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Does class still matter?

"Class still matters"


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Not sure what to vote for.

No, class doesn't matter to me personally; or to most people I know. But I can see it's still very much alive and kicking in UK society, as much as it shouldn't be. Ever since the Tories won in 2010, they've gone out of their way to perpetuate class divides with their draconian benefit cuts and making the poor even poorer. Didn't Cameron even call it Victorian values?

I was brought up on a council estate in Ladywood, Birmingham; daughter of a cleaner and a car factory worker. They split up when I was nine and my mum married again, to a bloke who works on a fruit and veg stall. I went to primary school just round the corner from where I lived, and most of us were working-class kids, so that was all I knew and I didn't really understand about social classes (I knew the concepts of "rich" and "poor" but thought that was just in books and history) until I started secondary school at a comprehensive where there was a mix of working and middle-class kids. Even then, it wasn't really an issue - I just realised some of my new friends could afford stuff our family couldn't, and it didn't bother me as I was never a particularly materialistic kid anyway. I enjoyed going round their houses and sharing in their lives but didn't envy what they had.

I left home at 16 and got a job in London, where my Brummie accent was occasionally commented on, but not usually in a derogatory way, just "Oh, is your accent Midlands? Thought so!" in the way that people do down here as hardly anyone's local, and it's a way of bonding. I still have some of those Midland vowels, but I'm 32 now and having spent half my life in London, it's kind of softened my original accent (and in reality, a proper Birmingham accent isn't actually as strong as the Black Country brogue that comedians etc put on when trying to impersonate a Brummie anyway). My family swear I've picked up a Cockney twang and fink it's 'ilarious!

However, I have definitely been looked down upon in the past for my background. One my more well-to-do schoolfriends' parents told her to stay away from me because I was a "bad influence" and would "probably get pregnant before I was 16" despite the fact I'd never so much as snogged a boy. Luckily, this girl was a good friend and took no notice. Another girl I was mates with, I overheard her well-meaning but slightly patronising mum describing me and my brother as "deprived kids" which made me laugh a lot as I'd never really considered that we were. I mean, both our parents worked, we always had food on the table and we were loved and secure. I didn't really care about anything other than that, but it did open my eyes to how some people think. (Also, some might consider my mum middle-class originally as her parents ran their own shop and were technically business owners).

I had an issue recently where I needed a countersignatory for a replacement passport and was genuinely struggling to find anyone who fitted their requirements, namely jobwise. They have to be a professional, know you for two years and have their own up to date UK passport. GPs can't do it any more unless they're a personal friend of yours, they wouldn't accept my bank manager or optician as neither knew me personally as opposed to a business relationship, my flatmate/landlord wasn't allowed due to sharing the same address as me; and none of my mum's friends fitted the bill as they're all cleaners, dinner ladies or shop assistants. They initially rejected the friend I chose who's a financial administrator, but I phoned them up and pointed out their list is only examples and not exhaustive, and that my friend had to pass a credit check and DBS and provide proof of all his qualifications before he could work in a financial company. The manager I escalated it to put it through again at no extra cost, and it was approved, but it did strike me as very classist as to who can and can't sign. It assumes everyone's either middle-class or knows a long list of people who are. Sorry HMPO, but that's not the case!

Also, to the person upthread who asked why anyone would be proud to be working-class, it's more that we're not ashamed of it. The class you're born into is exactly that - an accident of birth, and not a choice. There's nothing wrong with striving for more if you want it, but some people are content with their life as it is, and there's nothing wrong with that either. For me, I just happen to be a working-class kid from inner-city Birmingham, that's just a fact of my life and neither a source of shame or pride, although that doesn't prevent discrimination unfortunately. I definitely think class should be a protected characteristic along with race, gender, sexuality etc, although I know discrimination against class is probably harder to prove.
 
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Newcastle university study on infant mortality, showing exactly why class does matter. (Summary here)
An additional 570 infant deaths, compared to what would have been expected based on historical trends, were recorded in the country from 2014-2017.
....
The researchers found that “a sustained and unprecedented rise” in infant mortality in England from 2014-2017 was not experienced evenly across the population.

In the most deprived local authorities, the previously declining trend in infant mortality reversed and mortality rose, leading to an additional 24 infant deaths per 100,000 live births per year, relative to the previous trend.

There was no significant change from the pre-existing trend in the most affluent local authorities. As a result, inequalities in infant mortality increased, with the gap between the most and the least deprived local authority areas widening by 52 deaths per 100,000 births.
(Thanks for crossthebreeze for flagging this up)
 
The question remains though, why hasn't the issue of poverty(see RS post above) which is now so embedded in UK society had the same salience and action with progressive society as the environment, anti-war, migration, etc.
 
The question remains though, why hasn't the issue of poverty(see RS post above) which is now so embedded in UK society had the same salience and action with progressive society as the environment, anti-war, migration, etc.
Capital has a big stake in the environmental movement (renewables, insurance, funds, etc) and migration (cheap, committed labour). War is disruptive.

Poverty is a different kettle of fish that would require sacrifices from the middle classes and structural changes that would impact everybody. (Alright) Jack’s not so keen on that sort of thing.
 
Some great friday night contributions there, not embarrasing at all thanks ever so much. Anyway:

Corby shows how working-class towns risk becoming dumping grounds for waste

My hometown of Corby is a former steelworks town in the East Midlands, UK. The town has among the lowest levels of social mobility in the country. In the BBC’s Great British Class Survey, Corby was classified as a “precariat” town, which means that many residents are from the most disadvantaged social class in Britain. Now the county council plans to turn Corby into one of the country’s biggest receivers of waste, with potentially four plants processing rubbish brought in from London, Birmingham and beyond.

The latest plans under review, submitted by the Devon-based Corby Ltd company, would involve importing 260,000 tonnes of waste into Corby each year, creating around 30 full-time jobs at a new energy recovery facility, where rubbish is burned to generate electricity. The proposed site is within 100 metres of a primary school and close to a struggling secondary school. This would mean an estimated 175 heavy goods vehicles transporting waste past disadvantaged children each day.

This risks signalling to young people that they don’t matter. Children were born in Corby with lifelong disabilities from the inadequate disposal of toxic waste, following the closure of the steelworks just over 40 years ago, and the landmark ruling about this case was only decided in 2009, so the trauma is fresh in the town’s collective memory. And dirt has had a deep and damaging meaning for working-class communities, which planners need to appreciate.

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See also the residents of Avomouth who had to put with massive fly infestation for years now as a result of the local waste-processing plants. Don't matter, Avomouth voted brexit, the idiots.
 
Continuation of the species started off by you being able to smash my head in, animals still do it that way. Evolution allowed us to develop and you learned how to produce currency. Being clever you took my share and I was pleased to work for you. I had nothing to hand down, you did, my kids worked for yours. That primitive urge has not been bred out of us. Even millionaires want more.
Class was just an add on ensuring that I cannot move in your circles if I won the lottery. Class would disappear if the population dropped low enough to make my skills more important than your position. (Don't hold your breath.) It happened during the plague but we couldn't keep our trouser flaps buttoned up.
 
Continuation of the species started off by you being able to smash my head in, animals still do it that way. Evolution allowed us to develop and you learned how to produce currency. Being clever you took my share and I was pleased to work for you. I had nothing to hand down, you did, my kids worked for yours. That primitive urge has not been bred out of us. Even millionaires want more.
Class was just an add on ensuring that I cannot move in your circles if I won the lottery. Class would disappear if the population dropped low enough to make my skills more important than your position. (Don't hold your breath.) It happened during the plague but we couldn't keep our trouser flaps buttoned up.

The role of the plague in weakening feudalism wasn't because skills became more important than position so much as the fact that capital was useless without labour.

Even then, class didn't disappear, it was expressed in different social relations.
 
Continuation of the species started off by you being able to smash my head in, animals still do it that way. Evolution allowed us to develop and you learned how to produce currency. Being clever you took my share and I was pleased to work for you. I had nothing to hand down, you did, my kids worked for yours. That primitive urge has not been bred out of us. Even millionaires want more.
Class was just an add on ensuring that I cannot move in your circles if I won the lottery. Class would disappear if the population dropped low enough to make my skills more important than your position. (Don't hold your breath.) It happened during the plague but we couldn't keep our trouser flaps buttoned up.
Sorry but this is complete bollocks
 
Continuation of the species started off by you being able to smash my head in, animals still do it that way. Evolution allowed us to develop and you learned how to produce currency. Being clever you took my share and I was pleased to work for you. I had nothing to hand down, you did, my kids worked for yours. That primitive urge has not been bred out of us. Even millionaires want more.
Class was just an add on ensuring that I cannot move in your circles if I won the lottery. Class would disappear if the population dropped low enough to make my skills more important than your position. (Don't hold your breath.) It happened during the plague but we couldn't keep our trouser flaps buttoned up.
I nearly went through this line by line, but to be honest I can't be bothered. Which is more on me than you. I'm tired of saying the same thing every time we have this debate. Every time. For two decades.
 
Continuation of the species started off by you being able to smash my head in, animals still do it that way. Evolution allowed us to develop and you learned how to produce currency. Being clever you took my share and I was pleased to work for you. I had nothing to hand down, you did, my kids worked for yours. That primitive urge has not been bred out of us. Even millionaires want more.
Class was just an add on ensuring that I cannot move in your circles if I won the lottery. Class would disappear if the population dropped low enough to make my skills more important than your position. (Don't hold your breath.) It happened during the plague but we couldn't keep our trouser flaps buttoned up.
You should write poetry ;)
 
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