Working class vs middle class

[George 1978]

Geordies are only from Newcastle, call someone from Sunderland a Geordie and you're liable to get a smack in the face. Being from the north east myself I'm definitely not a Geordie.

I take it that the G in HG doesn't stand for Geordie either...

[Arran]

The old working class comprised of blue collar industrial workers is a fraction of its former size, but what has emerged since the 1980s is a new working class in low skill low paid positions in the service sector – retail, call centres, hospitality, fast food, delivery drivers, and warehouse work, along with agency temps and workers on zero hours contracts.

The trade unions have not been anywhere near as effective at winning support and members from this new working class in the service sector as they did from the blue collar industrial workers. Instead, they prefer to stay within their comfort zones of representing public sector workers and other traditionally unionised sectors, like railways, rather than making serious efforts and attempts to reach out to workers in the service sector. It's commonplace to find teachers and nurses who are members of a trade union today, but not retail or fast food workers.

It's true that there are 20 somethings today who work in low skill low paid service sector jobs that have no idea what a trade union is! IMO, the trade unions themselves are squarely to blame to retreating into their comfort zone and failing to adapt to the changes in the economy and employment patterns in order to reach out to the new working class as well as younger workers.

This almost certainly has had an impact on the Labour Party since the 1990s, resulting in them living in the bubble of the public sector whilst failing to address the needs and requirements of the new working class in the service sector which is largely unrepresented through the trade unions.

Labour had some difficulty attracting this new working class in the service sector back in the 1980s and early 1990s. There is some anecdotal evidence that a significant fraction voted Conservative in the 1992 general election, for reasons like: my job isn't traditional working class; or it's more of a non-manual than a manual job; or because I don't have trade union shop stewards threatening me to vote Labour, or else the sky will fall, at my workplace.

In more recent years a situation has arisen where Labour has not been able to effectively reach this section of society in a similar way that they reached out to the blue collar industrial workers in bygone decades. The result is that the new working class in the service sector are significantly disenfranchised by politics. Some have ended up supporting the Lib-Dems or the Green Party. Others have dared to venture into the realm of the BNP. Since 2010 a sizeable number have been attracted to Nigel Farage's politics – more as a result of populist rather than economic policies. However, the majority of them feel that no party really represents them, so they end up not voting at all.

Over the past 25 or so years Labour has failed to look at why so few people in the private sector are members of trade unions and whether anything can (or should) be done about it. There is some evidence that Labour relied on the public sector worker vote, rather than the working class vote, during the period from 2003 to 2015 after Blair's charisma had faded, then later when he was succeeded by two lacklustre leaders. Labour has also failed to consider whether falling turnouts in elections is a result of the political disenfranchisement of the new working class in the service sector, and whether it has cost them seats.

There doesn't seem to have been anything to replace the emasculation of trade unions and bring workers in low skill low paid service sector jobs together. As well as being politically disenfranchised they are an atomised sector of society.

[Arran]

Some parts of London have changed over times, Notting Hill was well to do in the 1880s, but by the 1940s was one of the cheapest places in London to live, which was why a lot of Windrushers settled there. Recently it's become gentrified with young professionals moving there.

Battersea was very much a working class area from the 1940s to the early 1980s, and quite solidly Labour apart from a few suburbs towards the south. In the 1980s, it became a home to yuppies and elected a Conservative MP. From 1997 it's been a Labour Conservative marginal constituency.

[Arran]

London is one of the few areas of Britain where a centre of a city can get a safe Conservative seat - not many other cities can achieve that

It's the City of Westminster.

The Westminster North constituency is Labour. It is effectively the successor to the Paddington North, Paddington South, and St. Marylebone constituencies which were once all solidly Conservative. Paddington North went Labour in 1945 but the other two remained Conservative areas into the 1990s.

The demographics of the constituency must have changed significantly since the 1990s.

It's interesting that I associate Liverpool with being very working-class

Liverpool was once a staunch Conservative city. The Conservatives controlled the council in the 1960s and had more MPs than Labour did. Liverpool Walton - now one of the safest Labour seats - wasn't won by Labour until 1964.

The Conservatives haven't had a single councillor in Liverpool since 1995.

[Arran]

The two-party system works in the United States

The US is a constitutional republic and not a democracy in a similar sense to that in European countries. A system where one party governs and the other party keeps check, rather than a system where the two parties have significantly different policies and ideologies.

and I think that three's a crowd if more than two parties are involved, which is why the Lib Dems don't get as many seats.

The Lib-Dems are basically a relic from the 19th century. A party with limited appeal that exists as a third alternative more than anything else whilst the Green Party, BNP, UKIP, Brexit Party, SNP, and even Labour were established with a specific purpose and ideology in mind.

The Liberals / Lib-Dems have metamorphasised over the decades.

[HG]

They are both from the North East whichever way you look at it - I have always wondered whether being a Geordie meant that they had to be from Newcastle or anywhere in the region.

Geordies are only from Newcastle, call someone from Sunderland a Geordie and you're liable to get a smack in the face. Being from the north east myself I'm definitely not a Geordie.

[George 1978]

Have a look at London. It was a very Conservative city back in the 1980s where Labour was almost entirely cut back to inner London constituencies. In 2019 it was a very Labour city where the Conservatives only hold an odd few constituencies mostly on the outskirts.

London is one of the few areas of Britain where a centre of a city can get a safe Conservative seat - not many other cities can achieve that, but then again, the Bigwigs who are in charge of this country are based there so it's not surprising. The House of Commons and Downing Street has had the irony of bring the Cities of London and Westminster constituency - according to Wikipedia I have only ever read about Conservatives being elected there.

It's interesting that I associate Liverpool with being very working-class and so I was surprised that the Liverpool house in A House Through Time was in an area which seemed to be Liverpool's answer to London's Kensington and Chelsea area just after it was built - 100 years later it was a different story where it could be the scene for Rising Damp. Ditto with Newcastle in series two.

[George 1978]

I expect a lot of Labour candidates are drawn from union bureaucracies and social workers, would that be about right? How often does an actual labourer move up in any case for administrative positions of any kind? Haulage, manufacturing...? It's all an arms race of education with Oxbridge at the top and real experience being an afterthought.

To have a democracy you do need bare minimum two (hopefully fairly healthy) parties, I don't think too much of people who approach politics as extreme football... destroy the enemy party and all that. I think the social mobility thing waxes and wanes regardless. You suffer a few too many upper class personalities negatively and next time look for someone more boring but hopefully actually competent.

The two-party system works in the United States and I think that three's a crowd if more than two parties are involved, which is why the Lib Dems don't get as many seats.

[George 1978]

Robson Green is actually from rural Northumberland, a traditional middle class area not Tyneside, his Geordie accent was only acting.

Jimmy Nail on the other hand is from a working class background however he seemed to disappear up his own backside as his fame grew.

They are both from the North East whichever way you look at it - I have always wondered whether being a Geordie meant that they had to be from Newcastle or anywhere in the region.

[Arran]

I have been verbally informed that the middle class showed less geographic variation of culture than the working class did. Middle class people from Sussex, Cheshire, Worcestershire, and Hertfordshire would differ in accent but otherwise be culturally similar. Working class people from urban and industrial areas exhibited strong local identities and very distinctive accents.

Middle class people could theoretically move around Britain and manage to settle into their new area (if it was generally middle class), but working class people who moved to another working class area would be like a fish out of water.

It might be a bit of a simplification and in reality there were other variables in the equation.

[HG]

It's what I call the "Auf Wiedersehen Pet" factor - again, it's not just working class v middle class but also the north v south divide. Still, I doubt that Robson Green or Jimmy Nail ever worked as bricklayers or in shipyards - I am prepared to be proved wrong of course.

Robson Green is actually from rural Northumberland, a traditional middle class area not Tyneside, his Geordie accent was only acting.

Jimmy Nail on the other hand is from a working class background however he seemed to disappear up his own backside as his fame grew.

[Arran]

I expect a lot of Labour candidates are drawn from union bureaucracies and social workers, would that be about right? How often does an actual labourer move up in any case for administrative positions of any kind? Haulage, manufacturing...? It's all an arms race of education with Oxbridge at the top and real experience being an afterthought.

The clue is in the name.

The Labour Party was established around 1900 to represent the type of folk who left school at the earliest possible age (often without any qualifications) and were employed in menial jobs in factories, shipyards, and coal mines. Such people were usually quite patriotic and socially conservative, married young, and had little interest social mobility, but instead wanted a comfortable life as a member of the working class that wasn't being given to them by the Conservative and Liberal establishment at the time.

Labour was not established to represent cappuccino sipping hipsters from trendy cities and university graduates who want professional and white collar careers.

I don't think that Labour's traditional core voters were particularly left-wing. Even fewer supported the theories of Karl Marx. It's just that they were employed in heavily unionised industries, so it was in their clear economic interest to vote Labour. Following the decline in heavy industry since the 1970s, along with trade unions being stripped of their powers by the Thatcher government, the natural bond between Labour and the working class had been broken.

[Arran]

Interesting about the comparisons between 1983 and 2019

Have a look at London. It was a very Conservative city back in the 1980s where Labour was almost entirely cut back to inner London constituencies. In 2019 it was a very Labour city where the Conservatives only hold an odd few constituencies mostly on the outskirts.

It's amazing to think that several London constituencies that had Conservative MPs in my own lifetime – including Streatham, Hornsey and Wood Green, Lewisham East / West, Brent North – are probably now unwinnable by the Conservatives due to demographic changes.

The voters in coal mining areas would rather dig their eyes out than vote Conservative back in 1983, despite Britain winning the Falkland's War, but several – including Sedgefield, Bassetlaw, Leigh, Don Valley – were won by the Conservatives in 2019 whilst Labour held onto middle class Canterbury (which they did not even win back in the 1997 landslide election) and won Putney (which is home to many hipsters and intellectual types).

Also of note is how there was no opposition from any small parties in the industrial and coal mining Labour strongholds in the north and midlands back in 1983. The Brexit party cut deeply into these areas in 2019, which is further indication of the hatred of Labour under Corbyn and which flavour of politics the residents of these areas prefer. In London and the trendy cities, the Brexit Party vote was subdued (or even quite poor) in comparison. If the Brexit Party had not contested the 2019 election, then the Conservatives would almost certainly have wrenched more constituencies from Labour, such as Sunderland and Doncaster.

I know that this not a political forum, and I do apologise of course, but the fact of the matter is, however, that 60% of the past 50 years do come under the scope of this forum, hence the justification of including it on here.

It's impossible to discuss social class in Britain without touching on politics. Therefore I would appreciate it if the mods would not rain on the parade as long as the political material is relevant to the topic of this discussion.

Back in the 1970s through to the mid 1980s, Labour and Conservative had very different and distinctive policies and ideologies. The bedrock of the support base for the Conservatives was the petty bourgeois – middle aged comfortably well off suburbanites who worked in non-manual jobs, along with the owners of small businesses. The bedrock of the support base for Labour was the blue collar workers from urban areas employed in the mining and manufacturing industries, along with those employed in low end public sector jobs.

Both of these demographics have been eroded over the decades.

[beccabear67]

I expect a lot of Labour candidates are drawn from union bureaucracies and social workers, would that be about right? How often does an actual labourer move up in any case for administrative positions of any kind? Haulage, manufacturing...? It's all an arms race of education with Oxbridge at the top and real experience being an afterthought.

To have a democracy you do need bare minimum two (hopefully fairly healthy) parties, I don't think too much of people who approach politics as extreme football... destroy the enemy party and all that. I think the social mobility thing waxes and wanes regardless. You suffer a few too many upper class personalities negatively and next time look for someone more boring but hopefully actually competent.

[George 1978]

Certainly has changed now,
in my Comp our career advisor, one of the teachers had a talk on our future options , it all involved shipyards, heavy engineering etc which was big here in the north east of England .

It's what I call the "Auf Wiedersehen Pet" factor - again, it's not just working class v middle class but also the north v south divide. Still, I doubt that Robson Green or Jimmy Nail ever worked as bricklayers or in shipyards - I am prepared to be proved wrong of course.