their business going forward, not on whether the government is going to bung them enough to pay a couple of weeks' wages if they do so.
It's not abuse, but it's still a use of public money to reward the lucky recipient to no obvious public benefit. You could say exactly the same about public money lost to fraud.
As Sunak acknowledged in his comments on deadweight loss. Doing anything more targeted takes longer, and ties up administrators, preventing them from looking at the next thing. Acting fast in emergencies - and it's hard to see our current state as anything other than a continuing economic emergency - comes with costs; acting slowly comes with arguably greater costs.
It is barely noticed in Westminster that, while across Europe millions of local officials were mobilised to care for, police, test and trace the Covid-19 pandemic, in Britain, some 2 million local government staff were simply ignored. I know of many who were left sitting on their hands while the shambles ensued in London. Their services and their knowledge of local communities were not called on. As the BBC’s Panoroma disclosed on Monday, private clinics and laboratories that came forward to help were disregarded. Rather than go local, Boris Johnson set out to recruit 250,000 untrained “volunteers” and build Nightingale hospitals. Both of these initiatives went largely unused. I am convinced the anti-local prejudice that rages in Whitehall is the major cause of Britain’s catastrophic Covid-19 response.
100% agree. Plus there is the extraordinary fact that, for example, the local governments that run Yorkshire (population 5.4 million) is treated as a collection of waste bin emptiers, the local government that runs Scotland (population 5.5 million) is treated as the Parliament of a major world power.
Dry your eyes mate, get off your arse and start campaigning; in 70 years or so your county might get the respect you think it deserves. These things aren't handed to you on a plate, regardless of how entitled you 'Devolution just isn't FAIR!' Johnnies feel.
I am starting to be a seller of Sunak for next leader.
The cracks are appearing in his colossal socialist experiment. The prosecutions for furlough fraud are starting, and reported to be the tip of the iceberg.
Lower down the thread we see the mind boggling sums spent on PPE and track and don;t trace for what looking more and more like dubious rewards every day.
His jobs initiatives and green subsides will be the next to come apart at the seams in my book, in the same way as every government initiative on these there ever was has foundered.
At some juncture he will have to go cap in hand to tory middle England to bankroll these and other socialist follies. A tory middle England that is already paying the highest taxes in fifty years. The push back will be enormous and may well cost Johnson his job. It would be no surprise now if Sunak went with him.
Sunak's position is worsening by the day.
Boris will not increase taxes he will borrow to fund increased spending, Starmer however would raise taxes on middle England
I liked that poll you posted on defunding the police in New York State. Paints a different picture to some of the US polling we have seen.
can Trump hang defund around Biden's neck? that has to be his strategy.
No he can't, Biden is too well known.
And has, in any event, publicly disavowed the concept.
I like that piece from Pidcock. You are working class if you (or earning partner) have to work for a living. There's more to it of course but that imo is a good start point.
The cultural aspect is not irrelevant but it's a soft subjective measure and lends itself to much posturing and affectation in all directions.
So Hyacinth Bucket is working class. Jamie Vardy is not working class.
The problem with Pillock is that she she's everything as class based, "the single most important aspect of a person’s life" which is rampant nonsense. She is right that many comfortably off people won't be if their income ceases and they can't replace it, but that isn't class based.
She concludes "For years, it was unfashionable, but in an economy like ours, it makes more and more sense. I am happy that the Labour Party, too, now foregrounds class politics and that we will go into a general election to speak for our class — working-class people, the majority of people."
Tell normals like in Leigh that they are working class and that is "about focusing on the collective power we have, and on solidarity" and they'll tell you to do one. And rightly so. Unless Starmer can bad aside that kind of language Labour are really going to lose their ability to speak to these voters in these places.
Totally agree with you about the challenge of presentation.
However, I concur with her that linking "working class" to how much money you have is a politically more useful concept than linking it to culture and attitudes.
Linking groups to anything is in no way useful. This is why identity politics which your form of class politics is doesnt work. How much money I have would put me in the same group as a friend who works in a shop. What we want a government to do however would be very different. How then is it in anyway useful classing as both part of the same group. The same applies when you try and think of all other groups....members of the group want different things from each other
I like that piece from Pidcock. You are working class if you (or earning partner) have to work for a living. There's more to it of course but that imo is a good start point.
The cultural aspect is not irrelevant but it's a soft subjective measure and lends itself to much posturing and affectation in all directions.
So Hyacinth Bucket is working class. Jamie Vardy is not working class.
I disagree with that.
For me, class is not defined by wealth. Beckham, for instance, will always be working class regardless of his riches. (I don`t see working class as in any way a derogatory term by the way.)
I don`t believe you can change your class. But I do believe that a child can be a different class to the parents. I`d say I`m working class (lower middle if you like) but my children are middle class (upper middle if you like).
That's too divorced from the hard realities of power and money and "capital vs labour" for me. But question for you -
When you say a child can be a different class to their parents you picture that one way only - child moving up - am I right?
Very much no, and I consider myself an example of the other direction.
That's interesting. But by which token - the Pidcock (money) or the Stocky (culture)?
Probably more culture, although I would note that when my grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, it made financial sense for my parents to have her live with us and my mum cared for her.
I'd say it's more about the sort of comprehensives that I went to. It wasn't until I took myself off to Godalming Sixth Form College is nice leafy Surrey that my education stopped being about making sure I got 5 A to Cs and started to be about what I should be aiming for. Sadly, that only came after I picked my A Levels and I regret some of the choices I made.
Ah, I see. Well I sense you're still young and therefore much can go right from here.
Oh, don't worry, if I had kids they'd be middle class or whatever. No, it's more that so much of where your life goes is determined by decisions you make when you're young.
I can't remember where I read it, but someone made an observation at the BBC that there is a big class divide. Basically, those from a working class background tend to get jobs that require technical expertise. The fluffier bullshitty type of jobs are the preserve of the middle to upper classes.
I think that's probably true in a lot of organisations, both in the public and private sector.
Well I will worry - but thanks for the reassurance. And yes, I think you're right on both scores. Decisions get made when young that you come to realize later were BIG decisions and this can work both ways depending on pure luck half the time. "I'm so glad I did that" vs "Oh if only I could go back".
Public school confidence leading to lifelong success as a bullshitter? - look no further than 10 Downing St.
I like that piece from Pidcock. You are working class if you (or earning partner) have to work for a living. There's more to it of course but that imo is a good start point.
The cultural aspect is not irrelevant but it's a soft subjective measure and lends itself to much posturing and affectation in all directions.
So Hyacinth Bucket is working class. Jamie Vardy is not working class.
I disagree with that.
For me, class is not defined by wealth. Beckham, for instance, will always be working class regardless of his riches. (I don`t see working class as in any way a derogatory term by the way.)
I don`t believe you can change your class. But I do believe that a child can be a different class to the parents. I`d say I`m working class (lower middle if you like) but my children are middle class (upper middle if you like).
That's too divorced from the hard realities of power and money and "capital vs labour" for me. But question for you -
When you say a child can be a different class to their parents you picture that one way only - child moving up - am I right?
Very much no, and I consider myself an example of the other direction.
That's interesting. But by which token - the Pidcock (money) or the Stocky (culture)?
Probably more culture, although I would note that when my grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, it made financial sense for my parents to have her live with us and my mum cared for her.
I'd say it's more about the sort of comprehensives that I went to. It wasn't until I took myself off to Godalming Sixth Form College is nice leafy Surrey that my education stopped being about making sure I got 5 A to Cs and started to be about what I should be aiming for. Sadly, that only came after I picked my A Levels and I regret some of the choices I made.
Ah, I see. Well I sense you're still young and therefore much can go right from here.
Oh, don't worry, if I had kids they'd be middle class or whatever. No, it's more that so much of where your life goes is determined by decisions you make when you're young.
I can't remember where I read it, but someone made an observation at the BBC that there is a big class divide. Basically, those from a working class background tend to get jobs that require technical expertise. The fluffier bullshitty type of jobs are the preserve of the middle to upper classes.
I think that's probably true in a lot of organisations, both in the public and private sector.
Is that class or public school? Obviously heavily linked but dont think a middle class state school kid gets the bullshitter high paying jobs either.
State school middle class kids need a veneer of technical expertise even if there is a strong fluffy bullshit element. Eg in finance, economists=frequently state school; sales=almost always private. Public school people always give each other jobs, though. The one Old Etonian I know works for another one.
That's an interesting observation. I always think of economists as being more likely to come from a middle class background because it isn't something taught at GCSE.
It might not often be taught, but it's available. Partly covered by Business Studies.
I'd have done business studies GCSE had I not been forced by my school to do religious education.
I am starting to be a seller of Sunak for next leader.
The cracks are appearing in his colossal socialist experiment. The prosecutions for furlough fraud are starting, and reported to be the tip of the iceberg.
Lower down the thread we see the mind boggling sums spent on PPE and track and don;t trace for what looking more and more like dubious rewards every day.
His jobs initiatives and green subsides will be the next to come apart at the seams in my book, in the same way as every government initiative on these there ever was has foundered.
At some juncture he will have to go cap in hand to tory middle England to bankroll these and other socialist follies. A tory middle England that is already paying the highest taxes in fifty years. The push back will be enormous and may well cost Johnson his job. It would be no surprise now if Sunak went with him.
Sunak's position is worsening by the day.
Boris will not increase taxes he will borrow to fund increased spending, Starmer however would raise taxes on middle England
It is not Sunak's fault that people defrauded the system./
I think furlough has been quite widely abused. My spouse employing colleagues in the private sector are raking it in. Presumably true of a lot of small businesses. Not criminally, but not really its intention. I wonder if any MPs have done this.
I'm a director of a small business on a voluntary basis - a private members golf club (with most of our members definitely C2s, not your usual stereotype of golfers). We furloughed 7 of our 11 employees originally, 2 came back in May when the course reopened, 4 this month when the clubhouse and bar reopened, and 1 is going to return next month. It looks like we're now going to get a £7k from the public purse because we're re-employing all of them, but we were always going to do that anyway. Ker-ching.
Firms will re-employ staff, or not, based on the needs of their business going forward, not on whether the government is going to bung them enough to pay a couple of weeks' wages if they do so.
It's not abuse, but it's still a use of public money to reward the lucky recipient to no obvious public benefit. You could say exactly the same about public money lost to fraud.
Another way to look at it is that it is effectively a Government subsidy for keeping firms in business and the wheels in motion. Take Phil's comment: his small business gets £7K extra of public money that it could use to pay bills outstanding that generates cash for someone else etc. That might be the main purpose of it as well as encouraging people to keep workers - if it is, as long as firms do not just hoard cash (which is a possibility), I am happy with it.
I like that piece from Pidcock. You are working class if you (or earning partner) have to work for a living. There's more to it of course but that imo is a good start point.
The cultural aspect is not irrelevant but it's a soft subjective measure and lends itself to much posturing and affectation in all directions.
So Hyacinth Bucket is working class. Jamie Vardy is not working class.
I disagree with that.
For me, class is not defined by wealth. Beckham, for instance, will always be working class regardless of his riches. (I don`t see working class as in any way a derogatory term by the way.)
I don`t believe you can change your class. But I do believe that a child can be a different class to the parents. I`d say I`m working class (lower middle if you like) but my children are middle class (upper middle if you like).
That's too divorced from the hard realities of power and money and "capital vs labour" for me. But question for you -
When you say a child can be a different class to their parents you picture that one way only - child moving up - am I right?
Clogs to clogs in three generations was an old Lancashire saying. My in-laws are a case study.
I think that less true nowadays. Purchase of advantage prevents much downward mobility, even when deserved.
I think that is one of the impacts of private education. It puts quite a high floor on downward mobility.
That is its primary function. Smart and motivated kids do perfectly well at all but the most dysfunctional state schools. Private education is there to create a glass floor and promote the spread of well-spoken mediocrities across privileged positions in society.
Which is of great value to those in the latter group and their families. Fees justified from their point of view.
Still, as per yesterday, although a meritocracy would be a step forward it's not what I regard as the dream.
This discussion about class is totally outdated, what you are is a marketing target segment along the lines of PRISM and other demographic classifications. We’re only here to make other people money but at least if the application of marketing segment is accurate you may get offers you are interested in. As an aside the SDP used this demographic segmentation to recruit members, if I remember correctly it was mondo driving red wine drinkers who belonged to the national trust.
A layer that is rarely discussed and hasn't been on here is the underclass, benefit dependent, mostly single parents, alcohol and drug abuse, low level education. I'd guess they make up 10% of the electorate and very few of them vote.
I can't imagine many on here come anywhere near these people in every respect.
Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
You don't need to be a business owner to hope for better for your children. The problems come when business owners treat their employees like they're disposable and prevent them from realising their dreams for their children. Aspiration is not binary. I don't think it's at all helpful to view people as traitors to their class simply because they have made some money. But equally one might question whether they are still members of that class in the way that many people understand it. Although I have always been middle class I have certainly moved from one end of that wide envelope to the other in material terms over the course of my life, so I am certainly no stranger to, or enemy of, aspiration.
But your argument wasnt against bad business owners exploiting workers, it was that you cant be a working class business owner. Take a previously working class brickie who decides to employ five of his mates, they all work the same duties and hours but he happens to be the owner of the firm. On his first day of ownership does he automatically change class? Is he supposed to be aware of this?
Per Pidcock, you leave the working class at the point where you can live off your wealth. So with your example that would not be on the 1st day or anything close to it.
Usual caveat. Life is not so precise. But it's a helpful thought imo.
But its nonsense! So on retirement everyone stops being working class?
In this country its also perfectly possible to live off state benefits without ever doing a days work. Not fun or recommended, but do-able. So at birth we are all excluded from being working class.
On a personal level I could certainly retire early today and survive, just not at the level I would like to so will probably end up working another 15 years or so. Which level sets my class, my desired income, historic income or average income, or state sustenance?
I can answer these questions on Laura's behalf. On retirement you carry on being what you were before you retired. Being jobless on benefits does not count as living off your wealth because it is not living comfortably. Which means - let's put this out there - that your capital needs to be sufficient to generate an income of at least the average wage without any labour input from you. If you're in that boat you can only be "cultural" working class - which is the softer, subjective and imo less useful concept (albeit not irrelevant).
How do I know how long Im going to live? If its 75 Im excluded from working class on your definition, if l lived to 95 I would be eligible. This is silly.
It's silly if we get too literal about it. My point is mainly that of the 2 extremes - class is all about money or all about attitudes - I prefer the 1st one. I think that's more useful when it comes to the true economic interest of people (whether they see it or not).
But OK, since I don't like to dodge questions. We don't know how long you're going to live. But remember we've said that when you become a pensioner - at say 65 - you remain in the class you were in on the day before that event. Thus at this point we only need to ascertain if your wealth is sufficient to live comfortably on UNTIL you reach 65. If it is, you can be "Stocky" working class but not "Pidcock" working class.
Sorry to be a literal pedant and all that but it really is still nonsensical. At 64y 11m everyone is no longer working class, as they only need a months average wages. By the last day they only need one days average wages to prevent them being working class. At retirement date their class is fixed, so you have no working class retirees.
The group the Labour party has really lost are working class retirees.
So far as local government is concerned I think things have been horribly patchy. A good friend of my daughter is a social worker. She described a very variable picture. In Angus she and her colleagues have been seeing those children identified as the most vulnerable weekly and have taken them to hotels etc overnight where they were thought to be at risk. The second category have been seen fortnightly with telephone calls in the intervening weeks. The least at risk have only been "seen" virtually by phone.
This is immensely better than Dundee has managed. There, actual visits to children thought to have been at risk pre lockdown have been almost non existent. These kids have lost their social workers, their school, their pals and are stuck in the house with parents with real issues from drug and alcohol abuse to mental health problems of their own. God knows what has happened to them. A recent report in the local press said that drug deaths in Dundee, which already had the worst death rate in Europe, have soared in the lockdown.
The idea that there was some magical local resource that the government has failed to take advantage of when it cannot even provide the services that it is supposed to to protect our most vulnerable is just a bit far fetched.
Doesn't sound good. Has Dundee something else on it's hands, or is it, so far as you can see, straightforward inability to cope, or lack of imagination?
Dundee has a really chronic problem with drugs and this has aggravated mental health issues in the city. It has a lot of poor housing and very poor leadership.
Although there have been successes in the City, such as the Welcome trust expansion of the University, the R&A museum and some games makers they have provided a smallish number of jobs compared with the large number of semi-skilled jobs that have been lost from the likes of NCR and, in the last month, the closure of Michelin which has been coming for 2 years. This has drained money out of the City. You could see the consequences in the shopping centres in Dundee pre lockdown. I dread to think what we are going to see over the next year.
Dundee has an R&A museum? I wouldn't have thought portly Pringle wearers would be the saviour of anywhere bar St Andrews, but whatever it takes..
A layer that is rarely discussed and hasn't been on here is the underclass, benefit dependent, mostly single parents, alcohol and drug abuse, low level education. I'd guess they make up 10% of the electorate and very few of them vote.
I can't imagine many on here come anywhere near these people in every respect.
I am starting to be a seller of Sunak for next leader.
The cracks are appearing in his colossal socialist experiment. The prosecutions for furlough fraud are starting, and reported to be the tip of the iceberg.
Lower down the thread we see the mind boggling sums spent on PPE and track and don;t trace for what looking more and more like dubious rewards every day.
His jobs initiatives and green subsides will be the next to come apart at the seams in my book, in the same way as every government initiative on these there ever was has foundered.
At some juncture he will have to go cap in hand to tory middle England to bankroll these and other socialist follies. A tory middle England that is already paying the highest taxes in fifty years. The push back will be enormous and may well cost Johnson his job. It would be no surprise now if Sunak went with him.
Sunak's position is worsening by the day.
Boris will not increase taxes he will borrow to fund increased spending, Starmer however would raise taxes on middle England
It is not Sunak's fault that people defrauded the system./
I think furlough has been quite widely abused. My spouse employing colleagues in the private sector are raking it in. Presumably true of a lot of small businesses. Not criminally, but not really its intention. I wonder if any MPs have done this.
I'm a director of a small business on a voluntary basis - a private members golf club (with most of our members definitely C2s, not your usual stereotype of golfers). We furloughed 7 of our 11 employees originally, 2 came back in May when the course reopened, 4 this month when the clubhouse and bar reopened, and 1 is going to return next month. It looks like we're now going to get a £7k from the public purse because we're re-employing all of them, but we were always going to do that anyway. Ker-ching.
Firms will re-employ staff, or not, based on the needs of their business going forward, not on whether the government is going to bung them enough to pay a couple of weeks' wages if they do so.
It's not abuse, but it's still a use of public money to reward the lucky recipient to no obvious public benefit. You could say exactly the same about public money lost to fraud.
It does seem to be an odd measure. I suppose the idea is to prop up payrolls for a short while longer and hope the recovery takes off very quickly.
A layer that is rarely discussed and hasn't been on here is the underclass, benefit dependent, mostly single parents, alcohol and drug abuse, low level education. I'd guess they make up 10% of the electorate and very few of them vote.
I can't imagine many on here come anywhere near these people in every respect.
I do.
In which case you'll know who I'm talking about. Its an ever growing layer of society
Yes but. What's the solution? For the US Right it is more and more powerful weapons in the hands of Police and everyone else. That isn't working.
Listening to the quotes from the people in those neighbourhoods, what they want to quell the problem is more police on the streets, not discussions on systemic racism.
I agree kitting out the US Police as though they are a mini-army is not the best way of dealing with things but there is an argument for saying you need more cops out and about.
As has been pointed out, if you "defund" the Police / fewer Police, the ones that get impacted the most are the poor. The wealthy can afford to hire their own armed security guards (South Africa as an example)
People cannot even consistently agree on what left and right wing mean, theres no hope of agreeing the 3 or 7 or whatever classes we now have.
I would like to see the ONS take a lead on this. Create some new measures with distinct and clearly definited terms, not using the word "class" at all, one based on background and education, another on wealth, another on employment status. Standardise and promote awareness of them so this discussion isnt repeated with chaotic personal definitions of class in 20 years time.
I believe there are now seven social classes. You can even find out which one you are part of here:
A layer that is rarely discussed and hasn't been on here is the underclass, benefit dependent, mostly single parents, alcohol and drug abuse, low level education. I'd guess they make up 10% of the electorate and very few of them vote.
I can't imagine many on here come anywhere near these people in every respect.
I do.
In which case you'll know who I'm talking about. Its an ever growing layer of society
Is it growing? I don't know. However, the issues you outline are separate but often complimentary and tend tore-inforce each other. Because they don't vote no Party is interested in extra mental health, drug and alcohol treatment, or in proper further and remedial education and training. They only become interested when it becomes crime against persons or property. When folk enter the criminal justice system the battle is largely lost.
So far as local government is concerned I think things have been horribly patchy. A good friend of my daughter is a social worker. She described a very variable picture. In Angus she and her colleagues have been seeing those children identified as the most vulnerable weekly and have taken them to hotels etc overnight where they were thought to be at risk. The second category have been seen fortnightly with telephone calls in the intervening weeks. The least at risk have only been "seen" virtually by phone.
This is immensely better than Dundee has managed. There, actual visits to children thought to have been at risk pre lockdown have been almost non existent. These kids have lost their social workers, their school, their pals and are stuck in the house with parents with real issues from drug and alcohol abuse to mental health problems of their own. God knows what has happened to them. A recent report in the local press said that drug deaths in Dundee, which already had the worst death rate in Europe, have soared in the lockdown.
The idea that there was some magical local resource that the government has failed to take advantage of when it cannot even provide the services that it is supposed to to protect our most vulnerable is just a bit far fetched.
Doesn't sound good. Has Dundee something else on it's hands, or is it, so far as you can see, straightforward inability to cope, or lack of imagination?
Dundee has a really chronic problem with drugs and this has aggravated mental health issues in the city. It has a lot of poor housing and very poor leadership.
Although there have been successes in the City, such as the Welcome trust expansion of the University, the R&A museum and some games makers they have provided a smallish number of jobs compared with the large number of semi-skilled jobs that have been lost from the likes of NCR and, in the last month, the closure of Michelin which has been coming for 2 years. This has drained money out of the City. You could see the consequences in the shopping centres in Dundee pre lockdown. I dread to think what we are going to see over the next year.
Dundee has an R&A museum? I wouldn't have thought portly Pringle wearers would be the saviour of anywhere bar St Andrews, but whatever it takes..
I think he must mean the V&A branch, obviously. But there are also the RRS Discovery and HMS Unicorn for those of us more interested in ships.
Yes but. What's the solution? For the US Right it is more and more powerful weapons in the hands of Police and everyone else. That isn't working.
Listening to the quotes from the people in those neighbourhoods, what they want to quell the problem is more police on the streets, not discussions on systemic racism.
I agree kitting out the US Police as though they are a mini-army is not the best way of dealing with things but there is an argument for saying you need more cops out and about.
As has been pointed out, if you "defund" the Police / fewer Police, the ones that get impacted the most are the poor. The wealthy can afford to hire their own armed security guards (South Africa as an example)
Dixiedean:
You also need more social, mental health, drug and alcohol and youth workers, as well as education services. More and more of these functions have been laid off on a Police force neither trained nor often willing to tackle them. These are woefully lacking.
I like that piece from Pidcock. You are working class if you (or earning partner) have to work for a living. There's more to it of course but that imo is a good start point.
The cultural aspect is not irrelevant but it's a soft subjective measure and lends itself to much posturing and affectation in all directions.
So Hyacinth Bucket is working class. Jamie Vardy is not working class.
I disagree with that.
For me, class is not defined by wealth. Beckham, for instance, will always be working class regardless of his riches. (I don`t see working class as in any way a derogatory term by the way.)
I don`t believe you can change your class. But I do believe that a child can be a different class to the parents. I`d say I`m working class (lower middle if you like) but my children are middle class (upper middle if you like).
If you cannot change your class its defined entirely by your upbringing presumably, but theres just too much variety in that even among those if the same wealth level to make it useful in my view
I agree. I don`t find class useful.
Pidcock looks through a Marxist lens, of course. If you are merely separating the plebs from the bourgeoisie, those who work and those who own capital, that`s pretty unhelpful. Doesn`t get you far given the proportions of the population which fit each category.
I think it's substantially more useful, because those different groups have different material interests. Whereas you'd group together Beckham and the people he pays to clean his house.
Yes I would. And Hyacinth Bucket.
It may be useful to group people in terms of wealth, I agree, but then (I`d argue) we are not talking about class.
Hang on are you agreeing with me that Bucket is working class? That her modest means trumps her cultural pretensions?
I`m not knowledgeable about the Bucket character - but I understand the joke is that she is working class pretending to be middle class? So, yes, I`m agreeing with you - she is and will always be working class. No matter what she thinks and no matter the wealth she has. But, as I`ve said, I don`t find class a particularly useful topic of discussion.
OK. I think I spy a fly in your ointment on this one but I will take the hint. Some other time.
"Keeping Up Appearances" - Gently amusing at times but not the greatest show. Wouldn't go out of your way to hunt it down.
People cannot even consistently agree on what left and right wing mean, theres no hope of agreeing the 3 or 7 or whatever classes we now have.
I would like to see the ONS take a lead on this. Create some new measures with distinct and clearly definited terms, not using the word "class" at all, one based on background and education, another on wealth, another on employment status. Standardise and promote awareness of them so this discussion isnt repeated with chaotic personal definitions of class in 20 years time.
I believe there are now seven social classes. You can even find out which one you are part of here:
I am a member of the Elite group, much to my dismay...
But it doesn't say what % of the country falls into each of the 7.
If (say) 15% are scoring Elite that would devalue the label.
It does at the end, 6% are Elite, 25% established middle class, 6% technical middle class, 15% new affluent workers, 14% traditional working class, 19% emergent service workers and 15% Precariat
A layer that is rarely discussed and hasn't been on here is the underclass, benefit dependent, mostly single parents, alcohol and drug abuse, low level education. I'd guess they make up 10% of the electorate and very few of them vote.
I can't imagine many on here come anywhere near these people in every respect.
I do.
In which case you'll know who I'm talking about. Its an ever growing layer of society
Is it growing? I don't know. However, the issues you outline are separate but often complimentary and tend tore-inforce each other. Because they don't vote no Party is interested in extra mental health, drug and alcohol treatment, or in proper further and remedial education and training. They only become interested when it becomes crime against persons or property. When folk enter the criminal justice system the battle is largely lost.
A short while ago a poster was talking about social issues in Dundee, he could have been discussing virtually anywhere in the country.
I assume you're in Liverpool? I was there this time last year, some great places but in the city centre the beggars were lined up every 50 yards or so, some had card terminals!
I'm sorry to say there is an underbelly that is rotten and growing, I've no idea how to stop or correct it.
I am starting to be a seller of Sunak for next leader.
The cracks are appearing in his colossal socialist experiment. The prosecutions for furlough fraud are starting, and reported to be the tip of the iceberg.
Lower down the thread we see the mind boggling sums spent on PPE and track and don;t trace for what looking more and more like dubious rewards every day.
His jobs initiatives and green subsides will be the next to come apart at the seams in my book, in the same way as every government initiative on these there ever was has foundered.
At some juncture he will have to go cap in hand to tory middle England to bankroll these and other socialist follies. A tory middle England that is already paying the highest taxes in fifty years. The push back will be enormous and may well cost Johnson his job. It would be no surprise now if Sunak went with him.
Sunak's position is worsening by the day.
Boris will not increase taxes he will borrow to fund increased spending, Starmer however would raise taxes on middle England
I have found a flaw in your plan. What if Boris wins, and Starmer is not PM in 4 years time? Does the magic money tree work for a full ten years?
I like that piece from Pidcock. You are working class if you (or earning partner) have to work for a living. There's more to it of course but that imo is a good start point.
The cultural aspect is not irrelevant but it's a soft subjective measure and lends itself to much posturing and affectation in all directions.
So Hyacinth Bucket is working class. Jamie Vardy is not working class.
I disagree with that.
For me, class is not defined by wealth. Beckham, for instance, will always be working class regardless of his riches. (I don`t see working class as in any way a derogatory term by the way.)
I don`t believe you can change your class. But I do believe that a child can be a different class to the parents. I`d say I`m working class (lower middle if you like) but my children are middle class (upper middle if you like).
That's too divorced from the hard realities of power and money and "capital vs labour" for me. But question for you -
When you say a child can be a different class to their parents you picture that one way only - child moving up - am I right?
Very much no, and I consider myself an example of the other direction.
That's interesting. But by which token - the Pidcock (money) or the Stocky (culture)?
Probably more culture, although I would note that when my grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, it made financial sense for my parents to have her live with us and my mum cared for her.
I'd say it's more about the sort of comprehensives that I went to. It wasn't until I took myself off to Godalming Sixth Form College is nice leafy Surrey that my education stopped being about making sure I got 5 A to Cs and started to be about what I should be aiming for. Sadly, that only came after I picked my A Levels and I regret some of the choices I made.
Ah, I see. Well I sense you're still young and therefore much can go right from here.
Oh, don't worry, if I had kids they'd be middle class or whatever. No, it's more that so much of where your life goes is determined by decisions you make when you're young.
I can't remember where I read it, but someone made an observation at the BBC that there is a big class divide. Basically, those from a working class background tend to get jobs that require technical expertise. The fluffier bullshitty type of jobs are the preserve of the middle to upper classes.
I think that's probably true in a lot of organisations, both in the public and private sector.
Is that class or public school? Obviously heavily linked but dont think a middle class state school kid gets the bullshitter high paying jobs either.
State school middle class kids need a veneer of technical expertise even if there is a strong fluffy bullshit element. Eg in finance, economists=frequently state school; sales=almost always private. Public school people always give each other jobs, though. The one Old Etonian I know works for another one.
According to the Sutton Trust the jobs which are still at least 50% private school educated are commercial barristers and judges, city lawyers, top medics and military officers and journalists and Tory cabinet ministers (though most Tory MPs overall are now state educated)
It is barely noticed in Westminster that, while across Europe millions of local officials were mobilised to care for, police, test and trace the Covid-19 pandemic, in Britain, some 2 million local government staff were simply ignored. I know of many who were left sitting on their hands while the shambles ensued in London. Their services and their knowledge of local communities were not called on. As the BBC’s Panoroma disclosed on Monday, private clinics and laboratories that came forward to help were disregarded. Rather than go local, Boris Johnson set out to recruit 250,000 untrained “volunteers” and build Nightingale hospitals. Both of these initiatives went largely unused. I am convinced the anti-local prejudice that rages in Whitehall is the major cause of Britain’s catastrophic Covid-19 response.
100% agree. Plus there is the extraordinary fact that, for example, the local governments that run Yorkshire (population 5.4 million) is treated as a collection of waste bin emptiers, the local government that runs Scotland (population 5.5 million) is treated as the Parliament of a major world power.
Dry your eyes mate, get off your arse and start campaigning; in 70 years or so your county might get the respect you think it deserves. These things aren't handed to you on a plate, regardless of how entitled you 'Devolution just isn't FAIR!' Johnnies feel.
I like that piece from Pidcock. You are working class if you (or earning partner) have to work for a living. There's more to it of course but that imo is a good start point.
The cultural aspect is not irrelevant but it's a soft subjective measure and lends itself to much posturing and affectation in all directions.
So Hyacinth Bucket is working class. Jamie Vardy is not working class.
I disagree with that.
For me, class is not defined by wealth. Beckham, for instance, will always be working class regardless of his riches. (I don`t see working class as in any way a derogatory term by the way.)
I don`t believe you can change your class. But I do believe that a child can be a different class to the parents. I`d say I`m working class (lower middle if you like) but my children are middle class (upper middle if you like).
That's too divorced from the hard realities of power and money and "capital vs labour" for me. But question for you -
When you say a child can be a different class to their parents you picture that one way only - child moving up - am I right?
Very much no, and I consider myself an example of the other direction.
That's interesting. But by which token - the Pidcock (money) or the Stocky (culture)?
Probably more culture, although I would note that when my grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, it made financial sense for my parents to have her live with us and my mum cared for her.
I'd say it's more about the sort of comprehensives that I went to. It wasn't until I took myself off to Godalming Sixth Form College is nice leafy Surrey that my education stopped being about making sure I got 5 A to Cs and started to be about what I should be aiming for. Sadly, that only came after I picked my A Levels and I regret some of the choices I made.
Ah, I see. Well I sense you're still young and therefore much can go right from here.
Oh, don't worry, if I had kids they'd be middle class or whatever. No, it's more that so much of where your life goes is determined by decisions you make when you're young.
I can't remember where I read it, but someone made an observation at the BBC that there is a big class divide. Basically, those from a working class background tend to get jobs that require technical expertise. The fluffier bullshitty type of jobs are the preserve of the middle to upper classes.
I think that's probably true in a lot of organisations, both in the public and private sector.
Is that class or public school? Obviously heavily linked but dont think a middle class state school kid gets the bullshitter high paying jobs either.
State school middle class kids need a veneer of technical expertise even if there is a strong fluffy bullshit element. Eg in finance, economists=frequently state school; sales=almost always private. Public school people always give each other jobs, though. The one Old Etonian I know works for another one.
That's an interesting observation. I always think of economists as being more likely to come from a middle class background because it isn't something taught at GCSE.
I did Economics GCSE, didn't want to do Geography, History or RE...
It is barely noticed in Westminster that, while across Europe millions of local officials were mobilised to care for, police, test and trace the Covid-19 pandemic, in Britain, some 2 million local government staff were simply ignored. I know of many who were left sitting on their hands while the shambles ensued in London. Their services and their knowledge of local communities were not called on. As the BBC’s Panoroma disclosed on Monday, private clinics and laboratories that came forward to help were disregarded. Rather than go local, Boris Johnson set out to recruit 250,000 untrained “volunteers” and build Nightingale hospitals. Both of these initiatives went largely unused. I am convinced the anti-local prejudice that rages in Whitehall is the major cause of Britain’s catastrophic Covid-19 response.
100% agree. Plus there is the extraordinary fact that, for example, the local governments that run Yorkshire (population 5.4 million) is treated as a collection of waste bin emptiers, the local government that runs Scotland (population 5.5 million) is treated as the Parliament of a major world power.
Dry your eyes mate, get off your arse and start campaigning; in 70 years or so your county might get the respect you think it deserves. These things aren't handed to you on a plate, regardless of how entitled you 'Devolution just isn't FAIR!' Johnnies feel.
So far as local government is concerned I think things have been horribly patchy. A good friend of my daughter is a social worker. She described a very variable picture. In Angus she and her colleagues have been seeing those children identified as the most vulnerable weekly and have taken them to hotels etc overnight where they were thought to be at risk. The second category have been seen fortnightly with telephone calls in the intervening weeks. The least at risk have only been "seen" virtually by phone.
This is immensely better than Dundee has managed. There, actual visits to children thought to have been at risk pre lockdown have been almost non existent. These kids have lost their social workers, their school, their pals and are stuck in the house with parents with real issues from drug and alcohol abuse to mental health problems of their own. God knows what has happened to them. A recent report in the local press said that drug deaths in Dundee, which already had the worst death rate in Europe, have soared in the lockdown.
The idea that there was some magical local resource that the government has failed to take advantage of when it cannot even provide the services that it is supposed to to protect our most vulnerable is just a bit far fetched.
Doesn't sound good. Has Dundee something else on it's hands, or is it, so far as you can see, straightforward inability to cope, or lack of imagination?
Dundee has a really chronic problem with drugs and this has aggravated mental health issues in the city. It has a lot of poor housing and very poor leadership.
Although there have been successes in the City, such as the Welcome trust expansion of the University, the R&A museum and some games makers they have provided a smallish number of jobs compared with the large number of semi-skilled jobs that have been lost from the likes of NCR and, in the last month, the closure of Michelin which has been coming for 2 years. This has drained money out of the City. You could see the consequences in the shopping centres in Dundee pre lockdown. I dread to think what we are going to see over the next year.
Dundee has an R&A museum? I wouldn't have thought portly Pringle wearers would be the saviour of anywhere bar St Andrews, but whatever it takes..
I think he must mean the V&A branch, obviously. But there are also the RRS Discovery and HMS Unicorn for those of us more interested in ships.
Yeah, I was just being annoying
Having visited Dundee on and off over the years I was pleasantly surprised by the transformation of the waterfront, though it still seems in thrall to the combustion engine. I've only seen the V&A from the outside but it does look impressive. My partner has visited it a couple of times and thought there was a slight sense of the exhibits being secondary to the building but perhaps that will change as they get into their stride (current Covid disaster notwithstanding).
Always thought Dundee was treated a bit unfairly, you can't beat a city at the mouth of a river with wide vistas and a couple of almost iconic bridges.
I am starting to be a seller of Sunak for next leader.
The cracks are appearing in his colossal socialist experiment. The prosecutions for furlough fraud are starting, and reported to be the tip of the iceberg.
Lower down the thread we see the mind boggling sums spent on PPE and track and don;t trace for what looking more and more like dubious rewards every day.
His jobs initiatives and green subsides will be the next to come apart at the seams in my book, in the same way as every government initiative on these there ever was has foundered.
At some juncture he will have to go cap in hand to tory middle England to bankroll these and other socialist follies. A tory middle England that is already paying the highest taxes in fifty years. The push back will be enormous and may well cost Johnson his job. It would be no surprise now if Sunak went with him.
Sunak's position is worsening by the day.
Boris will not increase taxes he will borrow to fund increased spending, Starmer however would raise taxes on middle England
I have found a flaw in your plan. What if Boris wins, and Starmer is not PM in 4 years time? Does the magic money tree work for a full ten years?
Yes, Boris does not care about the defict, he is a populist
It is barely noticed in Westminster that, while across Europe millions of local officials were mobilised to care for, police, test and trace the Covid-19 pandemic, in Britain, some 2 million local government staff were simply ignored. I know of many who were left sitting on their hands while the shambles ensued in London. Their services and their knowledge of local communities were not called on. As the BBC’s Panoroma disclosed on Monday, private clinics and laboratories that came forward to help were disregarded. Rather than go local, Boris Johnson set out to recruit 250,000 untrained “volunteers” and build Nightingale hospitals. Both of these initiatives went largely unused. I am convinced the anti-local prejudice that rages in Whitehall is the major cause of Britain’s catastrophic Covid-19 response.
100% agree. Plus there is the extraordinary fact that, for example, the local governments that run Yorkshire (population 5.4 million) is treated as a collection of waste bin emptiers, the local government that runs Scotland (population 5.5 million) is treated as the Parliament of a major world power.
Dry your eyes mate, get off your arse and start campaigning; in 70 years or so your county might get the respect you think it deserves. These things aren't handed to you on a plate, regardless of how entitled you 'Devolution just isn't FAIR!' Johnnies feel.
A layer that is rarely discussed and hasn't been on here is the underclass, benefit dependent, mostly single parents, alcohol and drug abuse, low level education. I'd guess they make up 10% of the electorate and very few of them vote.
I can't imagine many on here come anywhere near these people in every respect.
I do.
In which case you'll know who I'm talking about. Its an ever growing layer of society
Is it growing? I don't know. However, the issues you outline are separate but often complimentary and tend tore-inforce each other. Because they don't vote no Party is interested in extra mental health, drug and alcohol treatment, or in proper further and remedial education and training. They only become interested when it becomes crime against persons or property. When folk enter the criminal justice system the battle is largely lost.
A short while ago a poster was talking about social issues in Dundee, he could have been discussing virtually anywhere in the country.
I assume you're in Liverpool? I was there this time last year, some great places but in the city centre the beggars were lined up every 50 yards or so, some had card terminals!
I'm sorry to say there is an underbelly that is rotten and growing, I've no idea how to stop or correct it.
We know what works. Early specialist intervention. Not in every case of course as people are free not to co-operate or engage. But this costs money for a group who don't vote. So it doesn't happen. See your GP and get sertraline or citalopram is the default solution.
So far as local government is concerned I think things have been horribly patchy. A good friend of my daughter is a social worker. She described a very variable picture. In Angus she and her colleagues have been seeing those children identified as the most vulnerable weekly and have taken them to hotels etc overnight where they were thought to be at risk. The second category have been seen fortnightly with telephone calls in the intervening weeks. The least at risk have only been "seen" virtually by phone.
This is immensely better than Dundee has managed. There, actual visits to children thought to have been at risk pre lockdown have been almost non existent. These kids have lost their social workers, their school, their pals and are stuck in the house with parents with real issues from drug and alcohol abuse to mental health problems of their own. God knows what has happened to them. A recent report in the local press said that drug deaths in Dundee, which already had the worst death rate in Europe, have soared in the lockdown.
The idea that there was some magical local resource that the government has failed to take advantage of when it cannot even provide the services that it is supposed to to protect our most vulnerable is just a bit far fetched.
Doesn't sound good. Has Dundee something else on it's hands, or is it, so far as you can see, straightforward inability to cope, or lack of imagination?
Dundee has a really chronic problem with drugs and this has aggravated mental health issues in the city. It has a lot of poor housing and very poor leadership.
Although there have been successes in the City, such as the Welcome trust expansion of the University, the R&A museum and some games makers they have provided a smallish number of jobs compared with the large number of semi-skilled jobs that have been lost from the likes of NCR and, in the last month, the closure of Michelin which has been coming for 2 years. This has drained money out of the City. You could see the consequences in the shopping centres in Dundee pre lockdown. I dread to think what we are going to see over the next year.
Dundee has an R&A museum? I wouldn't have thought portly Pringle wearers would be the saviour of anywhere bar St Andrews, but whatever it takes..
I think he must mean the V&A branch, obviously. But there are also the RRS Discovery and HMS Unicorn for those of us more interested in ships.
Yeah, I was just being annoying
Having visited Dundee on and off over the years I was pleasantly surprised by the transformation of the waterfront, though it still seems in thrall to the combustion engine. I've only seen the V&A from the outside but it does look impressive. My partner has visited it a couple of times and thought there was a slight sense of the exhibits being secondary to the building but perhaps that will change as they get into their stride (current Covid disaster notwithstanding).
Always thought Dundee was treated a bit unfairly, you can't beat a city at the mouth of a river with wide vistas and a couple of almost iconic bridges.
Three, or rather two and some bits - the piers of the Bouch railway bridge are still visible.
It's not unusual in those modern museum developments to [edit] have a slight sense of the building (an unkind person might say the architects) being given al;most more priority than anything else. But that's what it takes to 'transform' a city those days, we are told. And (apart from Hartlepool) no other place has its own Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars RN frigate.
I didn't really get to know Dundee until quite late in life and was quite taken aback to find that they had demolished a swathe between the city centre and the docks for the main roads from the road bridge - I must go back to see how it looks now.
Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
You don't need to be a business owner to hope for better for your children. The problems come when business owners treat their employees like they're disposable and prevent them from realising their dreams for their children. Aspiration is not binary. I don't think it's at all helpful to view people as traitors to their class simply because they have made some money. But equally one might question whether they are still members of that class in the way that many people understand it. Although I have always been middle class I have certainly moved from one end of that wide envelope to the other in material terms over the course of my life, so I am certainly no stranger to, or enemy of, aspiration.
But your argument wasnt against bad business owners exploiting workers, it was that you cant be a working class business owner. Take a previously working class brickie who decides to employ five of his mates, they all work the same duties and hours but he happens to be the owner of the firm. On his first day of ownership does he automatically change class? Is he supposed to be aware of this?
Per Pidcock, you leave the working class at the point where you can live off your wealth. So with your example that would not be on the 1st day or anything close to it.
Usual caveat. Life is not so precise. But it's a helpful thought imo.
Under her definition, I'm still working class, then Kinabalu. That doesn't ring true, I own a flat in Hampstead and work for an international bank in investment markets. I'm the very definition of comfortable middle class.
Yes. She is saying you're working class, don't kid yourself otherwise. And so was I until I didn't have to do it anymore.
Totally understand that this is not definitive. It's a complex area that impinges on identity which is always sensitive.
But I do think her Marxist lens on it is a useful one to use. Certainly more useful than the other extreme - that class boils down to attitudes and as such is essentially self-defined. Not sure where that gets us.
Plus on a partisan political note. If Labour is the party of the working class it makes sense for them to define it to include most of the population.
Just occurred to me. If nowadays you can choose your Gender, surely you should be allowed to choose your Class. I suspect that those allowing the former might be against allowing the latter.
I don't think that follows. But you're probably right to say that those most relaxed about self ID of gender are considerably less relaxed about the notion that class is purely a matter of self ID.
So far as local government is concerned I think things have been horribly patchy. A good friend of my daughter is a social worker. She described a very variable picture. In Angus she and her colleagues have been seeing those children identified as the most vulnerable weekly and have taken them to hotels etc overnight where they were thought to be at risk. The second category have been seen fortnightly with telephone calls in the intervening weeks. The least at risk have only been "seen" virtually by phone.
This is immensely better than Dundee has managed. There, actual visits to children thought to have been at risk pre lockdown have been almost non existent. These kids have lost their social workers, their school, their pals and are stuck in the house with parents with real issues from drug and alcohol abuse to mental health problems of their own. God knows what has happened to them. A recent report in the local press said that drug deaths in Dundee, which already had the worst death rate in Europe, have soared in the lockdown.
The idea that there was some magical local resource that the government has failed to take advantage of when it cannot even provide the services that it is supposed to to protect our most vulnerable is just a bit far fetched.
Doesn't sound good. Has Dundee something else on it's hands, or is it, so far as you can see, straightforward inability to cope, or lack of imagination?
Dundee has a really chronic problem with drugs and this has aggravated mental health issues in the city. It has a lot of poor housing and very poor leadership.
Although there have been successes in the City, such as the Welcome trust expansion of the University, the R&A museum and some games makers they have provided a smallish number of jobs compared with the large number of semi-skilled jobs that have been lost from the likes of NCR and, in the last month, the closure of Michelin which has been coming for 2 years. This has drained money out of the City. You could see the consequences in the shopping centres in Dundee pre lockdown. I dread to think what we are going to see over the next year.
Dundee has an R&A museum? I wouldn't have thought portly Pringle wearers would be the saviour of anywhere bar St Andrews, but whatever it takes..
I think he must mean the V&A branch, obviously. But there are also the RRS Discovery and HMS Unicorn for those of us more interested in ships.
Yeah, I was just being annoying
Having visited Dundee on and off over the years I was pleasantly surprised by the transformation of the waterfront, though it still seems in thrall to the combustion engine. I've only seen the V&A from the outside but it does look impressive. My partner has visited it a couple of times and thought there was a slight sense of the exhibits being secondary to the building but perhaps that will change as they get into their stride (current Covid disaster notwithstanding).
Always thought Dundee was treated a bit unfairly, you can't beat a city at the mouth of a river with wide vistas and a couple of almost iconic bridges.
Three, or rather two and some bits - the piers of the Bouch railway bridge are still visible.
It's not unusual in those modern museum developments to [edit] have a slight sense of the building (an unkind person might say the architects) being given al;most more priority than anything else. But that's what it takes to 'transform' a city those days, we are told. And (apart from Hartlepool) no other place has its own Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars RN frigate.
I didn't really get to know Dundee until quite late in life and was quite taken aback to find that they had demolished a swathe between the city centre and the docks for the main roads from the road bridge - I must go back to see how it looks now.
Also curious is the location of allotments high on the Law giving them the best view in the city:
You say that. But Gove and Cummings - who are the government let's be honest - are meant to be passionate, ideologically driven reformers largely free of personal self-interest. Quite a slap in the face for us all if this is not the case.
So I’ve watched a Drakeford and listened to the journalists ( generally useless questions) and I am in the dark about when we can have more than one household round outside in the garden, and when we could have people round.indoors.
As far as I could tell nothing at all was mentioned or questioned about these issues.
I can go to the pub two metre spaced outside from Monday so by inference can I have friends round then in the garden two metre spaced?
I can get a tattoo on the 27th ac which is presumably indoors and I assume the needle isn’t two metres long, and I can go indoors to the pub from Aug 3rd two metre spaced ( well sort of with official wiggle room if not practical), so I guess by inference somewhere between the 27th and the 3rd you might be allowed to share a spaghetti bolognese indoors At home at a two metre long table?
Or can I?
Answers on a post card please to M Drakeford, Cardiff Bay.
Or I could just drive to friends in England spend money there and stay overnight because at least it’s clearer there what you can do personally.
So far as local government is concerned I think things have been horribly patchy. A good friend of my daughter is a social worker. She described a very variable picture. In Angus she and her colleagues have been seeing those children identified as the most vulnerable weekly and have taken them to hotels etc overnight where they were thought to be at risk. The second category have been seen fortnightly with telephone calls in the intervening weeks. The least at risk have only been "seen" virtually by phone.
This is immensely better than Dundee has managed. There, actual visits to children thought to have been at risk pre lockdown have been almost non existent. These kids have lost their social workers, their school, their pals and are stuck in the house with parents with real issues from drug and alcohol abuse to mental health problems of their own. God knows what has happened to them. A recent report in the local press said that drug deaths in Dundee, which already had the worst death rate in Europe, have soared in the lockdown.
The idea that there was some magical local resource that the government has failed to take advantage of when it cannot even provide the services that it is supposed to to protect our most vulnerable is just a bit far fetched.
Doesn't sound good. Has Dundee something else on it's hands, or is it, so far as you can see, straightforward inability to cope, or lack of imagination?
Dundee has a really chronic problem with drugs and this has aggravated mental health issues in the city. It has a lot of poor housing and very poor leadership.
Although there have been successes in the City, such as the Welcome trust expansion of the University, the R&A museum and some games makers they have provided a smallish number of jobs compared with the large number of semi-skilled jobs that have been lost from the likes of NCR and, in the last month, the closure of Michelin which has been coming for 2 years. This has drained money out of the City. You could see the consequences in the shopping centres in Dundee pre lockdown. I dread to think what we are going to see over the next year.
Dundee has an R&A museum? I wouldn't have thought portly Pringle wearers would be the saviour of anywhere bar St Andrews, but whatever it takes..
I think he must mean the V&A branch, obviously. But there are also the RRS Discovery and HMS Unicorn for those of us more interested in ships.
Yeah, I was just being annoying
Having visited Dundee on and off over the years I was pleasantly surprised by the transformation of the waterfront, though it still seems in thrall to the combustion engine. I've only seen the V&A from the outside but it does look impressive. My partner has visited it a couple of times and thought there was a slight sense of the exhibits being secondary to the building but perhaps that will change as they get into their stride (current Covid disaster notwithstanding).
Always thought Dundee was treated a bit unfairly, you can't beat a city at the mouth of a river with wide vistas and a couple of almost iconic bridges.
I love Dundee. The Verdant Works jute museum is very interesting. I felt I came away understanding the place a lot better. It doesn't have a great press in Scotland, neglected for being outside the central belt proper and much more urban and poor than its surrounding areas. But as you note a stunning location and nice people too.
Comments
Totally understand that this is not definitive. It's a complex area that impinges on identity which is always sensitive.
But I do think her Marxist lens on it is a useful one to use. Certainly more useful than the other extreme - that class boils down to attitudes and as such is essentially self-defined. Not sure where that gets us.
Plus on a partisan political note. If Labour is the party of the working class it makes sense for them to define it to include most of the population.
Good morning Ms Cyclefree; how did your daughter's business cope last weekend? Apols if you've already dealt with this, but I don't log on all day every day.
Interestingly Eldest Granddaughter lives in a bijou residence in a conservation area in Leeds. It's a significantly remodelled 'back to back'; her Leeds-living gt gt grandfather would, I suspect, have been horrified at the thought of one of his family in a 'back to back'.
I'd say it's more about the sort of comprehensives that I went to. It wasn't until I took myself off to Godalming Sixth Form College is nice leafy Surrey that my education stopped being about making sure I got 5 A to Cs and started to be about what I should be aiming for. Sadly, that only came after I picked my A Levels and I regret some of the choices I made.
Money, education and influence/power of course differentiate people, but such metrics bear little relation to any fixed ideas of class.
Just look at human rights. The UN criticised the UK on these grounds when we had the temerity to evict squatting gypsies after a decade at Dale Farm, yet most people would think of North Korean concentration camps and the like when such a term is used.
Or social justice. It might be argued that vocabulary has never been as contentious.
However, I concur with her that linking "working class" to how much money you have is a politically more useful concept than linking it to culture and attitudes.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/07/10/elissa-slotkin-congress-trump-351513
Interesting in its own right, but gives some insight on how the November election is likely to be fought.
Politico will be running a series of such articles on likely close contested House seats, and it looks well worth watching out for if you're interested in the contest.
I want to build something new. Can't do that in Labour. Can't pay lip service to stuff I don't believe in because they do.
I can't remember where I read it, but someone made an observation at the BBC that there is a big class divide. Basically, those from a working class background tend to get jobs that require technical expertise. The fluffier bullshitty type of jobs are the preserve of the middle to upper classes.
I think that's probably true in a lot of organisations, both in the public and private sector.
Firms will re-employ staff, or not, based on the needs of their business going forward, not on whether the government is going to bung them enough to pay a couple of weeks' wages if they do so.
It's not abuse, but it's still a use of public money to reward the lucky recipient to no obvious public benefit. You could say exactly the same about public money lost to fraud.
But OK, since I don't like to dodge questions. We don't know how long you're going to live. But remember we've said that when you become a pensioner - at say 65 - you remain in the class you were in on the day before that event. Thus at this point we only need to ascertain if your wealth is sufficient to live comfortably on UNTIL you reach 65. If it is, you can be "Stocky" working class but not "Pidcock" working class.
If nowadays you can choose your Gender, surely you should be allowed to choose your Class.
I suspect that those allowing the former might be against allowing the latter.
A little disappointed my Draw bet is only offering a £15 cash out profit
The Draw
6.2
£82.00 Stake
£426.40 profit if its a draw
Current cash out £97.75
The group the Labour party has really lost are working class retirees.
Doing anything more targeted takes longer, and ties up administrators, preventing them from looking at the next thing. Acting fast in emergencies - and it's hard to see our current state as anything other than a continuing economic emergency - comes with costs; acting slowly comes with arguably greater costs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yorkshire_Party
Public school confidence leading to lifelong success as a bullshitter? - look no further than 10 Downing St.
Still, as per yesterday, although a meritocracy would be a step forward it's not what I regard as the dream.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/07/09/when_black_children_are_killed_wheres_the_outrage_from_the_white_and_the_woke_143673.html
I can't imagine many on here come anywhere near these people in every respect.
Plus, he'll refuse to leave even if he does lose. 2020 is going to get better and better.
If (say) 15% are scoring Elite that would devalue the label.
Because they don't vote no Party is interested in extra mental health, drug and alcohol treatment, or in proper further and remedial education and training.
They only become interested when it becomes crime against persons or property.
When folk enter the criminal justice system the battle is largely lost.
"Keeping Up Appearances" - Gently amusing at times but not the greatest show. Wouldn't go out of your way to hunt it down.
I assume you're in Liverpool? I was there this time last year, some great places but in the city centre the beggars were lined up every 50 yards or so, some had card terminals!
I'm sorry to say there is an underbelly that is rotten and growing, I've no idea how to stop or correct it.
https://www.suttontrust.com/our-research/leading-people-2016-education-background/
I was quite taken aback. But I think it was more that he could not stand Johnson or Corbyn than it was a genuine desire for Yindy.
Having visited Dundee on and off over the years I was pleasantly surprised by the transformation of the waterfront, though it still seems in thrall to the combustion engine. I've only seen the V&A from the outside but it does look impressive. My partner has visited it a couple of times and thought there was a slight sense of the exhibits being secondary to the building but perhaps that will change as they get into their stride (current Covid disaster notwithstanding).
Always thought Dundee was treated a bit unfairly, you can't beat a city at the mouth of a river with wide vistas and a couple of almost iconic bridges.
But this costs money for a group who don't vote. So it doesn't happen. See your GP and get sertraline or citalopram is the default solution.
It's not unusual in those modern museum developments to [edit] have a slight sense of the building (an unkind person might say the architects) being given al;most more priority than anything else. But that's what it takes to 'transform' a city those days, we are told. And (apart from Hartlepool) no other place has its own Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars RN frigate.
I didn't really get to know Dundee until quite late in life and was quite taken aback to find that they had demolished a swathe between the city centre and the docks for the main roads from the road bridge - I must go back to see how it looks now.
https://twitter.com/anneapplebaum/status/1281451605427183616?s=20
Fun times.
What on earth is the point?
http://viewfinderpanoramas.org/panoramas/CEN/DUNDEE.GIF
Fair enough for someone from a working class background with an engineering degree.
As far as I could tell nothing at all was mentioned or questioned about these issues.
I can go to the pub two metre spaced outside from Monday so by inference can I have friends round then in the garden two metre spaced?
I can get a tattoo on the 27th ac which is presumably indoors and I assume the needle isn’t two metres long, and I can go indoors to the pub from Aug 3rd two metre spaced ( well sort of with official wiggle room if not practical), so I guess by inference somewhere between the 27th and the 3rd you might be allowed to share a spaghetti bolognese indoors At home at a two metre long table?
Or can I?
Answers on a post card please to M Drakeford, Cardiff Bay.
Or I could just drive to friends in England spend money there and stay
overnight because at least it’s clearer there what you can do personally.