Dave is middle class???

[Fittster]

OnTheOverrun said:

Fittster said:

OnTheOverrun said:

Oh goody, another failed Fittster thread.

Ahh, my person idiot is back, how was your day at the scope center?

You know I actually prefer your schoolyard abuse to your tedious and didactic diatribes (look those words up while you look up how to spell 'centre') as at least you write those yourself instead of cutting and pasting magazine articles and passing them off as your own work. I'm lucky enough to have a reasonable intellect so I don't need to stoop to your levels, I can simply continue to wonder why you think you need to educate an entire forum of people who appear to be better educated than you. . . . . . .

You are very tiresome little troll, although I shouldn't be surprised that you have nothing better to do. Your luck is that you don't realise who uneducated you actually are, why don't you try forming an argument, it should give you something do.

[thinfourth2]

230TE said:

I think the term 'middle class' covers a pretty large chunk of the population nowadays. My definition of 'upper class' would be someone who doesn't have to go out to work in the morning. Cameron doesn't have that kind of money behind him. Upper middle class if you want to start splitting definitions, but certainly not aristocracy.

Nice bit of class war trolling though. Have some sausages with that chip on your shoulder.

So we have no working class anymore and the upper class don't work is it safe to say only middle class people work in the UK

[230TE]

thinfourth2 said:

So we have no working class anymore and the upper class don't work is it safe to say only middle class people work in the UK

I wouldn't accept the view that we have no working class. You can divide it up into lots of subsections, from highly skilled manual workers down to the chav underclass who don't even understand the concept of work. But pinning down definitions of class is like trying to nail jelly to the ceiling. I'm not worried what class people think I am, as long as they don't come and bother me about it. Class only becomes a problem when people allow it to limit their own aspirations, or use it as an excuse for their failure to get on in life. Good example is the large number of kids from state schools who are bright enough for Oxbridge but won't apply because they think that only toffs go there. That kind of thinking is why I get a bit annoyed with people who try to stir up class envy and distinctions, when they would be better employed trying to bury the whole concept.

[Bill]

Fittster said:

Dave's 'middle class' background:

"Cameron is a direct descendant of King William IV and his mistress Dorothea Jordan. This illegitimate line consists of five direct generations of women on his father's maternal side starting with Lady Elizabeth FitzClarence, William and Jordan's sixth child, through to the fifth female generation Enid Agnes Maud Levita. His father's maternal grandmother, Stephanie Levita, was a sister of Duff Cooper, 1st Viscount Norwich, Conservative statesman and author, husband of Lady Diana Cooper (daughter of the 8th Duke of Rutland) the actress and society celebrity. His paternal grandmother, Enid Levita, who married secondly a younger son of 1st Baron Manton, was the niece of Sir Cecil Levita, Chairman of London County Council in 1928. Through the Mantons, Cameron also has kinship with Alexander Fermor-Hesketh, 3rd Baron Hesketh, Conservative Chief Whip in the House of Lords 1991-93 and Treasurer of the Conservative Party from 2003. Cameron's maternal grandfather was Sir William Mount, 2nd Baronet, an army officer and the High Sheriff of Berkshire, and Cameron's maternal great-grandfather was Sir William Mount, 1st Baronet, Conservative MP for Newbury 1918-1922. Lady Ida Matilde Alice Feilding, Cameron's great-great grandmother, was the daughter of William Feilding, 7th Earl of Denbigh, a courtier and Gentleman of the Bedchamber.[20] He is also a great × 4 great-nephew of Sir James Hanway Plumridge."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Cameron#Family

So, given that anyone can edit wikipedia I wonder which Labour troll put that up? It may well be true but some distant links to the aristocracy doesn't make him upper class.

[Quaint]

230TE said:

...the large number of kids from state schools who are bright enough for Oxbridge but won't apply because they think that only toffs go there. That kind of thinking is why I get a bit annoyed with people who try to stir up class envy and distinctions, when they would be better employed trying to bury the whole concept.

This, with highly-polished brass knobs on. I share Dave's educational background and saw first-hand the efforts made by Oxford to attract more applications from state schools - indeed I participated in my College's Target Schools programme for the 4 years I was there. The kids were ace, many of them hugely motivated by their parents and/or their own desire to "get on" - and a large number of those who came to College open weekends and similar events ended up applying. Some of the teachers, on the other hand, were tiresome - a few of them were quite vocal about the fact that they thought the whole programme was a complete waste of time and that it "wasn't right" for comprehensive-school kids to appply to a place where everyone's called Sebastian and nobody has a chin. Unbelievable behaviour from people who are supposed to have the children's best interests at heart.

Anyway - as for class, I agree that the "Middle Class" is a very broad church. I went to Eton, then Oxford and I'm now a management consultant. Dad's a solicitor, Mum was a teacher. I suppose consider myself the middlest of middle-class, FWIW. When I consider this at all, which isn't often!

[Lost_BMW]

Bill said:

Fittster said:

Dave's 'middle class' background:

"Cameron is a direct descendant of King William IV and his mistress Dorothea Jordan. This illegitimate line consists of five direct generations of women on his father's maternal side starting with Lady Elizabeth FitzClarence, William and Jordan's sixth child, through to the fifth female generation Enid Agnes Maud Levita. His father's maternal grandmother, Stephanie Levita, was a sister of Duff Cooper, 1st Viscount Norwich, Conservative statesman and author, husband of Lady Diana Cooper (daughter of the 8th Duke of Rutland) the actress and society celebrity. His paternal grandmother, Enid Levita, who married secondly a younger son of 1st Baron Manton, was the niece of Sir Cecil Levita, Chairman of London County Council in 1928. Through the Mantons, Cameron also has kinship with Alexander Fermor-Hesketh, 3rd Baron Hesketh, Conservative Chief Whip in the House of Lords 1991-93 and Treasurer of the Conservative Party from 2003. Cameron's maternal grandfather was Sir William Mount, 2nd Baronet, an army officer and the High Sheriff of Berkshire, and Cameron's maternal great-grandfather was Sir William Mount, 1st Baronet, Conservative MP for Newbury 1918-1922. Lady Ida Matilde Alice Feilding, Cameron's great-great grandmother, was the daughter of William Feilding, 7th Earl of Denbigh, a courtier and Gentleman of the Bedchamber.[20] He is also a great × 4 great-nephew of Sir James Hanway Plumridge."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Cameron#Family

So, given that anyone can edit wikipedia I wonder which Labour troll put that up? It may well be true but some distant links to the aristocracy doesn't make him upper class.

But, does it confirm he's a bit of a bd?

[Bill]

A mistress is one step removed from a hooker, and there isn't much more working class than that.

[Zod]

He is middle class. The upper class is an anachronism, consisting of the royal family and the aristocracy. The old working class of miners and factory workers no longer exists, despite the fantasies of the likes of Bob Crow. The rest of us are middle class, apart from the underclass. The thing is that the middle class covers a huge range of backgrounds, income ranges and attitudes. There are plenty of people who had privileged upbringings, but who now exist on modest incomes, just as there are plenty of people who were the first generation of their family to go to university and now enjoy huge incomes. There are, of course far more people who came from middle class families that had to work hard to pay for the house, bring up the kids, afford a modest holiday and run a car and who find themselves in a similar position to their parents.

In summary, we are all middle class, but the label tells us nothing and neither does the upbringing.

[Skipppy]

The class system here is such a load of st. It inevitably ends up causing a row, especially in politics, deflecting attention away from many more important issues.

[Bill]

Bill said:

A mistress is one step removed from a hooker, and there isn't much more working class than that.

In fact the system is remarkably similar to the one Labour use - suck the big man's cock enough and you too can join the aristocracy

[HundredthIdiot]

Zod said:

In summary, we are all middle class, but the label tells us nothing and neither does the upbringing.

The definitions of class have just changed. There are strata within any society.

Not sure how to define them in general terms.

Perhaps the higher your "class" the less effort your children have to put in for a given life outcome/allocation of resources. This seems to cover everything from the traditional Blackadder-esqe "mouth-breathing aristocracy" to Paris Hilton.

Properties of different classes (burberry, horse riding/sex tapes, moaning about house prices) are symptoms rather than defining attributes.

[OnTheOverrun]

Fittster said:

OnTheOverrun said:

Fittster said:

OnTheOverrun said:

Oh goody, another failed Fittster thread.

Ahh, my person idiot is back, how was your day at the scope center?

You know I actually prefer your schoolyard abuse to your tedious and didactic diatribes (look those words up while you look up how to spell 'centre') as at least you write those yourself instead of cutting and pasting magazine articles and passing them off as your own work. I'm lucky enough to have a reasonable intellect so I don't need to stoop to your levels, I can simply continue to wonder why you think you need to educate an entire forum of people who appear to be better educated than you. . . . . . .

You are very tiresome little troll, although I shouldn't be surprised that you have nothing better to do. Your luck is that you don't realise who uneducated you actually are, why don't you try forming an argument, it should give you something do.

Every thread you post is at best disagreed with and at worst ridiculed, yet still you are sat there hunched over your keyboard at 2:18am furiously calling people trolls and telling them they are stupid and have nothing better to do. With such little grasp of irony, I suspect septic roots. My argument is formed and simple and applies to all your threads: you're not right, evryone else is not wrong and you're not achieving anything other than making yourself look foolish and patronising. Long may it continue to waste your obviously valueless time!

[Esseesse]

Zod said:

The old working class of miners and factory workers no longer exists, despite the fantasies of the likes of Bob Crow. The rest of us are middle class, apart from the underclass. The thing is that the middle class covers a huge range of backgrounds, income ranges and attitudes.

I would agree with you that the working class as we knew it is gone mostly now. However I don't think that working class people have gone at all. There are lots and lots of people with very basic education (handful of GCSE's) who work for minimum wage at Toys R Us/Pets At Home/Argos/Costa. Surely these people are most definitely not middle class.

I'm a designer (mostly web now), and although privately educated I sometimes wonder if I am really kind of like a skilled working class. I am not a manager (although I work with other people and jointly manage projects), I am the actual monkey getting my hands 'dirty' making something.

[Dr Jekyll]

Esseesse said:

I'm a designer (mostly web now), and although privately educated I sometimes wonder if I am really kind of like a skilled working class. I am not a manager (although I work with other people and jointly manage projects), I am the actual monkey getting my hands 'dirty' making something.

A golf club in East London once offered cheap membership if you could prove you were a manual worker. A cardiac surgeon failed to qualify, but I don't know what the clubs argument was.

[poo at Paul's]

All this class talk reminds me of Prescott's encounter with three council flat dwellers...!

“Are you chavs, then?” he greets them, with likeable bluntness.

“No!” they chorus, horrified.

“What is a chav, anyway?” Prescott asks. “Is it a language of the internet?”

“Nah - it's like a pikey,” one girl says.

“A parkie?” Prescott says, struggling with the accent.

“No, a pikey - like a traveller. I'm just, like, middle class.”

“I'd call you working class,” Prescott says, bewildered by the mixed messages.

“I don't work,” the girl says, briskly.

[Jasandjules]

poo at Paul's said:

All this class talk reminds me of Prescott's encounter with three council flat dwellers...!

I had the same thought process.. That's a TV classic!

[Lost_BMW]

poo at Paul's said:

“I'm just, like, middle class.”

“I'd call you working class,” Prescott says, bewildered by the mixed messages.

“I don't work,” the girl says, briskly.

Good quote!

I remember that well, one of the best bits of unintentional humour (and self-condemnation) ever.

Wasn't that the slapper who mouthed off at all and sundry and wanted to start fights with people in the background (even 'on show') 'cos they woz lookin at 'er funny like, innit?

Three pieces of Bliar's congenital benefits class trash - but that's middle class these days . . apparently!

[Pesty]

What did he mean by 'sharp-elbowed'

Not a phrase I have heard before.

[Timberwolf]

Pesty said:

What did he mean by 'sharp-elbowed'

Not a phrase I have heard before.

Very good at being at the front of any queue, at the expense of others.

Which actually interested me, once I'd gone away and thought about it. The story is not so much that he's identifying with the so-called "middle class", that he's actively disparaging them.

[thinfourth2]

230TE said:

thinfourth2 said:

So we have no working class anymore and the upper class don't work is it safe to say only middle class people work in the UK

I wouldn't accept the view that we have no working class. You can divide it up into lots of subsections, from highly skilled manual workers down to the chav underclass who don't even understand the concept of work. But pinning down definitions of class is like trying to nail jelly to the ceiling. I'm not worried what class people think I am, as long as they don't come and bother me about it. Class only becomes a problem when people allow it to limit their own aspirations, or use it as an excuse for their failure to get on in life. Good example is the large number of kids from state schools who are bright enough for Oxbridge but won't apply because they think that only toffs go there. That kind of thinking is why I get a bit annoyed with people who try to stir up class envy and distinctions, when they would be better employed trying to bury the whole concept.

Highly skilled manual workers are well into middle class earning threshold and chav scum are just underclass.

I still say that the uk has no working class any more