Cannot believe this bigotry

DH had this class conversation with my sister's husband. DH was a senior NCO in the Army and had just left to take up a civilian job as an office manager. My brother in law said he couldn't consider himself to be working class, as he didn't get his hands dirty. My brother in law was a hands-on self employed house builder and doing very well out of it - golf club, large house, two cars - anyone looking at his lifestyle might have considered him as middle class, but they would probably have got a punch on the nose for suggesting it. He also once made the - I thought shocking - statement that "people like us don't go to university" and therefore did not encourage his sons in their education, but assumed that they also would work with their hands. They did, and did even better out of it than he did, but still considered themselves to be working class! We have never considered ourselves to belong to any class - we have merely hoped that our children would aspire to do better than we did, and they have. What class they consider themselves to be I have no idea; I wouldn't dream of asking them.

Perhaps John Prescott summed it up when he said 'We are all middle class now':
We are all middle class now," he said before the 1997 general election, neatly summing up Tony Blair's "big tent" philosophy

However, I would think that, being a Lord nowadays, he would be more middle class than the rest of us. Or even 'upper class'

Elegran

mmmm,,,,looking after our own first,,has some merit,,we have people at food banks,unable to feed their families,and in absolute destitution,due to benefit sanctions and the like,,unable to pay their rent,,we cannot claim the moral high ground when we allow this to exist,would you feed a stranger,and allow your sister to go hungry,,thats what we are doing,,this is the reality of our misguided compassion, help a refugee,,and feel good about our selfs,,,ask a mother of three standing at a food bank what she thinks,,oh to be human

It's called jumping on the band wagon.
No,I doubt I speak for many of you.Absolutly no desire to.Give me an honest down to earth call a spade a spade person any day of the week.Would I take strangers into my home? No I wouldn't.Would any of you? I doubt it.As I've asked,how many are you homing?

My son was an officer in army elegran and be certain didn't buy his commission. He was chosen and won a cadetship at 18 so army supported him through his Cambridge degree. I am Extremely proud of him.

In 2011 Osborne said there was no such thing as middle class; we were all working class now. That's why the Tories can claim to be the party of the workers, or working class depending on who is speaking.

As you asked Mamark, yes I have taken strangers into my home

Marmark1 Are you saying that no one should express support for refugees being allowed into the country unless they are willing to house them? Does that extend to views about all social issues - you shouldn't express concerns about families being housed in B&Bs for months on end unless you offer them a home, you shouldn't be concerned that some people can't afford to heat their homes unless you're prepared to pay their bills, you shouldn't be concerned about cuts to rural bus routes unless you're willing to transport people around in your car, etc. etc.?

We pay taxes to the government and the government decides how those taxes should or shouldn't be utilised. Some people have strong opinions and a balance should ideally be struck between them. My opinion, and that of many other - but by no means all - people is that some of our money should be used to help people in a desperately sad situation.

Celebgran, I was quoting my uncle's opinion There was a name even then for that attitude of seeing virtue only in the "working class", and it is still true - inverted snobbery, it was called. Being snobbish about how you are not a snob.

This thread on class is starting to sound a lot like the sketch, you know,bowler hat etc " I look down on him......was this The Two Ronnies or Monty Python?

Exactly Elegran.

I'll take it as a no then.Hmm,

My view is that anybody who has to work in order to survive is working class. I think the term middle class is an artificial construct designed to create false divisions and to detract from the fact that some people do not need to work but rely on the profits gained from the work of others in order to survive.

Marmark you do realise none of us can take refugees into our homes because that's not how the system works?

We've had strangers sit down to Christmas dinner with us when one of us found out they would be alone on Christmas Day. Does that count? We don't have a spare bedroom, but if I did and it was possible then I would offer it to a refugee. Instead though I have made donations (small) to two charities helping refugees - one in Turkey proving hard to get items like sanitary towels and another rescuing people in boats at sea. I have lived in a multi cultural city since I was 14 when my parents moved from Scotland to England. Before that, the only non-white people I had ever seen in my life were the Pakistani family who ran a local shop. Suddenly I was at school with pupils from other cultures and it never occurred to me to treat them any differently to anyone else. I was the stranger, not them. My first holiday abroad was with a female friend who was Asian. My boyfriend when I was 16 was a 16 yr old West Indian (that worried my Dad because of the prejudice he thought we could face). My friend has a foreign student stay with her every year to help make ends meet and the current student is an Iranian woman with very little English and it has been interesting meeting her.

If I could offer accommodation I wouldn't hesitate.

And my definition of working class is similar to Tony Benn's and was passed on to me from my Dad. If you have to work for a living, then you are working class and thinking otherwise is just giving yourself airs and graces.

My dad took two Czech strangers into our home in 1968. He found them sitting on the front steps of his college, drenched and with no tent. They stayed all summer, got part-time jobs, still keep in touch.

A little while later we had a colleague of his lodging while he was house hunting for his family. My youngest brother (6) went into his room the first morning, prized open the man's eye, and said: "Are you a Czech?"

no as I thought.

Don't understand this marmark. You asked if people offered aid to strangers and were given a few examples. So why are you assuming 'that's no then'.
Since few of us yet know exactly what arrangements are being made, we may not yet be in a position to know how to help but I would refer you to 'granny23* 's earlier post detailing the solutions being put in place locally.

I understand it thus: [heels well dug in emoji]

Point made, marmark. Now what?

What did you think Mamark?

I have just been watching a report on a Britain First event (can't even think of a suitable name for it). I find it hugely worrying - shades of the Battle of Cable Street. Very, very worrying it just seems like pure hate.

Watching it Gracesgran, it is pure hatred which has been fed into the members by the media

Marmark1, your comments are becoming unpleasant and below the belt- what a shame.

And the reply, yes we have, many a time. My parents hosted a young man from Frejus- a victim of the Frejust dam disaster in the 50s- just like many 100s of people did here at the time. He had lost his home and his parents in the disaster. We also welcomed a family from the Hugarian uprising who had lost everything to the Russian invasion. And we did the same in the UK many a time.

Now, may I ask, whyt did YOU do? I mean, I would never ask- but since you did, why not.

The Government here has just required the use of the old orphanage not a mile from us, used in recent years as a Youth Hostel- for refugeee families. Many people here will be up in arms when they find out- we will certainly do everything we can to welcome them and counter this negativity- but it won't be easy. Let the challenge commence. I shall offer to teach the parents- as children will go to school (we have small classes of 15 at the moment).

Listening to Hilary Benn now.
A brilliant speech, about how proud we should be of not walking by on the other side. Giving figures about Kobani. About inequality of life chances, and how we have caused these inequalities, which cause everybody to want to move.
Why should we not help those in Europe already as well as those who are still in camps around Syria?
Everybody should listen to his speech.

I listened earlier to Alan Johnson who made a speech to persuade us to stay in Europe.
Yesterday I read an article which gave figures about Europe:
55% of EU countries representing
65% of the EU population can decide for all
28 members of the EU because of the qualified majority mechanism
to impose solidarity about immigration and asylum.
Not all countries like it, but they will go along with it because not one European leader wants to go down in history as the one who dismantled 60 years of cooperation.

In the end the problem boils down to what type of society we want to live in, and what image Europe wants to project to the world.
The EU in global terms represents
7% of the population
25% of GDP and
50% of social spending. It distributes
65% of development aid and more than
50% of the humanitarian aid.

Some people think this refugee crisis will spell the end of Europe. It will not, because most European citizens want to feel decent, not selfish.

I heard his speech Jen, it was brilliant and no problem with expressing compassion