Vision of a Classless Britain | John Major | Leading

Jun 18, 2023 | Former Prime Minister John Major opens up about his lifelong dream of creating a classless society in Britain. In this segment, Major reflects on the pervasive influence of social class and how it has shaped the country's political landscape over the years. Discover the evolving dynamics of voting intentions across different classes during Major's lifetime and the complex relationship between class and politics.

Nancy Isenberg: The Origin of ‘White Trash,’ and Why Class Is Still an Issue in the US

In “White Trash,” Nancy Isenberg delves into the history of class in America, starting with British colonization. At that time, America was seen as a wasteland -- a place to discard the idle poor. The agrarian communities they subsequently formed often remained poor due to a phenomenon Isenberg calls “horizontal mobility.” Jeffrey Brown speaks with the author about how we can evolve past class.

President Obama Talking Race and Class in a Provocative Way

Local Elections 2012: Thatcherism with a Posh Accent Is a Toxic Proposition
THE GUARDIAN: The Tories aren't in existential crisis, but discontent among voters is focused on the leadership cabal and the issue of class

Cast your eyes over these results, and feel the Tory pain. Harlow, Great Yarmouth, Reading, Plymouth, Thurrock – all southern bywords for the kind of places that decide British elections, and all lost to Labour. Ukip polling an average of 13% wherever it stood. Those half-baked plans for directly elected mayors met with a mixture of hostility and complete indifference.

The low chatter of Conservative angst that has been simmering since the budget has now suddenly risen in volume and urgency. So far, listening to such voices rather suggests that the critique of the Tories' woes needs a bit more work, but one thing is beyond doubt: almighty rows have broken out within the Conservative family.

There may be something in the idea being put about by those on the right of the party that Tory loyalists have been dismayed by the leadership's embrace of bits of metropolitan liberalism, but there again, do more hard-bitten Conservatives really have that much to complain about?

The idea of any leftward pull from the Lib Dems usually turns out to be a canard. The cuts highlight the fact that Thatcherism is in rude health. The welfare state is under assault. The NHS is being subjected to the outsourcing and fragmentation of Tory dreams, and our schools are falling victim to much the same, with the added bonus of a supposed return to old-fashioned discipline and academic rigour. Moreover, large swaths of the public remain in full accord with the supposed need for crushing austerity, are happy to watch benefit claimants being thrown [to] the wolves, and are hardly sold on the idea of Labour coming back to power – with or without Ed Miliband's still cloudy vision of "responsible capitalism". So what is going on?

Three factors speak for themselves: the dreadful state of the economy, the rising cost of living, and the widespread impression of simple incompetence. But that third explanation blurs over into something even more troubling to the Tory soul: the shortcomings of the coterie who currently lead the party, and the torturous issue of class. » | John Harris | Friday, May 04, 2012

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Diana's Niece Charge Over McDonald's Drive-through Queue Rage Assault
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: The niece of Diana, Princess of Wales, has been charged with assault in South Africa after a row over a place in the queue to a drive-through McDonald's burger bar.

Lady Amelia Spencer (right) with her twin sister Eliza. Photo: The Daily Telegraph
Lady Amelia Spencer, the daughter of Earl Spencer, the Princess’s brother, is due to appear in court in Cape Town next month over the incident in which a taxi passenger was allegedly knocked unconscious.

The 18-year-old is also understood to be pressing charges after herself allegedly being injured in the dispute which also involved a male friend.

Lady Amelia, who grew up in South Africa with her three siblings from the Earl’s first marriage, is said to have been angered after a taxi cut in in front of her as she waited in the queue at the drive-through in Cape Town on December 22.

She allegedly jumped out of her Mini Cooper car and banged the bodywork of taxi before getting involved in an angry verbal altercation with Ricci Cinti, one of the passengers.

A male friend who was sitting in the passenger seat of Lady Amelia’s car is said to have stepped out and joined in as the row turned into a stand-off on the road.

Mr Cinti, who was on crutches from a sports injury, is understood to have tripped, landed on the ground, hitting his head and briefly being knocked out. >>> John Bingham and Aislinn Laing | Friday, January 14, 2011

Aristocracy isn’t what it used to be: There was a time when ladies were real ladies, and gentlemen, real gentlemen. Today, ladies with titles have forgotten how to be ladies in reality. No longer, it seems. How sad! – © Mark

Welcome to Britain in 2010 Where Money + Class = Power
THE OBSERVER: The establishment is back at the heart of government. It's as if the last 100 years had never happened

As exhausted Labour ministers embraced opposition with an emotion close to relief, the party's equally exhausted staff assumed they could relax. Instead of being allowed to recuperate, however, they were overwhelmed by thousands of angry men and women clamouring to join. The sight of Nick Clegg and David Cameron joshing in the grounds of Downing Street had rammed home a truth about Britain that all the talk of "inclusion" and "diversity" obscures. We live in the most class-ridden society in western Europe, and it is becoming more sclerotic and more hierarchical by the year.

Despite the admirable attempts to combat sexism, racism and homophobia, the life-defining issue for children is not their skin colour, gender or sexuality, still less their intrinsic talent, but how much their parents are prepared to spend on their education, and what friendships they can exploit and contacts they can manipulate on their little darlings' behalf thereafter.

Look at our new government. Satirists caricature Liberals – and I think we can now stop calling them "Liberal Democrats" as their alliance with the right has sundered their links with the social democratic tradition – as muesli-munching, Observer-reading, real-ale-drinking members of the progressive middle class. The events of last week have smashed that caricature into 1,000 pieces. Instead of going with Labour, the leaders of middle-class liberalism went into David Cameron's coalition. Far from adding grit to an administration dominated by the children of the rich, they toffed it up and raised the average cabinet member's net worth by tens of thousands of pounds.

As so often, foreign journalists see Britain more clearly than we do. During the campaign, a puzzled Susanne Gelhard, London correspondent for German radio station ZDF, noticed that the British media talked incessantly about Cameron's privileged background, but never added that Clegg's was no different. "How does he do it?" she asked. "I think he must have very good PR management."

So he does. When you look at his history, you discover that his parents, who now live in some style in a chateau in the south of France, sent him to Westminster, a private school that has never seen itself as second best to Eton. On leaving Cambridge, he behaved in a manner any young Tory on the make would recognise by accepting the patronage of Lord Carrington and Lord Brittan. He married well. His Spanish wife Miriam is not only a successful lawyer bringing in a six-figure salary, but is also a Catholic. Her belief in the supernatural has the advantage of allowing the atheist Clegg to avoid the worst of the state education system and send his children to a faith school. >>> Nick Cohen | Sunday, May 16, 2010

Mind what you say when in Britain. Your class and standing in society are still reflected in your choice of vocabulary

Photo courtesy of Google Images

SPIEGELONLINE INTERNATIONAL: Even in new, egalitarian Britain, everyone seems ready to believe in the return of the class war that had supposedly ended in a truce years ago.

Did a "toilet" come between them?

We will probably never know. But the reports last week that Prince William and his girlfriend, Kate Middleton, broke up in part because of her mother's so-called middle-class behavior, including using the word toilet for bathroom, are a vivid reminder that class issues still bubble vexingly beneath the surface of British life.

Mrs. Middleton's other missteps, apparently, included having once worked as a flight attendant, a fact that caused some of William's friends to cattily mutter "Doors to manual" whenever Kate came into the room.

But it doesn't really matter what she did or did not do. What is significant is that even in new, egalitarian Britain, everyone seemed so mesmerized by accounts of it, so ready to believe in the return of the class war that had supposedly ended in a truce years ago. Why Can't the English Just Give Up That Class Folderol? (Read on) by Sarah Lyall

Mark Alexander