Cannot believe this bigotry

Jane10, working class people also pay taxes

And middle class people also claim benefits.

And need them at times. Middle class does not automatically equal middle income.

How does one decide they are middle class? If they don't live in social housing , if they live in an avenue not a street, if they have a job where overalls are not required, if their job doesn't involve getting their hands dirty, if they went to grammar school

Yes, and how do people decide they are working class? Is it supposed to be down to one's 'roots', i.e. my parents and grandparents were working class so I am too?

Bus in Birmingham yesterday, fair haired mother with a lively dark eyed one year beaming from his buggy. A fellow passenger admired him and she said loudly and proudly 'He gets his looks from his dad, my husband's from Afghanistan!'

Middle class people also live in social housing, in a street, have jobs where they have to wear protective clothes and get their hands dirty. Working class people buy houses, work in clean jobs in smart clothes, buy big cars, take holidays.

There is no definitive classification.

So are you saying that it's an accident of birth, Elegran? How would you know which was which in the two examples you give?

I suspect you wouldn't know. Why would one need to know anyhow? It's just another not very useful label.

The late Tony Benn summed it up: he said, if your paid for the work you do then your working class.

I agree that you wouldn't need to know. Some people do seem to feel very proud of being working class though and are happy to declare it!

"Strike my comment to Durham.It may offend and that is not my intention.My apologies .No,I speak mainly for the good working class people of this country .Whatever their colour or creed.Of which there are still many believe me."

This is where it came up.
I just told Marmark I thought I was good working class, and she did not speak for me.

Anniebach Many working class children went to grammar schools in the 50s and 60s. Are you saying that grammar school made them all middle class?

Hopefully it made many of them capable and confident in work that previous generations of their families, for various reasons, didn't aspire to.
I once served an older man buying classic children's books, not, it turned out, for his grandchildren but his young son. I commented on his good choice and he explained that his father, a South Wales coal miner, had introduced him to these authors. Now he, a university professor, was doing the same for his son.

To return to the original post - a couple of nights ago there was a R4 programme about the Kindertransport. Some of those children who travelled alone to Britain experienced prejudice and racism. 'Twas ever thus!

Perhaps some of you think your working class when it suits you.School teachers today don't consider them selves working class.
Also,there's a lot of so called working class who have never done a days work in their lives.Hence,real working class.

You did not say real working class, though. You said good working class.

How about a list of who you think are good working class, Marmark; just so we know who you are speaking for.
At the moment I am watching the Labour Party conference. They speak for me. I was only a teacher for ten years of my working life. Can I claim to be good working class for the rest of it?

We could start a new thread on just what makes someone working class and whether some are good working class, some real working class, and some presumably bad working class or fake working class.

Then another on what makes someone middle class etc etc.

elegran

It was Jane10 who brought middle class into this , I just asked what makes a person decide they are middle class because I haven't the foggiest .

Janeansworth, I know working class children went to grammer school, I was one

Mamark, I have a cousin who lectures on Economics in a university and he is working class, I know because he said so, my son in law has three uncles, two are Maths teachers , one a labour MP, they too are working class

I recall when out canvassing for an election a woman telling me she couldn't vote labour because she was middle class so a Tory

I'll carry on being good working class, thanks. I studied sociology and know I shouldn't really, but if people like Cameron and Osborne can claim to be working class, I'm sure I can.
So sorry, Marmark, you do not speak for the good working class.

Do Cameron and Osborne claim to be working class?

When did they do that?

I only brought middle class into this because the good hard working class appeared to be being put forward again as the only people who cared. I mentioned the middle classes because I'm fed up with having to feel vaguely apologetic as obviously the working class is the only one which really counts.

This does remind me a bit of my uncle, who was an NCO. His automatic opinion of anyone with a commission was unprintable - all squaddies were wonderful, solid, salt-of-the-earth chaps who kept the forces afloat and couldn't put a foot wrong. all officers were supercilious ignorant know-alls who had bought their way into authority, knew nowt and had to be nurse-maided through it all by the afore-mentioned squaddies.

My father (his brother-in-law) got a degree and a teaching certificate, and taught army apprentices - much the same as teaching large teenager boys in a secondary school - and spent evenings time preparing lessons and tutoring those who needed extra attention. His BiL had a lot of affection and personal respect for him, but couldn't accept that his work tired him "You are just standing there in front of them . . ."