Excellent, given that I don't fall under the Mail's definition of a family I expect to be rolling in it by the end of this quarter.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -year.html

Middle-class families squeezed as soaring food and fuel bills leave them £900 worse off this year

Only middle-class people eat and drive. And the ones in families. They check at the supermarket when you're at the till. If you're working-class or a single middle-class person they don't charge you as much.

A month ago it was £54/week. £900/year is quite an improvement.

This is a serious question, seriously!

Just how does The Mail define middle class? I personally don't believe that the concept of class has any place in our society, and really struggle with this. I was always under the impression that it was down to breeding, but this can't be the case.

Help!

Class in the sense the Mail sense is indeed bollocks. They basically see only middle class and underclass- though there was a working class in the past, apparently. They don't like the upper class much, though when it suits them (as with the Ascot story) they'll claim they do. The bar for being upper class is mysteriously lower if you're leftwing. Ed Milliband is apparently posh despite having been to the local comp.

Class in the sense that upbringing has a lot to do with what you end up doing, that's surely important?

Class in the sense of someone being 'classy' is indeed bollocks. It's just snobbery/deference — the Mail reeks of it, of course.
Social class, as a sociological concept (where the terms upper, middle and working class come from), definitely does play a role in British society, though the definition of class and the nature of its role are disputed. It's certainly a major cause of inequality, and a source of discrimination, oppression and conflict. The Mail doesn't use class in this way, because the term is associated with Marxism (the horror!) and Mail journalists are too thick to understand it.

You are correct. Which is why I believe it should be left in the history books. We are fortunate enough to live in a generally decent society. We have our share of nutters, but the vast majority of people are caring and decent. Even the idiots that rant and rave on the Mail forums.

We are all born with equal potential, we are what we make ourselves. I know plenty of people from poor backgrounds and "broken families" who are doing well, and I am sure there are plenty of "toffs" who are not.

We need to keep to some sort of taxonomy of social class through occupation or some other measure. Social class exists (to wish that it doesn't just don't make it so, it's a feature of real society) and the effects are so profound that we need to be able to identify it in order to overcome the negatives, especially in education and health. To deny that it exists removes the incentive to plan to support the most vulnerable.

OK. I concede that point.

It doesn't change my opinion that the class is manufactured bullshit!

I love the bit where he says "I've got nothing against your right leg".

It's a description of what exists. It's observation, not prediction.

It's the most distressing consequence yet of the recession:


The Mail has unearthed some really heartbreaking stories here. First up is "a writer", Jacqui Deevoy, who's struggling to pay the school fees for her fourth child. Deevoy has written for the Mail about losing her driving licence and

Jacqui lives with her son and two daughters, Lola and JoJo, in a six-bedroom house in Chiswick. She owns another property but it's too small to live in. She is herself privately educated. And she inherited some money from her mother. Stop it, my heart is bleeding.

The Mail's second example, the daughters of Katie Krais, is almost as touching. The elder is at private school; the younger is not because, um, she doesn't want to be.

The third example, whose name has had to be changed because she's so obviously awful, tries to justify sending her snotty little boy to a pre-preparatory school, ffs, on the basis that he's supremely gifted, both parents were privately educated, and at private schools:


Like-minded, in this context, meaning white and middle-class. Fortunately for this woman, her daddy came up with some money to pay the fees. Phew!

I think this is a pisstake. At least I hope it is.

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Reclaiming "methinks" for the nation

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At least it's in the red

There is such a thing as class and this government's policies are a vicious attack on the working class by the ruling class.

May sound old fashioned but there it is.

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