Cannot believe this bigotry

We are retired working class rosequartz

Oh, OK
I just thought I could get away from any reference to work

The thought of Hyacinth in charge made me just knock a glass over in the kitchen (remember Elizabeth!)?

Most definitely Jen

Particularly the Hyacinth reference?

Good article jen

voxpoliticalonline.com/2015/09/28/sack-the-spads-finish-the-focus-groups-and-stick-to-your-guns-jeremy/

Hyacinth Bucket.

We are retired working class rosequartz ,well I am semi retired working class

And who could forget Onslow?

www.google.co.uk/search?q=onslow+keeping+up+appearances&rlz=1C2SKPC_enGB355&biw=1024&bih=677&tbm=isch&imgil=H72l1wMJ251j_M%253A%253B7yeEPgBP30u1HM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fffffound.com%25252Fimage%25252Fe32b88aead4d17322711e0127601c4d0055cde6b%25253Fc%2525253D130754&source=iu&pf=m&fir=H72l1wMJ251j_M%253A%252C7yeEPgBP30u1HM%252C_&usg=__cy0tFT34MI5IHDmoeEcM9ffR4y8%3D&ved=0CCsQyjdqFQoTCKD8jKjymcgCFYXXGgodFFkO1w&ei=ZkgJVqCxM4Wva5SyubgN#imgrc=H72l1wMJ251j_M%3A&usg=__cy0tFT34MI5IHDmoeEcM9ffR4y8%3D

Oh, what a long link!!

Nooooo. Hyacinth Bucket is either upper working class or lower middle class although I would have to consult Jilly Cooper's "Class" (very funny ) to be sure.

Was it The Frost Report?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2k1iRD2f-c

I can think of someone who is truly middle class - Hyacinth Bucket

Wasn't on one of the TW3 programmes rosequartz? We are now dredging the archives of memory so I could easily be wrong.

" I look down on him......was this The Two Ronnies or Monty Python?
It was the Two Ronnies and John Cleese (so right and partially right ) roses
I think I put a link to it on youtube on a thread about class.

My view is that anybody who has to work in order to survive is working class That's my view too, Eloethan

(However, I've just thought, now we're retired what are we?
I suppose we worked and earned our pensions)

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

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.

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).

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

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.

What did you think Mamark?

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

Point made, marmark. Now what?

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.

no as I thought.

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?"

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 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.