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  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    F1: Norris has a three place grid drop for yellow naughtiness in first practice.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,625

    I would suggest older people are significantly over-represented among those "unexplained" excess deaths, however.
    It is my understanding that the excess death group which isn't classified as COVID19 are not un-diagnosed. There are causes on the death certificate. The question is whether the causes are the primary cause.

    An elderly relative of mine, in another country, got what seemed to be a bad cold. Then suddenly died of a heart attack. Negative test for COVID19.....
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,884

    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Alistair said:

    Ah, the working class business owner.
    Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
    Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
    What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
    You don't need to be a business owner to hope for better for your children. The problems come when business owners treat their employees like they're disposable and prevent them from realising their dreams for their children. Aspiration is not binary.
    I don't think it's at all helpful to view people as traitors to their class simply because they have made some money. But equally one might question whether they are still members of that class in the way that many people understand it.
    Although I have always been middle class I have certainly moved from one end of that wide envelope to the other in material terms over the course of my life, so I am certainly no stranger to, or enemy of, aspiration.
    But your argument wasnt against bad business owners exploiting workers, it was that you cant be a working class business owner. Take a previously working class brickie who decides to employ five of his mates, they all work the same duties and hours but he happens to be the owner of the firm. On his first day of ownership does he automatically change class? Is he supposed to be aware of this?
    Per Pidcock, you leave the working class at the point where you can live off your wealth. So with your example that would not be on the 1st day or anything close to it.

    Usual caveat. Life is not so precise. But it's a helpful thought imo.
    Under her definition, I'm still working class, then Kinabalu. That doesn't ring true, I own a flat in Hampstead and work for an international bank in investment markets. I'm the very definition of comfortable middle class.
    Yes. She is saying you're working class, don't kid yourself otherwise. And so was I until I didn't have to do it anymore.

    Totally understand that this is not definitive. It's a complex area that impinges on identity which is always sensitive.

    But I do think her Marxist lens on it is a useful one to use. Certainly more useful than the other extreme - that class boils down to attitudes and as such is essentially self-defined. Not sure where that gets us.

    Plus on a partisan political note. If Labour is the party of the working class it makes sense for them to define it to include most of the population.
    Just occurred to me.
    If nowadays you can choose your Gender, surely you should be allowed to choose your Class.
    I suspect that those allowing the former might be against allowing the latter.
    I suspect a lot of left wing luvvies definitely identify as working class, despite significant buckets of cash and very nice houses...
  • Pro_RataPro_Rata Posts: 4,785
    I have some, primarily second hand, knowledge of the child and adult social care systems - family members who have worked in fostering and indeed whose kids have been under social services.

    The decision making processes and policies at all levels are massively tangled and many counterproductive things seem to happen. Fosterers have a really very weak guardianship role - the child in your care is hanging out down the bus stop? - call the duty social worker. Want to discuss things with the school - pot luck who they are listening to. Everything is done at full legal level, meetings about a child can have 4 or more sets of separate representatives, for each parent, for the foster family, for the child, for the school. The access parents have to their children is often highly damaging and often a degree of manipulation can undermine the child, and if the adult has care needs, it can be convenient for the council, on the child reaching adulthood for that barely capable child to become the carer in a complex needs situation.

    Of course many of these things happen for a reason, but the whole system as it has been constructed is pretty depressing on multiple levels.

    IANAE, I don't know the solutions, but frankly I'd start again from a blank sheet of paper.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. Quincel, this was mentioned yesterday, I think. A few sites have not renewed deals with the operators of Oddschecker, which also owns some online betting operations itself.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,884

    Glued to the Cricket day 3

    A little disappointed my Draw bet is only offering a £15 cash out profit

    The Draw
    6.2
    £82.00 Stake
    £426.40 profit if its a draw

    Current cash out £97.75

    Long way to go yet (will be making up lost time for the next three days too).
  • QuincelQuincel Posts: 3,949

    Mr. Quincel, this was mentioned yesterday, I think. A few sites have not renewed deals with the operators of Oddschecker, which also owns some online betting operations itself.

    Alas. I've look up some others.

    Yeah, isn't it owned by Sky? Or maybe I'm misremembering.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772
    Even by the standards of the first test match of the series, which is traditionally a freebie for the visiting side, this is a truly woeful performance by England.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851
    edited July 2020
    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Alistair said:

    Ah, the working class business owner.

    Read this article about being working class is by Laura Pidcock and explain how it does not apply to all those featured in the article about Leigh.

    https://tribunemag.co.uk/2019/10/its-time-to-talk-about-class
    I like that piece from Pidcock. You are working class if you (or earning partner) have to work for a living. There's more to it of course but that imo is a good start point.

    The cultural aspect is not irrelevant but it's a soft subjective measure and lends itself to much posturing and affectation in all directions.

    So Hyacinth Bucket is working class. Jamie Vardy is not working class.
    The problem with Pillock is that she she's everything as class based, "the single most important aspect of a person’s life" which is rampant nonsense. She is right that many comfortably off people won't be if their income ceases and they can't replace it, but that isn't class based.

    She concludes "For years, it was unfashionable, but in an economy like ours, it makes more and more sense. I am happy that the Labour Party, too, now foregrounds class politics and that we will go into a general election to speak for our class — working-class people, the majority of people."

    Tell normals like in Leigh that they are working class and that is "about focusing on the collective power we have, and on solidarity" and they'll tell you to do one. And rightly so. Unless Starmer can bad aside that kind of language Labour are really going to lose their ability to speak to these voters in these places.
    Totally agree with you about the challenge of presentation.

    However, I concur with her that linking "working class" to how much money you have is a politically more useful concept than linking it to culture and attitudes.
    Linking groups to anything is in no way useful. This is why identity politics which your form of class politics is doesnt work. How much money I have would put me in the same group as a friend who works in a shop. What we want a government to do however would be very different. How then is it in anyway useful classing as both part of the same group. The same applies when you try and think of all other groups....members of the group want different things from each other
    I take the point - we are all unique individuals - but when it comes to looking at society as a whole, and policies to benefit society as a whole, I think you do have to consider interest groups and you do have to recognize that there are conflicts between them on certain matters and therefore you must choose. It sounds nice to make out that your policies are to benefit everyone - no losers - but for me that is usually a cop-out and often a lie.
  • Wulfrun_PhilWulfrun_Phil Posts: 4,572
    MrEd said:

    Foxy said:

    HYUFD said:

    I am starting to be a seller of Sunak for next leader.

    The cracks are appearing in his colossal socialist experiment. The prosecutions for furlough fraud are starting, and reported to be the tip of the iceberg.

    Lower down the thread we see the mind boggling sums spent on PPE and track and don;t trace for what looking more and more like dubious rewards every day.

    His jobs initiatives and green subsides will be the next to come apart at the seams in my book, in the same way as every government initiative on these there ever was has foundered.

    At some juncture he will have to go cap in hand to tory middle England to bankroll these and other socialist follies. A tory middle England that is already paying the highest taxes in fifty years. The push back will be enormous and may well cost Johnson his job. It would be no surprise now if Sunak went with him.

    Sunak's position is worsening by the day.

    Boris will not increase taxes he will borrow to fund increased spending, Starmer however would raise taxes on middle England
    It is not Sunak's fault that people defrauded the system./
    I think furlough has been quite widely abused. My spouse employing colleagues in the private sector are raking it in. Presumably true of a lot of small businesses. Not criminally, but not really its intention. I wonder if any MPs have done this.
    I'm a director of a small business on a voluntary basis - a private members golf club (with most of our members definitely C2s, not your usual stereotype of golfers). We furloughed 7 of our 11 employees originally, 2 came back in May when the course reopened, 4 this month when the clubhouse and bar reopened, and 1 is going to return next month. It looks like we're now going to get a £7k from the public purse because we're re-employing all of them, but we were always going to do that anyway. Ker-ching.

    Firms will re-employ staff, or not, based on the needs of their business going forward, not on whether the government is going to bung them enough to pay a couple of weeks' wages if they do so.

    It's not abuse, but it's still a use of public money to reward the lucky recipient to no obvious public benefit. You could say exactly the same about public money lost to fraud.
    Another way to look at it is that it is effectively a Government subsidy for keeping firms in business and the wheels in motion. Take Phil's comment: his small business gets £7K extra of public money that it could use to pay bills outstanding that generates cash for someone else etc. That might be the main purpose of it as well as encouraging people to keep workers - if it is, as long as firms do not just hoard cash (which is a possibility), I am happy with it.
    For small businesses in the leisure/hospitality sector, short term cash flow should be fine. The 6 year £50k bounce back loan takes care of that. We also got the full business rate rebate and the £25k grant for the hospitality/leisure centre. And a full refund to date for all furloughed staff payments. We've more cash in the bank at the moment than we would have at this point in a normal year as the grants/loans more than cover the fixed costs and the loan repayments don't start for another year.

    The £7k is not big enough to affect our decision to bring back staff, which we were doing anyway, and we're already a going concern provided that demand for our product doesn't change much in the longer term.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,625
    NHS England hospital numbers out

    Headline - 22
    7 Days - 20
    Yesterday - 6

    image
    image
    image
    image
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772

    Carnyx said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    So far as local government is concerned I think things have been horribly patchy. A good friend of my daughter is a social worker. She described a very variable picture. In Angus she and her colleagues have been seeing those children identified as the most vulnerable weekly and have taken them to hotels etc overnight where they were thought to be at risk. The second category have been seen fortnightly with telephone calls in the intervening weeks. The least at risk have only been "seen" virtually by phone.

    This is immensely better than Dundee has managed. There, actual visits to children thought to have been at risk pre lockdown have been almost non existent. These kids have lost their social workers, their school, their pals and are stuck in the house with parents with real issues from drug and alcohol abuse to mental health problems of their own. God knows what has happened to them. A recent report in the local press said that drug deaths in Dundee, which already had the worst death rate in Europe, have soared in the lockdown.

    The idea that there was some magical local resource that the government has failed to take advantage of when it cannot even provide the services that it is supposed to to protect our most vulnerable is just a bit far fetched.

    Doesn't sound good. Has Dundee something else on it's hands, or is it, so far as you can see, straightforward inability to cope, or lack of imagination?
    Dundee has a really chronic problem with drugs and this has aggravated mental health issues in the city. It has a lot of poor housing and very poor leadership.

    Although there have been successes in the City, such as the Welcome trust expansion of the University, the R&A museum and some games makers they have provided a smallish number of jobs compared with the large number of semi-skilled jobs that have been lost from the likes of NCR and, in the last month, the closure of Michelin which has been coming for 2 years. This has drained money out of the City. You could see the consequences in the shopping centres in Dundee pre lockdown. I dread to think what we are going to see over the next year.
    Dundee has an R&A museum? I wouldn't have thought portly Pringle wearers would be the saviour of anywhere bar St Andrews, but whatever it takes..
    I think he must mean the V&A branch, obviously. But there are also the RRS Discovery and HMS Unicorn for those of us more interested in ships.
    Yeah, I was just being annoying :)

    Having visited Dundee on and off over the years I was pleasantly surprised by the transformation of the waterfront, though it still seems in thrall to the combustion engine. I've only seen the V&A from the outside but it does look impressive. My partner has visited it a couple of times and thought there was a slight sense of the exhibits being secondary to the building but perhaps that will change as they get into their stride (current Covid disaster notwithstanding).

    Always thought Dundee was treated a bit unfairly, you can't beat a city at the mouth of a river with wide vistas and a couple of almost iconic bridges.
    I love Dundee. The Verdant Works jute museum is very interesting. I felt I came away understanding the place a lot better. It doesn't have a great press in Scotland, neglected for being outside the central belt proper and much more urban and poor than its surrounding areas. But as you note a stunning location and nice people too.
    I did indeed mean the V&A museum and I agree that the Verdant works is an excellent museum. Dundee looks its best coming from Fife where you get the proper benefit of the bay. I really enjoy living here but its a city with many problems.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,912
    DavidL said:

    Carnyx said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    So far as local government is concerned I think things have been horribly patchy. A good friend of my daughter is a social worker. She described a very variable picture. In Angus she and her colleagues have been seeing those children identified as the most vulnerable weekly and have taken them to hotels etc overnight where they were thought to be at risk. The second category have been seen fortnightly with telephone calls in the intervening weeks. The least at risk have only been "seen" virtually by phone.

    This is immensely better than Dundee has managed. There, actual visits to children thought to have been at risk pre lockdown have been almost non existent. These kids have lost their social workers, their school, their pals and are stuck in the house with parents with real issues from drug and alcohol abuse to mental health problems of their own. God knows what has happened to them. A recent report in the local press said that drug deaths in Dundee, which already had the worst death rate in Europe, have soared in the lockdown.

    The idea that there was some magical local resource that the government has failed to take advantage of when it cannot even provide the services that it is supposed to to protect our most vulnerable is just a bit far fetched.

    Doesn't sound good. Has Dundee something else on it's hands, or is it, so far as you can see, straightforward inability to cope, or lack of imagination?
    Dundee has a really chronic problem with drugs and this has aggravated mental health issues in the city. It has a lot of poor housing and very poor leadership.

    Although there have been successes in the City, such as the Welcome trust expansion of the University, the R&A museum and some games makers they have provided a smallish number of jobs compared with the large number of semi-skilled jobs that have been lost from the likes of NCR and, in the last month, the closure of Michelin which has been coming for 2 years. This has drained money out of the City. You could see the consequences in the shopping centres in Dundee pre lockdown. I dread to think what we are going to see over the next year.
    Dundee has an R&A museum? I wouldn't have thought portly Pringle wearers would be the saviour of anywhere bar St Andrews, but whatever it takes..
    I think he must mean the V&A branch, obviously. But there are also the RRS Discovery and HMS Unicorn for those of us more interested in ships.
    Yeah, I was just being annoying :)

    Having visited Dundee on and off over the years I was pleasantly surprised by the transformation of the waterfront, though it still seems in thrall to the combustion engine. I've only seen the V&A from the outside but it does look impressive. My partner has visited it a couple of times and thought there was a slight sense of the exhibits being secondary to the building but perhaps that will change as they get into their stride (current Covid disaster notwithstanding).

    Always thought Dundee was treated a bit unfairly, you can't beat a city at the mouth of a river with wide vistas and a couple of almost iconic bridges.
    I love Dundee. The Verdant Works jute museum is very interesting. I felt I came away understanding the place a lot better. It doesn't have a great press in Scotland, neglected for being outside the central belt proper and much more urban and poor than its surrounding areas. But as you note a stunning location and nice people too.
    I did indeed mean the V&A museum and I agree that the Verdant works is an excellent museum. Dundee looks its best coming from Fife where you get the proper benefit of the bay. I really enjoy living here but its a city with many problems.
    Everything looks better in Fife! 😉
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Alistair said:

    Ah, the working class business owner.
    Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
    Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
    What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
    You don't need to be a business owner to hope for better for your children. The problems come when business owners treat their employees like they're disposable and prevent them from realising their dreams for their children. Aspiration is not binary.
    I don't think it's at all helpful to view people as traitors to their class simply because they have made some money. But equally one might question whether they are still members of that class in the way that many people understand it.
    Although I have always been middle class I have certainly moved from one end of that wide envelope to the other in material terms over the course of my life, so I am certainly no stranger to, or enemy of, aspiration.
    But your argument wasnt against bad business owners exploiting workers, it was that you cant be a working class business owner. Take a previously working class brickie who decides to employ five of his mates, they all work the same duties and hours but he happens to be the owner of the firm. On his first day of ownership does he automatically change class? Is he supposed to be aware of this?
    Per Pidcock, you leave the working class at the point where you can live off your wealth. So with your example that would not be on the 1st day or anything close to it.

    Usual caveat. Life is not so precise. But it's a helpful thought imo.
    But its nonsense! So on retirement everyone stops being working class?

    In this country its also perfectly possible to live off state benefits without ever doing a days work. Not fun or recommended, but do-able. So at birth we are all excluded from being working class.

    On a personal level I could certainly retire early today and survive, just not at the level I would like to so will probably end up working another 15 years or so. Which level sets my class, my desired income, historic income or average income, or state sustenance?
    I can answer these questions on Laura's behalf. On retirement you carry on being what you were before you retired. Being jobless on benefits does not count as living off your wealth because it is not living comfortably. Which means - let's put this out there - that your capital needs to be sufficient to generate an income of at least the average wage without any labour input from you. If you're in that boat you can only be "cultural" working class - which is the softer, subjective and imo less useful concept (albeit not irrelevant).
    How do I know how long Im going to live? If its 75 Im excluded from working class on your definition, if l lived to 95 I would be eligible. This is silly.
    It's silly if we get too literal about it. My point is mainly that of the 2 extremes - class is all about money or all about attitudes - I prefer the 1st one. I think that's more useful when it comes to the true economic interest of people (whether they see it or not).

    But OK, since I don't like to dodge questions. We don't know how long you're going to live. But remember we've said that when you become a pensioner - at say 65 - you remain in the class you were in on the day before that event. Thus at this point we only need to ascertain if your wealth is sufficient to live comfortably on UNTIL you reach 65. If it is, you can be "Stocky" working class but not "Pidcock" working class.
    Sorry to be a literal pedant and all that but it really is still nonsensical. At 64y 11m everyone is no longer working class, as they only need a months average wages. By the last day they only need one days average wages to prevent them being working class. At retirement date their class is fixed, so you have no working class retirees.

    The group the Labour party has really lost are working class retirees.
    Grr.

    So, if you approach retirement in a position whereby your wealth alone is generating a comfortable income then whatever class status that signifies continues to the grave (barring accidents).

    As for Labour, yes, our biggest problem is not about class it's about age. We are going gangbusters with the under 40s - setting records there - but it's the opposite of that with the over 65s.

    If we could make 'full set of own teeth' a condition of voting we'd be in great shape.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,165
    DavidL said:

    Even by the standards of the first test match of the series, which is traditionally a freebie for the visiting side, this is a truly woeful performance by England.

    Broad's interview this morning was refreshingly honest.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772
    Scott_xP said:
    Genuinely and profoundly bewildering. Chocolate teapots vote for utilitarianism with unusual confidence.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,723

    Glued to the Cricket day 3

    A little disappointed my Draw bet is only offering a £15 cash out profit

    The Draw
    6.2
    £82.00 Stake
    £426.40 profit if its a draw

    Current cash out £97.75

    Long way to go yet (will be making up lost time for the next three days too).
    True cash out now up to £121.93 though. (£39.53 profit)
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880
    Scott_xP said:
    Project Fear.

    On 01/01/21 the UK will be a proud and confident trading nation that looks to distant shores to fulfill its mercantile imperatives.

    Tonga will be buying McLaren GTs hand over fucking fist.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772
    tlg86 said:

    DavidL said:

    Even by the standards of the first test match of the series, which is traditionally a freebie for the visiting side, this is a truly woeful performance by England.

    Broad's interview this morning was refreshingly honest.
    Missed that. He seems narked he isn't playing and when you look how the bowlers have done he's got a point. Hell, when you look how the batsmen did he's got a point.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069
    dixiedean said:

    coach said:

    A layer that is rarely discussed and hasn't been on here is the underclass, benefit dependent, mostly single parents, alcohol and drug abuse, low level education. I'd guess they make up 10% of the electorate and very few of them vote.

    I can't imagine many on here come anywhere near these people in every respect.

    I do.
    So do I. The rich tapestry of human life is spread out in front of me every day. County set to street druggie, health is a great (but always incomplete) leveller.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149
    DavidL said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Genuinely and profoundly bewildering. Chocolate teapots vote for utilitarianism with unusual confidence.
    Rather an unkind article -

    "Indeed, there is an aspect of Brexit and the calibre of its ascendant personnel that has always felt karmic. Grayling’s wildly overpromoted slapdashery is precisely the level of failure and incompetence you might have found in, say, the British Raj. Had he been born under earlier stars, you can absolutely see Chris dashing off a few catastrophic boundary changes for Louis Mountbatten, or ruining a province only to be rewarded with a bigger one. The difference is that we’ve brought it all home now. Having run out of other countries to do it to, Britain is now British empiring itself."
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Alistair said:

    Ah, the working class business owner.
    Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
    Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
    What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
    You don't need to be a business owner to hope for better for your children. The problems come when business owners treat their employees like they're disposable and prevent them from realising their dreams for their children. Aspiration is not binary.
    I don't think it's at all helpful to view people as traitors to their class simply because they have made some money. But equally one might question whether they are still members of that class in the way that many people understand it.
    Although I have always been middle class I have certainly moved from one end of that wide envelope to the other in material terms over the course of my life, so I am certainly no stranger to, or enemy of, aspiration.
    But your argument wasnt against bad business owners exploiting workers, it was that you cant be a working class business owner. Take a previously working class brickie who decides to employ five of his mates, they all work the same duties and hours but he happens to be the owner of the firm. On his first day of ownership does he automatically change class? Is he supposed to be aware of this?
    Per Pidcock, you leave the working class at the point where you can live off your wealth. So with your example that would not be on the 1st day or anything close to it.

    Usual caveat. Life is not so precise. But it's a helpful thought imo.
    Under her definition, I'm still working class, then Kinabalu. That doesn't ring true, I own a flat in Hampstead and work for an international bank in investment markets. I'm the very definition of comfortable middle class.
    Yes. She is saying you're working class, don't kid yourself otherwise. And so was I until I didn't have to do it anymore.

    Totally understand that this is not definitive. It's a complex area that impinges on identity which is always sensitive.

    But I do think her Marxist lens on it is a useful one to use. Certainly more useful than the other extreme - that class boils down to attitudes and as such is essentially self-defined. Not sure where that gets us.

    Plus on a partisan political note. If Labour is the party of the working class it makes sense for them to define it to include most of the population.
    Just occurred to me.
    If nowadays you can choose your Gender, surely you should be allowed to choose your Class.
    I suspect that those allowing the former might be against allowing the latter.
    I suspect a lot of left wing luvvies definitely identify as working class, despite significant buckets of cash and very nice houses...
    I'm used to this sort of comment. But I would ask you to note that I have been arguing exactly the opposite all thread. That IDing as working class when you're minted is bollox.
  • NerysHughesNerysHughes Posts: 3,346
    edited July 2020
    Andy Holding on Oddschecker is an amzing horse racing tipster. Anyone following him for the last few weeks would be miles in front.
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 3,853
    DavidL said:

    Carnyx said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    So far as local government is concerned I think things have been horribly patchy. A good friend of my daughter is a social worker. She described a very variable picture. In Angus she and her colleagues have been seeing those children identified as the most vulnerable weekly and have taken them to hotels etc overnight where they were thought to be at risk. The second category have been seen fortnightly with telephone calls in the intervening weeks. The least at risk have only been "seen" virtually by phone.

    This is immensely better than Dundee has managed. There, actual visits to children thought to have been at risk pre lockdown have been almost non existent. These kids have lost their social workers, their school, their pals and are stuck in the house with parents with real issues from drug and alcohol abuse to mental health problems of their own. God knows what has happened to them. A recent report in the local press said that drug deaths in Dundee, which already had the worst death rate in Europe, have soared in the lockdown.

    The idea that there was some magical local resource that the government has failed to take advantage of when it cannot even provide the services that it is supposed to to protect our most vulnerable is just a bit far fetched.

    Doesn't sound good. Has Dundee something else on it's hands, or is it, so far as you can see, straightforward inability to cope, or lack of imagination?
    Dundee has a really chronic problem with drugs and this has aggravated mental health issues in the city. It has a lot of poor housing and very poor leadership.

    Although there have been successes in the City, such as the Welcome trust expansion of the University, the R&A museum and some games makers they have provided a smallish number of jobs compared with the large number of semi-skilled jobs that have been lost from the likes of NCR and, in the last month, the closure of Michelin which has been coming for 2 years. This has drained money out of the City. You could see the consequences in the shopping centres in Dundee pre lockdown. I dread to think what we are going to see over the next year.
    Dundee has an R&A museum? I wouldn't have thought portly Pringle wearers would be the saviour of anywhere bar St Andrews, but whatever it takes..
    I think he must mean the V&A branch, obviously. But there are also the RRS Discovery and HMS Unicorn for those of us more interested in ships.
    Yeah, I was just being annoying :)

    Having visited Dundee on and off over the years I was pleasantly surprised by the transformation of the waterfront, though it still seems in thrall to the combustion engine. I've only seen the V&A from the outside but it does look impressive. My partner has visited it a couple of times and thought there was a slight sense of the exhibits being secondary to the building but perhaps that will change as they get into their stride (current Covid disaster notwithstanding).

    Always thought Dundee was treated a bit unfairly, you can't beat a city at the mouth of a river with wide vistas and a couple of almost iconic bridges.
    I love Dundee. The Verdant Works jute museum is very interesting. I felt I came away understanding the place a lot better. It doesn't have a great press in Scotland, neglected for being outside the central belt proper and much more urban and poor than its surrounding areas. But as you note a stunning location and nice people too.
    I did indeed mean the V&A museum and I agree that the Verdant works is an excellent museum. Dundee looks its best coming from Fife where you get the proper benefit of the bay. I really enjoy living here but its a city with many problems.
    It's a downsized version of Hull, only not quite as depressing, and with St Andrews instead of Cleethorpes.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772

    DavidL said:

    Carnyx said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    So far as local government is concerned I think things have been horribly patchy. A good friend of my daughter is a social worker. She described a very variable picture. In Angus she and her colleagues have been seeing those children identified as the most vulnerable weekly and have taken them to hotels etc overnight where they were thought to be at risk. The second category have been seen fortnightly with telephone calls in the intervening weeks. The least at risk have only been "seen" virtually by phone.

    This is immensely better than Dundee has managed. There, actual visits to children thought to have been at risk pre lockdown have been almost non existent. These kids have lost their social workers, their school, their pals and are stuck in the house with parents with real issues from drug and alcohol abuse to mental health problems of their own. God knows what has happened to them. A recent report in the local press said that drug deaths in Dundee, which already had the worst death rate in Europe, have soared in the lockdown.

    The idea that there was some magical local resource that the government has failed to take advantage of when it cannot even provide the services that it is supposed to to protect our most vulnerable is just a bit far fetched.

    Doesn't sound good. Has Dundee something else on it's hands, or is it, so far as you can see, straightforward inability to cope, or lack of imagination?
    Dundee has a really chronic problem with drugs and this has aggravated mental health issues in the city. It has a lot of poor housing and very poor leadership.

    Although there have been successes in the City, such as the Welcome trust expansion of the University, the R&A museum and some games makers they have provided a smallish number of jobs compared with the large number of semi-skilled jobs that have been lost from the likes of NCR and, in the last month, the closure of Michelin which has been coming for 2 years. This has drained money out of the City. You could see the consequences in the shopping centres in Dundee pre lockdown. I dread to think what we are going to see over the next year.
    Dundee has an R&A museum? I wouldn't have thought portly Pringle wearers would be the saviour of anywhere bar St Andrews, but whatever it takes..
    I think he must mean the V&A branch, obviously. But there are also the RRS Discovery and HMS Unicorn for those of us more interested in ships.
    Yeah, I was just being annoying :)

    Having visited Dundee on and off over the years I was pleasantly surprised by the transformation of the waterfront, though it still seems in thrall to the combustion engine. I've only seen the V&A from the outside but it does look impressive. My partner has visited it a couple of times and thought there was a slight sense of the exhibits being secondary to the building but perhaps that will change as they get into their stride (current Covid disaster notwithstanding).

    Always thought Dundee was treated a bit unfairly, you can't beat a city at the mouth of a river with wide vistas and a couple of almost iconic bridges.
    I love Dundee. The Verdant Works jute museum is very interesting. I felt I came away understanding the place a lot better. It doesn't have a great press in Scotland, neglected for being outside the central belt proper and much more urban and poor than its surrounding areas. But as you note a stunning location and nice people too.
    I did indeed mean the V&A museum and I agree that the Verdant works is an excellent museum. Dundee looks its best coming from Fife where you get the proper benefit of the bay. I really enjoy living here but its a city with many problems.
    Everything looks better in Fife! 😉
    I'm tempted to say only when you are looking out of it but I've probably got myself in enough trouble for 1 day.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,026
    I know my place.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,912
    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Alistair said:

    Ah, the working class business owner.
    Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
    Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
    What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
    You don't need to be a business owner to hope for better for your children. The problems come when business owners treat their employees like they're disposable and prevent them from realising their dreams for their children. Aspiration is not binary.
    I don't think it's at all helpful to view people as traitors to their class simply because they have made some money. But equally one might question whether they are still members of that class in the way that many people understand it.
    Although I have always been middle class I have certainly moved from one end of that wide envelope to the other in material terms over the course of my life, so I am certainly no stranger to, or enemy of, aspiration.
    But your argument wasnt against bad business owners exploiting workers, it was that you cant be a working class business owner. Take a previously working class brickie who decides to employ five of his mates, they all work the same duties and hours but he happens to be the owner of the firm. On his first day of ownership does he automatically change class? Is he supposed to be aware of this?
    Per Pidcock, you leave the working class at the point where you can live off your wealth. So with your example that would not be on the 1st day or anything close to it.

    Usual caveat. Life is not so precise. But it's a helpful thought imo.
    Under her definition, I'm still working class, then Kinabalu. That doesn't ring true, I own a flat in Hampstead and work for an international bank in investment markets. I'm the very definition of comfortable middle class.
    Yes. She is saying you're working class, don't kid yourself otherwise. And so was I until I didn't have to do it anymore.

    Totally understand that this is not definitive. It's a complex area that impinges on identity which is always sensitive.

    But I do think her Marxist lens on it is a useful one to use. Certainly more useful than the other extreme - that class boils down to attitudes and as such is essentially self-defined. Not sure where that gets us.

    Plus on a partisan political note. If Labour is the party of the working class it makes sense for them to define it to include most of the population.
    Just occurred to me.
    If nowadays you can choose your Gender, surely you should be allowed to choose your Class.
    I suspect that those allowing the former might be against allowing the latter.
    I suspect a lot of left wing luvvies definitely identify as working class, despite significant buckets of cash and very nice houses...
    I'm used to this sort of comment. But I would ask you to note that I have been arguing exactly the opposite all thread. That IDing as working class when you're minted is bollox.
    Something about actors really winds people up. Don't get it myself. For a profession that involves a huge amount of hard work mostly for little money, brings a lot of happiness to paying customers and is something that the UK excels at, it seems to make a certain kind of person on the Right very angry.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851
    TOPPING said:

    Very amusing to log on to PB (which I don't do all day every day) and see people are discussing class.

    What on earth is the point?

    I think it's been useful. Especially the matter of how retirement fits into the puzzle.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,749
    Carnyx said:

    DavidL said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Genuinely and profoundly bewildering. Chocolate teapots vote for utilitarianism with unusual confidence.
    Rather an unkind article -

    "Indeed, there is an aspect of Brexit and the calibre of its ascendant personnel that has always felt karmic. Grayling’s wildly overpromoted slapdashery is precisely the level of failure and incompetence you might have found in, say, the British Raj. Had he been born under earlier stars, you can absolutely see Chris dashing off a few catastrophic boundary changes for Louis Mountbatten, or ruining a province only to be rewarded with a bigger one. The difference is that we’ve brought it all home now. Having run out of other countries to do it to, Britain is now British empiring itself."
    That seems rigorously analytical rather than unkind to me.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880
    Carnyx said:

    DavidL said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Genuinely and profoundly bewildering. Chocolate teapots vote for utilitarianism with unusual confidence.
    Rather an unkind article -

    "Indeed, there is an aspect of Brexit and the calibre of its ascendant personnel that has always felt karmic. Grayling’s wildly overpromoted slapdashery is precisely the level of failure and incompetence you might have found in, say, the British Raj. Had he been born under earlier stars, you can absolutely see Chris dashing off a few catastrophic boundary changes for Louis Mountbatten, or ruining a province only to be rewarded with a bigger one. The difference is that we’ve brought it all home now. Having run out of other countries to do it to, Britain is now British empiring itself."
    The English are finally finding out what it's like to be ruled by the English.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    A former PM might be qualified to oversee an investigation into the WHO response to the pandemic - particularly from a political and organisational point of view - but this kind of definitive statement is both silly, and quite probably wrong:

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/10/helen-clark-who-coronavirus-inquiry-aims-to-stop-the-world-being-blindsided-again
    ...“This isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. I am told by informed sources in Geneva that it will be at least two-and-a-half years until there could be a widely available vaccine – at least. That’s not very encouraging really....

    Neither science nor vaccine development can be forecast with anything like that certainty. And the ramping up of production capacity - depending upon the precise nature of successful vaccines - could be a great deal faster than that.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,026
    Chris Grayling keeps getting appointed by a series of Prime Ministers to different important roles.

    I’m therefore inclined to believe that, rather than the conspiracy theories out there, he has some set of skills.

    I just have no idea what they are.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149
    Dura_Ace said:

    Carnyx said:

    DavidL said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Genuinely and profoundly bewildering. Chocolate teapots vote for utilitarianism with unusual confidence.
    Rather an unkind article -

    "Indeed, there is an aspect of Brexit and the calibre of its ascendant personnel that has always felt karmic. Grayling’s wildly overpromoted slapdashery is precisely the level of failure and incompetence you might have found in, say, the British Raj. Had he been born under earlier stars, you can absolutely see Chris dashing off a few catastrophic boundary changes for Louis Mountbatten, or ruining a province only to be rewarded with a bigger one. The difference is that we’ve brought it all home now. Having run out of other countries to do it to, Britain is now British empiring itself."
    The English are finally finding out what it's like to be ruled by the English.
    One hesitates to look up the verb to British empire in Roger's Profanisaurus.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,026

    Carnyx said:

    DavidL said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Genuinely and profoundly bewildering. Chocolate teapots vote for utilitarianism with unusual confidence.
    Rather an unkind article -

    "Indeed, there is an aspect of Brexit and the calibre of its ascendant personnel that has always felt karmic. Grayling’s wildly overpromoted slapdashery is precisely the level of failure and incompetence you might have found in, say, the British Raj. Had he been born under earlier stars, you can absolutely see Chris dashing off a few catastrophic boundary changes for Louis Mountbatten, or ruining a province only to be rewarded with a bigger one. The difference is that we’ve brought it all home now. Having run out of other countries to do it to, Britain is now British empiring itself."
    That seems rigorously analytical rather than unkind to me.
    It’s an article designed to pleasure the erogenous zones of Guardian readers and nationalists who despise Britain, which it does very well.

    It’d have been interesting to see what pet theory they’d have tried to backfit had Corbyn’s mob ever taken office, but I guess now we’ll never know.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    kinabalu said:

    TOPPING said:

    Very amusing to log on to PB (which I don't do all day every day) and see people are discussing class.

    What on earth is the point?

    I think it's been useful. Especially the matter of how retirement fits into the puzzle.
    I think you haven't quite got over your "City years".
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851
    HYUFD said:

    kinabalu said:

    kle4 said:

    People cannot even consistently agree on what left and right wing mean, theres no hope of agreeing the 3 or 7 or whatever classes we now have.

    I would like to see the ONS take a lead on this. Create some new measures with distinct and clearly definited terms, not using the word "class" at all, one based on background and education, another on wealth, another on employment status. Standardise and promote awareness of them so this discussion isnt repeated with chaotic personal definitions of class in 20 years time.
    I believe there are now seven social classes. You can even find out which one you are part of here:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22000973

    I am a member of the Elite group, much to my dismay...
    But it doesn't say what % of the country falls into each of the 7.

    If (say) 15% are scoring Elite that would devalue the label.
    It does at the end, 6% are Elite, 25% established middle class, 6% technical middle class, 15% new affluent workers, 14% traditional working class, 19% emergent service workers and 15% Precariat
    Ah OK, Thanks. Yes I guess 6% is just low enough to merit the Elite tag.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712
    Dura_Ace said:

    Carnyx said:

    DavidL said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Genuinely and profoundly bewildering. Chocolate teapots vote for utilitarianism with unusual confidence.
    Rather an unkind article -

    "Indeed, there is an aspect of Brexit and the calibre of its ascendant personnel that has always felt karmic. Grayling’s wildly overpromoted slapdashery is precisely the level of failure and incompetence you might have found in, say, the British Raj. Had he been born under earlier stars, you can absolutely see Chris dashing off a few catastrophic boundary changes for Louis Mountbatten, or ruining a province only to be rewarded with a bigger one. The difference is that we’ve brought it all home now. Having run out of other countries to do it to, Britain is now British empiring itself."
    The English are finally finding out what it's like to be ruled by the English.

    Cabinet ministers like Michael Gove and Alistair Jack are Scottish
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    DavidL said:

    Carnyx said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    So far as local government is concerned I think things have been horribly patchy. A good friend of my daughter is a social worker. She described a very variable picture. In Angus she and her colleagues have been seeing those children identified as the most vulnerable weekly and have taken them to hotels etc overnight where they were thought to be at risk. The second category have been seen fortnightly with telephone calls in the intervening weeks. The least at risk have only been "seen" virtually by phone.

    This is immensely better than Dundee has managed. There, actual visits to children thought to have been at risk pre lockdown have been almost non existent. These kids have lost their social workers, their school, their pals and are stuck in the house with parents with real issues from drug and alcohol abuse to mental health problems of their own. God knows what has happened to them. A recent report in the local press said that drug deaths in Dundee, which already had the worst death rate in Europe, have soared in the lockdown.

    The idea that there was some magical local resource that the government has failed to take advantage of when it cannot even provide the services that it is supposed to to protect our most vulnerable is just a bit far fetched.

    Doesn't sound good. Has Dundee something else on it's hands, or is it, so far as you can see, straightforward inability to cope, or lack of imagination?
    Dundee has a really chronic problem with drugs and this has aggravated mental health issues in the city. It has a lot of poor housing and very poor leadership.

    Although there have been successes in the City, such as the Welcome trust expansion of the University, the R&A museum and some games makers they have provided a smallish number of jobs compared with the large number of semi-skilled jobs that have been lost from the likes of NCR and, in the last month, the closure of Michelin which has been coming for 2 years. This has drained money out of the City. You could see the consequences in the shopping centres in Dundee pre lockdown. I dread to think what we are going to see over the next year.
    Dundee has an R&A museum? I wouldn't have thought portly Pringle wearers would be the saviour of anywhere bar St Andrews, but whatever it takes..
    I think he must mean the V&A branch, obviously. But there are also the RRS Discovery and HMS Unicorn for those of us more interested in ships.
    Yeah, I was just being annoying :)

    Having visited Dundee on and off over the years I was pleasantly surprised by the transformation of the waterfront, though it still seems in thrall to the combustion engine. I've only seen the V&A from the outside but it does look impressive. My partner has visited it a couple of times and thought there was a slight sense of the exhibits being secondary to the building but perhaps that will change as they get into their stride (current Covid disaster notwithstanding).

    Always thought Dundee was treated a bit unfairly, you can't beat a city at the mouth of a river with wide vistas and a couple of almost iconic bridges.
    I love Dundee. The Verdant Works jute museum is very interesting. I felt I came away understanding the place a lot better. It doesn't have a great press in Scotland, neglected for being outside the central belt proper and much more urban and poor than its surrounding areas. But as you note a stunning location and nice people too.
    I did indeed mean the V&A museum and I agree that the Verdant works is an excellent museum. Dundee looks its best coming from Fife where you get the proper benefit of the bay. I really enjoy living here but its a city with many problems.
    Everything looks better in Fife! 😉
    Do you have a Scottish accent?
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772
    Carnyx said:

    DavidL said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Genuinely and profoundly bewildering. Chocolate teapots vote for utilitarianism with unusual confidence.
    Rather an unkind article -

    "Indeed, there is an aspect of Brexit and the calibre of its ascendant personnel that has always felt karmic. Grayling’s wildly overpromoted slapdashery is precisely the level of failure and incompetence you might have found in, say, the British Raj. Had he been born under earlier stars, you can absolutely see Chris dashing off a few catastrophic boundary changes for Louis Mountbatten, or ruining a province only to be rewarded with a bigger one. The difference is that we’ve brought it all home now. Having run out of other countries to do it to, Britain is now British empiring itself."
    I am reluctant to accept that we built an empire on that level of incompetence. There must have been more capable people than Grayling running things.
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818
    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Alistair said:

    Ah, the working class business owner.
    Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
    Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
    What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
    You don't need to be a business owner to hope for better for your children. The problems come when business owners treat their employees like they're disposable and prevent them from realising their dreams for their children. Aspiration is not binary.
    I don't think it's at all helpful to view people as traitors to their class simply because they have made some money. But equally one might question whether they are still members of that class in the way that many people understand it.
    Although I have always been middle class I have certainly moved from one end of that wide envelope to the other in material terms over the course of my life, so I am certainly no stranger to, or enemy of, aspiration.
    But your argument wasnt against bad business owners exploiting workers, it was that you cant be a working class business owner. Take a previously working class brickie who decides to employ five of his mates, they all work the same duties and hours but he happens to be the owner of the firm. On his first day of ownership does he automatically change class? Is he supposed to be aware of this?
    Per Pidcock, you leave the working class at the point where you can live off your wealth. So with your example that would not be on the 1st day or anything close to it.

    Usual caveat. Life is not so precise. But it's a helpful thought imo.
    Under her definition, I'm still working class, then Kinabalu. That doesn't ring true, I own a flat in Hampstead and work for an international bank in investment markets. I'm the very definition of comfortable middle class.
    Yes. She is saying you're working class, don't kid yourself otherwise. And so was I until I didn't have to do it anymore.

    Totally understand that this is not definitive. It's a complex area that impinges on identity which is always sensitive.

    But I do think her Marxist lens on it is a useful one to use. Certainly more useful than the other extreme - that class boils down to attitudes and as such is essentially self-defined. Not sure where that gets us.

    Plus on a partisan political note. If Labour is the party of the working class it makes sense for them to define it to include most of the population.
    Just occurred to me.
    If nowadays you can choose your Gender, surely you should be allowed to choose your Class.
    I suspect that those allowing the former might be against allowing the latter.
    I suspect a lot of left wing luvvies definitely identify as working class, despite significant buckets of cash and very nice houses...
    I'm used to this sort of comment. But I would ask you to note that I have been arguing exactly the opposite all thread. That IDing as working class when you're minted is bollox.
    Labour's great mistake is to assume that working class people want to stay working class. Often, they don't. Being working class isn't a state of grace. It can be pretty unpleasant and depressing, I imagine.

    The state of grace is being where Polly Toynbee is, a wealthy person 'on the side of' the working class. (but also well insulated from it). A wealthy person who is also 'moral'.

    This is the Nirvana that many studying soft subjects at our universities aspire to. They look up to the BBC, the third sector, the quangos, the arts, the race industry, education......and they dream the heady dream.

  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,026
    kinabalu said:

    HYUFD said:

    kinabalu said:

    kle4 said:

    People cannot even consistently agree on what left and right wing mean, theres no hope of agreeing the 3 or 7 or whatever classes we now have.

    I would like to see the ONS take a lead on this. Create some new measures with distinct and clearly definited terms, not using the word "class" at all, one based on background and education, another on wealth, another on employment status. Standardise and promote awareness of them so this discussion isnt repeated with chaotic personal definitions of class in 20 years time.
    I believe there are now seven social classes. You can even find out which one you are part of here:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22000973

    I am a member of the Elite group, much to my dismay...
    But it doesn't say what % of the country falls into each of the 7.

    If (say) 15% are scoring Elite that would devalue the label.
    It does at the end, 6% are Elite, 25% established middle class, 6% technical middle class, 15% new affluent workers, 14% traditional working class, 19% emergent service workers and 15% Precariat
    Ah OK, Thanks. Yes I guess 6% is just low enough to merit the Elite tag.
    What’s funny about surveys like this is how everyone slags it off and bigs-up their working class roots, whilst secretly really hoping they come out as Elite.
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818
    Foxy said:
    Sounds awful but can you provide some context?
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069

    Chris Grayling keeps getting appointed by a series of Prime Ministers to different important roles.

    I’m therefore inclined to believe that, rather than the conspiracy theories out there, he has some set of skills.

    I just have no idea what they are.

    Arsekissing loyalty and too thick to undermine the leader. Such skills are always desirable for underlings in Parliament.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,047

    Scott_xP said:
    What happened to the EU ventilator and EU PPE schemes you were so excited about ?
    And has either ScottP or the original Tweeter actually read the piece? And if so, does Scott agree or disagree with the Government's decision? Seems like a mighty good time not to be in the EU to me.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,047

    This point is probably obvious enough to have been made already, but I think it's worth repeating if so - Johnson could already make loads of money making funny speeches, but he chose to give that, and the newspaper column, up in order to be PM.

    He's been working towards becoming PM for years, it's not something he will give up easily after all that time.

    When was the last time a PM walked away from the job willingly?

    Cameron.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069

    Foxy said:
    Sounds awful but can you provide some context?
    To do with restoring property taken in the Holocaust I understand.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Alistair said:

    Ah, the working class business owner.
    Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
    Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
    What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
    You don't need to be a business owner to hope for better for your children. The problems come when business owners treat their employees like they're disposable and prevent them from realising their dreams for their children. Aspiration is not binary.
    I don't think it's at all helpful to view people as traitors to their class simply because they have made some money. But equally one might question whether they are still members of that class in the way that many people understand it.
    Although I have always been middle class I have certainly moved from one end of that wide envelope to the other in material terms over the course of my life, so I am certainly no stranger to, or enemy of, aspiration.
    But your argument wasnt against bad business owners exploiting workers, it was that you cant be a working class business owner. Take a previously working class brickie who decides to employ five of his mates, they all work the same duties and hours but he happens to be the owner of the firm. On his first day of ownership does he automatically change class? Is he supposed to be aware of this?
    Per Pidcock, you leave the working class at the point where you can live off your wealth. So with your example that would not be on the 1st day or anything close to it.

    Usual caveat. Life is not so precise. But it's a helpful thought imo.
    Under her definition, I'm still working class, then Kinabalu. That doesn't ring true, I own a flat in Hampstead and work for an international bank in investment markets. I'm the very definition of comfortable middle class.
    Yes. She is saying you're working class, don't kid yourself otherwise. And so was I until I didn't have to do it anymore.

    Totally understand that this is not definitive. It's a complex area that impinges on identity which is always sensitive.

    But I do think her Marxist lens on it is a useful one to use. Certainly more useful than the other extreme - that class boils down to attitudes and as such is essentially self-defined. Not sure where that gets us.

    Plus on a partisan political note. If Labour is the party of the working class it makes sense for them to define it to include most of the population.
    Just occurred to me.
    If nowadays you can choose your Gender, surely you should be allowed to choose your Class.
    I suspect that those allowing the former might be against allowing the latter.
    I suspect a lot of left wing luvvies definitely identify as working class, despite significant buckets of cash and very nice houses...
    I'm used to this sort of comment. But I would ask you to note that I have been arguing exactly the opposite all thread. That IDing as working class when you're minted is bollox.
    Labour's great mistake is to assume that working class people want to stay working class. Often, they don't. Being working class isn't a state of grace. It can be pretty unpleasant and depressing, I imagine.

    The state of grace is being where Polly Toynbee is, a wealthy person 'on the side of' the working class. (but also well insulated from it). A wealthy person who is also 'moral'.

    This is the Nirvana that many studying soft subjects at our universities aspire to. They look up to the BBC, the third sector, the quangos, the arts, the race industry, education......and they dream the heady dream.

    Indeed, showing concern for the working class from a Hampstead mansion on a media luvvies salary without actually having to have them in the house is the ideal for leftwing graduates
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 8,480
    edited July 2020

    Foxy said:
    Sounds awful but can you provide some context?
    The Polish government has turned state TV into a virulent propaganda arm for defeating the Liberal challenger at the upcoming election. Pure 1930's-style propaganda on a state channel, with no action from the EU so far.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069
    edited July 2020
    HYUFD said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Alistair said:

    Ah, the working class business owner.
    Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
    Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
    What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
    You don't need to be a business owner to hope for better for your children. The problems come when business owners treat their employees like they're disposable and prevent them from realising their dreams for their children. Aspiration is not binary.
    I don't think it's at all helpful to view people as traitors to their class simply because they have made some money. But equally one might question whether they are still members of that class in the way that many people understand it.
    Although I have always been middle class I have certainly moved from one end of that wide envelope to the other in material terms over the course of my life, so I am certainly no stranger to, or enemy of, aspiration.
    But your argument wasnt against bad business owners exploiting workers, it was that you cant be a working class business owner. Take a previously working class brickie who decides to employ five of his mates, they all work the same duties and hours but he happens to be the owner of the firm. On his first day of ownership does he automatically change class? Is he supposed to be aware of this?
    Per Pidcock, you leave the working class at the point where you can live off your wealth. So with your example that would not be on the 1st day or anything close to it.

    Usual caveat. Life is not so precise. But it's a helpful thought imo.
    Under her definition, I'm still working class, then Kinabalu. That doesn't ring true, I own a flat in Hampstead and work for an international bank in investment markets. I'm the very definition of comfortable middle class.
    Yes. She is saying you're working class, don't kid yourself otherwise. And so was I until I didn't have to do it anymore.

    Totally understand that this is not definitive. It's a complex area that impinges on identity which is always sensitive.

    But I do think her Marxist lens on it is a useful one to use. Certainly more useful than the other extreme - that class boils down to attitudes and as such is essentially self-defined. Not sure where that gets us.

    Plus on a partisan political note. If Labour is the party of the working class it makes sense for them to define it to include most of the population.
    Just occurred to me.
    If nowadays you can choose your Gender, surely you should be allowed to choose your Class.
    I suspect that those allowing the former might be against allowing the latter.
    I suspect a lot of left wing luvvies definitely identify as working class, despite significant buckets of cash and very nice houses...
    I'm used to this sort of comment. But I would ask you to note that I have been arguing exactly the opposite all thread. That IDing as working class when you're minted is bollox.
    Labour's great mistake is to assume that working class people want to stay working class. Often, they don't. Being working class isn't a state of grace. It can be pretty unpleasant and depressing, I imagine.

    The state of grace is being where Polly Toynbee is, a wealthy person 'on the side of' the working class. (but also well insulated from it). A wealthy person who is also 'moral'.

    This is the Nirvana that many studying soft subjects at our universities aspire to. They look up to the BBC, the third sector, the quangos, the arts, the race industry, education......and they dream the heady dream.

    Indeed, showing concern for the working class from a Hampstead mansion on a media luvvies salary without actually having to have them in the house is the ideal for leftwing graduates
    And for Tory candidates too, servants excepted of course.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,047
    edited July 2020
    MaxPB said:

    Testing equipment is very expensive. That's the main budget for the £10bn. On PPE I think a lot of the money has been spent on inducements for domestic production and the international pricing is 3-5x higher than the same time last year. So what would cost £0.5bn last year would be £2bn this year and we need 3-4x as much of it. Plus getting companies to manufacture in the UK and you're getting on to a massive number.
    Regarding track and trace, do we not have an entire donut-shaped building designed for snooping on people and knowing their whereabouts? Could the spooks not be given this role, rather than just sifting through people's emails for the words 'incendiary device'?

  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    Looks like the Depp libel trial has provided today's entertainment.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458

    Chris Grayling keeps getting appointed by a series of Prime Ministers to different important roles.

    I’m therefore inclined to believe that, rather than the conspiracy theories out there, he has some set of skills.

    I just have no idea what they are.

    He could have a little black book full of indiscretions.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 8,480
    edited July 2020
    HYUFD said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Alistair said:

    Ah, the working class business owner.
    Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
    Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
    What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
    You don't need to be a business owner to hope for better for your children. The problems come when business owners treat their employees like they're disposable and prevent them from realising their dreams for their children. Aspiration is not binary.
    I don't think it's at all helpful to view people as traitors to their class simply because they have made some money. But equally one might question whether they are still members of that class in the way that many people understand it.
    Although I have always been middle class I have certainly moved from one end of that wide envelope to the other in material terms over the course of my life, so I am certainly no stranger to, or enemy of, aspiration.
    But your argument wasnt against bad business owners exploiting workers, it was that you cant be a working class business owner. Take a previously working class brickie who decides to employ five of his mates, they all work the same duties and hours but he happens to be the owner of the firm. On his first day of ownership does he automatically change class? Is he supposed to be aware of this?
    Per Pidcock, you leave the working class at the point where you can live off your wealth. So with your example that would not be on the 1st day or anything close to it.

    Usual caveat. Life is not so precise. But it's a helpful thought imo.
    Under her definition, I'm still working class, then Kinabalu. That doesn't ring true, I own a flat in Hampstead and work for an international bank in investment markets. I'm the very definition of comfortable middle class.
    Yes. She is saying you're working class, don't kid yourself otherwise. And so was I until I didn't have to do it anymore.

    Totally understand that this is not definitive. It's a complex area that impinges on identity which is always sensitive.

    But I do think her Marxist lens on it is a useful one to use. Certainly more useful than the other extreme - that class boils down to attitudes and as such is essentially self-defined. Not sure where that gets us.

    Plus on a partisan political note. If Labour is the party of the working class it makes sense for them to define it to include most of the population.
    Just occurred to me.
    If nowadays you can choose your Gender, surely you should be allowed to choose your Class.
    I suspect that those allowing the former might be against allowing the latter.
    I suspect a lot of left wing luvvies definitely identify as working class, despite significant buckets of cash and very nice houses...
    I'm used to this sort of comment. But I would ask you to note that I have been arguing exactly the opposite all thread. That IDing as working class when you're minted is bollox.
    Labour's great mistake is to assume that working class people want to stay working class. Often, they don't. Being working class isn't a state of grace. It can be pretty unpleasant and depressing, I imagine.

    The state of grace is being where Polly Toynbee is, a wealthy person 'on the side of' the working class. (but also well insulated from it). A wealthy person who is also 'moral'.

    This is the Nirvana that many studying soft subjects at our universities aspire to. They look up to the BBC, the third sector, the quangos, the arts, the race industry, education......and they dream the heady dream.

    Indeed, showing concern for the working class from a Hampstead mansion on a media luvvies salary without actually having to have them in the house is the ideal for leftwing graduates
    Whereas those writing about the "metropolitan establishment" and defending the interests of the working-class from the offices of the Mail and Telegraph are rural sheep-farmers and inner-city welders, ofcourse.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,047
    kjh said:

    Chris Grayling keeps getting appointed by a series of Prime Ministers to different important roles.

    I’m therefore inclined to believe that, rather than the conspiracy theories out there, he has some set of skills.

    I just have no idea what they are.

    He could have a little black book full of indiscretions.
    With his track record, he's more likely to havw a large green book, full of disintegrations.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    kjh said:

    Chris Grayling keeps getting appointed by a series of Prime Ministers to different important roles.

    I’m therefore inclined to believe that, rather than the conspiracy theories out there, he has some set of skills.

    I just have no idea what they are.

    He could have a little black book full of indiscretions.
    No - he'd have mislaid it, long ago.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    F1: Ricciardo's had something of a crash. If FP2 does become the grid that will be sub-optimal for him.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851
    HYUFD said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Alistair said:

    Ah, the working class business owner.
    Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
    Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
    What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
    You don't need to be a business owner to hope for better for your children. The problems come when business owners treat their employees like they're disposable and prevent them from realising their dreams for their children. Aspiration is not binary.
    I don't think it's at all helpful to view people as traitors to their class simply because they have made some money. But equally one might question whether they are still members of that class in the way that many people understand it.
    Although I have always been middle class I have certainly moved from one end of that wide envelope to the other in material terms over the course of my life, so I am certainly no stranger to, or enemy of, aspiration.
    But your argument wasnt against bad business owners exploiting workers, it was that you cant be a working class business owner. Take a previously working class brickie who decides to employ five of his mates, they all work the same duties and hours but he happens to be the owner of the firm. On his first day of ownership does he automatically change class? Is he supposed to be aware of this?
    Per Pidcock, you leave the working class at the point where you can live off your wealth. So with your example that would not be on the 1st day or anything close to it.

    Usual caveat. Life is not so precise. But it's a helpful thought imo.
    Under her definition, I'm still working class, then Kinabalu. That doesn't ring true, I own a flat in Hampstead and work for an international bank in investment markets. I'm the very definition of comfortable middle class.
    Yes. She is saying you're working class, don't kid yourself otherwise. And so was I until I didn't have to do it anymore.

    Totally understand that this is not definitive. It's a complex area that impinges on identity which is always sensitive.

    But I do think her Marxist lens on it is a useful one to use. Certainly more useful than the other extreme - that class boils down to attitudes and as such is essentially self-defined. Not sure where that gets us.

    Plus on a partisan political note. If Labour is the party of the working class it makes sense for them to define it to include most of the population.
    Just occurred to me.
    If nowadays you can choose your Gender, surely you should be allowed to choose your Class.
    I suspect that those allowing the former might be against allowing the latter.
    I suspect a lot of left wing luvvies definitely identify as working class, despite significant buckets of cash and very nice houses...
    I'm used to this sort of comment. But I would ask you to note that I have been arguing exactly the opposite all thread. That IDing as working class when you're minted is bollox.
    Labour's great mistake is to assume that working class people want to stay working class. Often, they don't. Being working class isn't a state of grace. It can be pretty unpleasant and depressing, I imagine.

    The state of grace is being where Polly Toynbee is, a wealthy person 'on the side of' the working class. (but also well insulated from it). A wealthy person who is also 'moral'.

    This is the Nirvana that many studying soft subjects at our universities aspire to. They look up to the BBC, the third sector, the quangos, the arts, the race industry, education......and they dream the heady dream.

    Indeed, showing concern for the working class from a Hampstead mansion on a media luvvies salary without actually having to have them in the house is the ideal for leftwing graduates
    Toxic sentiment because of the corollary - that if you "make it" you must abandon your social conscience to remain authentic.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    Pulpstar said:

    Looks like the Depp libel trial has provided today's entertainment.

    https://twitter.com/PeterMannionMP/status/1281584250383470592
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575
    Foxy said:

    Chris Grayling keeps getting appointed by a series of Prime Ministers to different important roles.

    I’m therefore inclined to believe that, rather than the conspiracy theories out there, he has some set of skills.

    I just have no idea what they are.

    Arsekissing loyalty and too thick to undermine the leader. Such skills are always desirable for underlings in Parliament.
    He is does indeed represent a reductio ad absurdam of those qualities.
    Almost surprising he's not still in cabinet.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    kinabalu said:

    HYUFD said:

    kinabalu said:

    kle4 said:

    People cannot even consistently agree on what left and right wing mean, theres no hope of agreeing the 3 or 7 or whatever classes we now have.

    I would like to see the ONS take a lead on this. Create some new measures with distinct and clearly definited terms, not using the word "class" at all, one based on background and education, another on wealth, another on employment status. Standardise and promote awareness of them so this discussion isnt repeated with chaotic personal definitions of class in 20 years time.
    I believe there are now seven social classes. You can even find out which one you are part of here:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22000973

    I am a member of the Elite group, much to my dismay...
    But it doesn't say what % of the country falls into each of the 7.

    If (say) 15% are scoring Elite that would devalue the label.
    It does at the end, 6% are Elite, 25% established middle class, 6% technical middle class, 15% new affluent workers, 14% traditional working class, 19% emergent service workers and 15% Precariat
    Ah OK, Thanks. Yes I guess 6% is just low enough to merit the Elite tag.
    What’s funny about surveys like this is how everyone slags it off and bigs-up their working class roots, whilst secretly really hoping they come out as Elite.
    Do I sense that you have done it and come up just short?
  • humbuggerhumbugger Posts: 377
    Afternoon all.

    My apologies if this has been covered on here earlier, but there is an interesting article in the Spectator by a Dr John Lee. Included in it is the assertion that according to the ONS website, measuring excess deaths during winter and spring, and adjusting for population, 2020 is only the eighth highest total in the last 27 years.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712

    HYUFD said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Alistair said:

    Ah, the working class business owner.
    Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
    Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
    What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
    You don't need to be a business owner to hope for better for your children. The problems come when business owners treat their employees like they're disposable and prevent them from realising their dreams for their children. Aspiration is not binary.
    I don't think it's at all helpful to view people as traitors to their class simply because they have made some money. But equally one might question whether they are still members of that class in the way that many people understand it.
    Although I have always been middle class I have certainly moved from one end of that wide envelope to the other in material terms over the course of my life, so I am certainly no stranger to, or enemy of, aspiration.
    But your argument wasnt against bad business owners exploiting workers, it was that you cant be a working class business owner. Take a previously working class brickie who decides to employ five of his mates, they all work the same duties and hours but he happens to be the owner of the firm. On his first day of ownership does he automatically change class? Is he supposed to be aware of this?
    Per Pidcock, you leave the working class at the point where you can live off your wealth. So with your example that would not be on the 1st day or anything close to it.

    Usual caveat. Life is not so precise. But it's a helpful thought imo.
    Under her definition, I'm still working class, then Kinabalu. That doesn't ring true, I own a flat in Hampstead and work for an international bank in investment markets. I'm the very definition of comfortable middle class.
    Yes. She is saying you're working class, don't kid yourself otherwise. And so was I until I didn't have to do it anymore.

    Totally understand that this is not definitive. It's a complex area that impinges on identity which is always sensitive.

    But I do think her Marxist lens on it is a useful one to use. Certainly more useful than the other extreme - that class boils down to attitudes and as such is essentially self-defined. Not sure where that gets us.

    Plus on a partisan political note. If Labour is the party of the working class it makes sense for them to define it to include most of the population.
    Just occurred to me.
    If nowadays you can choose your Gender, surely you should be allowed to choose your Class.
    I suspect that those allowing the former might be against allowing the latter.
    I suspect a lot of left wing luvvies definitely identify as working class, despite significant buckets of cash and very nice houses...
    I'm used to this sort of comment. But I would ask you to note that I have been arguing exactly the opposite all thread. That IDing as working class when you're minted is bollox.
    Labour's great mistake is to assume that working class people want to stay working class. Often, they don't. Being working class isn't a state of grace. It can be pretty unpleasant and depressing, I imagine.

    The state of grace is being where Polly Toynbee is, a wealthy person 'on the side of' the working class. (but also well insulated from it). A wealthy person who is also 'moral'.

    This is the Nirvana that many studying soft subjects at our universities aspire to. They look up to the BBC, the third sector, the quangos, the arts, the race industry, education......and they dream the heady dream.

    Indeed, showing concern for the working class from a Hampstead mansion on a media luvvies salary without actually having to have them in the house is the ideal for leftwing graduates
    Whereas those writing about the "metropolitan establishment" and defending the interests of the working-class from the offices of the Mail and Telegraph are rural sheep-farmers and inner-city welders, ofcourse.
    Someone like Rees Mogg and Boris does not pretent to be working class but in reality tends to mix more easily with them than someone like Polly Toynbee
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Alistair said:

    Ah, the working class business owner.
    Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
    Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
    What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
    You don't need to be a business owner to hope for better for your children. The problems come when business owners treat their employees like they're disposable and prevent them from realising their dreams for their children. Aspiration is not binary.
    I don't think it's at all helpful to view people as traitors to their class simply because they have made some money. But equally one might question whether they are still members of that class in the way that many people understand it.
    Although I have always been middle class I have certainly moved from one end of that wide envelope to the other in material terms over the course of my life, so I am certainly no stranger to, or enemy of, aspiration.
    But your argument wasnt against bad business owners exploiting workers, it was that you cant be a working class business owner. Take a previously working class brickie who decides to employ five of his mates, they all work the same duties and hours but he happens to be the owner of the firm. On his first day of ownership does he automatically change class? Is he supposed to be aware of this?
    Per Pidcock, you leave the working class at the point where you can live off your wealth. So with your example that would not be on the 1st day or anything close to it.

    Usual caveat. Life is not so precise. But it's a helpful thought imo.
    Under her definition, I'm still working class, then Kinabalu. That doesn't ring true, I own a flat in Hampstead and work for an international bank in investment markets. I'm the very definition of comfortable middle class.
    Yes. She is saying you're working class, don't kid yourself otherwise. And so was I until I didn't have to do it anymore.

    Totally understand that this is not definitive. It's a complex area that impinges on identity which is always sensitive.

    But I do think her Marxist lens on it is a useful one to use. Certainly more useful than the other extreme - that class boils down to attitudes and as such is essentially self-defined. Not sure where that gets us.

    Plus on a partisan political note. If Labour is the party of the working class it makes sense for them to define it to include most of the population.
    Just occurred to me.
    If nowadays you can choose your Gender, surely you should be allowed to choose your Class.
    I suspect that those allowing the former might be against allowing the latter.
    I suspect a lot of left wing luvvies definitely identify as working class, despite significant buckets of cash and very nice houses...
    I'm used to this sort of comment. But I would ask you to note that I have been arguing exactly the opposite all thread. That IDing as working class when you're minted is bollox.
    Labour's great mistake is to assume that working class people want to stay working class. Often, they don't. Being working class isn't a state of grace. It can be pretty unpleasant and depressing, I imagine.

    The state of grace is being where Polly Toynbee is, a wealthy person 'on the side of' the working class. (but also well insulated from it). A wealthy person who is also 'moral'.

    This is the Nirvana that many studying soft subjects at our universities aspire to. They look up to the BBC, the third sector, the quangos, the arts, the race industry, education......and they dream the heady dream.
    And is this dream less worthy than the one of getting rich and shitting on those who haven't?
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772

    Foxy said:
    Sounds awful but can you provide some context?
    The Polish government has turned state TV into a virulent propaganda arm for defeating the Liberal challenger at the upcoming election. Pure 1930's-style propaganda on a state channel, with no action from the EU so far.
    Hopefully if Trzaskowski wins there will be a major change and Poland can come back to civilisation. A bit like the US post Trump.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712
    Foxy said:

    HYUFD said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Alistair said:

    Ah, the working class business owner.
    Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
    Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
    What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
    You don't need to be a business owner to hope for better for your children. The problems come when business owners treat their employees like they're disposable and prevent them from realising their dreams for their children. Aspiration is not binary.
    I don't think it's at all helpful to view people as traitors to their class simply because they have made some money. But equally one might question whether they are still members of that class in the way that many people understand it.
    Although I have always been middle class I have certainly moved from one end of that wide envelope to the other in material terms over the course of my life, so I am certainly no stranger to, or enemy of, aspiration.
    But your argument wasnt against bad business owners exploiting workers, it was that you cant be a working class business owner. Take a previously working class brickie who decides to employ five of his mates, they all work the same duties and hours but he happens to be the owner of the firm. On his first day of ownership does he automatically change class? Is he supposed to be aware of this?
    Per Pidcock, you leave the working class at the point where you can live off your wealth. So with your example that would not be on the 1st day or anything close to it.

    Usual caveat. Life is not so precise. But it's a helpful thought imo.
    Under her definition, I'm still working class, then Kinabalu. That doesn't ring true, I own a flat in Hampstead and work for an international bank in investment markets. I'm the very definition of comfortable middle class.
    Yes. She is saying you're working class, don't kid yourself otherwise. And so was I until I didn't have to do it anymore.

    Totally understand that this is not definitive. It's a complex area that impinges on identity which is always sensitive.

    But I do think her Marxist lens on it is a useful one to use. Certainly more useful than the other extreme - that class boils down to attitudes and as such is essentially self-defined. Not sure where that gets us.

    Plus on a partisan political note. If Labour is the party of the working class it makes sense for them to define it to include most of the population.
    Just occurred to me.
    If nowadays you can choose your Gender, surely you should be allowed to choose your Class.
    I suspect that those allowing the former might be against allowing the latter.
    I suspect a lot of left wing luvvies definitely identify as working class, despite significant buckets of cash and very nice houses...
    I'm used to this sort of comment. But I would ask you to note that I have been arguing exactly the opposite all thread. That IDing as working class when you're minted is bollox.
    Labour's great mistake is to assume that working class people want to stay working class. Often, they don't. Being working class isn't a state of grace. It can be pretty unpleasant and depressing, I imagine.

    The state of grace is being where Polly Toynbee is, a wealthy person 'on the side of' the working class. (but also well insulated from it). A wealthy person who is also 'moral'.

    This is the Nirvana that many studying soft subjects at our universities aspire to. They look up to the BBC, the third sector, the quangos, the arts, the race industry, education......and they dream the heady dream.

    Indeed, showing concern for the working class from a Hampstead mansion on a media luvvies salary without actually having to have them in the house is the ideal for leftwing graduates
    And for Tory candidates too, servants excepted of course.
    The majority of Tory candidates now are not nearly posh enough to live in Hampstead
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,047
    edited July 2020
    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Alistair said:

    Ah, the working class business owner.
    Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
    Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
    What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
    You don't need to be a business owner to hope for better for your children. The problems come when business owners treat their employees like they're disposable and prevent them from realising their dreams for their children. Aspiration is not binary.
    I don't think it's at all helpful to view people as traitors to their class simply because they have made some money. But equally one might question whether they are still members of that class in the way that many people understand it.
    Although I have always been middle class I have certainly moved from one end of that wide envelope to the other in material terms over the course of my life, so I am certainly no stranger to, or enemy of, aspiration.
    But your argument wasnt against bad business owners exploiting workers, it was that you cant be a working class business owner. Take a previously working class brickie who decides to employ five of his mates, they all work the same duties and hours but he happens to be the owner of the firm. On his first day of ownership does he automatically change class? Is he supposed to be aware of this?
    Per Pidcock, you leave the working class at the point where you can live off your wealth. So with your example that would not be on the 1st day or anything close to it.

    Usual caveat. Life is not so precise. But it's a helpful thought imo.
    Under her definition, I'm still working class, then Kinabalu. That doesn't ring true, I own a flat in Hampstead and work for an international bank in investment markets. I'm the very definition of comfortable middle class.
    Yes. She is saying you're working class, don't kid yourself otherwise. And so was I until I didn't have to do it anymore.

    Totally understand that this is not definitive. It's a complex area that impinges on identity which is always sensitive.

    But I do think her Marxist lens on it is a useful one to use. Certainly more useful than the other extreme - that class boils down to attitudes and as such is essentially self-defined. Not sure where that gets us.

    Plus on a partisan political note. If Labour is the party of the working class it makes sense for them to define it to include most of the population.
    Just occurred to me.
    If nowadays you can choose your Gender, surely you should be allowed to choose your Class.
    I suspect that those allowing the former might be against allowing the latter.
    I suspect a lot of left wing luvvies definitely identify as working class, despite significant buckets of cash and very nice houses...
    I'm used to this sort of comment. But I would ask you to note that I have been arguing exactly the opposite all thread. That IDing as working class when you're minted is bollox.
    Labour's great mistake is to assume that working class people want to stay working class. Often, they don't. Being working class isn't a state of grace. It can be pretty unpleasant and depressing, I imagine.

    The state of grace is being where Polly Toynbee is, a wealthy person 'on the side of' the working class. (but also well insulated from it). A wealthy person who is also 'moral'.

    This is the Nirvana that many studying soft subjects at our universities aspire to. They look up to the BBC, the third sector, the quangos, the arts, the race industry, education......and they dream the heady dream.
    And is this dream less worthy than the one of getting rich and shitting on those who haven't?
    A rich person making money in the private sector has not taken from the poor any more than a rich person making their money in the public sector.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069
    edited July 2020
    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Alistair said:

    Ah, the working class business owner.
    Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
    Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
    What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
    You don't need to be a business owner to hope for better for your children. The problems come when business owners treat their employees like they're disposable and prevent them from realising their dreams for their children. Aspiration is not binary.
    I don't think it's at all helpful to view people as traitors to their class simply because they have made some money. But equally one might question whether they are still members of that class in the way that many people understand it.
    Although I have always been middle class I have certainly moved from one end of that wide envelope to the other in material terms over the course of my life, so I am certainly no stranger to, or enemy of, aspiration.
    But your argument wasnt against bad business owners exploiting workers, it was that you cant be a working class business owner. Take a previously working class brickie who decides to employ five of his mates, they all work the same duties and hours but he happens to be the owner of the firm. On his first day of ownership does he automatically change class? Is he supposed to be aware of this?
    Per Pidcock, you leave the working class at the point where you can live off your wealth. So with your example that would not be on the 1st day or anything close to it.

    Usual caveat. Life is not so precise. But it's a helpful thought imo.
    Under her definition, I'm still working class, then Kinabalu. That doesn't ring true, I own a flat in Hampstead and work for an international bank in investment markets. I'm the very definition of comfortable middle class.
    Yes. She is saying you're working class, don't kid yourself otherwise. And so was I until I didn't have to do it anymore.

    Totally understand that this is not definitive. It's a complex area that impinges on identity which is always sensitive.

    But I do think her Marxist lens on it is a useful one to use. Certainly more useful than the other extreme - that class boils down to attitudes and as such is essentially self-defined. Not sure where that gets us.

    Plus on a partisan political note. If Labour is the party of the working class it makes sense for them to define it to include most of the population.
    Just occurred to me.
    If nowadays you can choose your Gender, surely you should be allowed to choose your Class.
    I suspect that those allowing the former might be against allowing the latter.
    I suspect a lot of left wing luvvies definitely identify as working class, despite significant buckets of cash and very nice houses...
    I'm used to this sort of comment. But I would ask you to note that I have been arguing exactly the opposite all thread. That IDing as working class when you're minted is bollox.
    Labour's great mistake is to assume that working class people want to stay working class. Often, they don't. Being working class isn't a state of grace. It can be pretty unpleasant and depressing, I imagine.

    The state of grace is being where Polly Toynbee is, a wealthy person 'on the side of' the working class. (but also well insulated from it). A wealthy person who is also 'moral'.

    This is the Nirvana that many studying soft subjects at our universities aspire to. They look up to the BBC, the third sector, the quangos, the arts, the race industry, education......and they dream the heady dream.
    And is this dream less worthy than the one of getting rich and shitting on those who haven't?
    As the song goes "The working class can kiss my arse, I have got the foreman's job at last"

    In the alternative version of the Red Flag.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    humbugger said:

    Afternoon all.

    My apologies if this has been covered on here earlier, but there is an interesting article in the Spectator by a Dr John Lee. Included in it is the assertion that according to the ONS website, measuring excess deaths during winter and spring, and adjusting for population, 2020 is only the eighth highest total in the last 27 years.

    Here's the chart he mentions.

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/excesswintermortalityinenglandandwales/2018to2019provisionaland2017to2018final

    Now, we are 65,000 over the five year average, so that already looks quite unusual, more so than he describes. These are excess excess deaths, as it were.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851
    TOPPING said:

    kinabalu said:

    TOPPING said:

    Very amusing to log on to PB (which I don't do all day every day) and see people are discussing class.

    What on earth is the point?

    I think it's been useful. Especially the matter of how retirement fits into the puzzle.
    I think you haven't quite got over your "City years".
    I do so wish I had spent my prime adding value rather than extracting it. As I age this preys more and more. But in true "me" fashion I am forever angsting about it rather than acting to rectify. Talk talk talk.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    edited July 2020
    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    HYUFD said:

    kinabalu said:

    kle4 said:

    People cannot even consistently agree on what left and right wing mean, theres no hope of agreeing the 3 or 7 or whatever classes we now have.

    I would like to see the ONS take a lead on this. Create some new measures with distinct and clearly definited terms, not using the word "class" at all, one based on background and education, another on wealth, another on employment status. Standardise and promote awareness of them so this discussion isnt repeated with chaotic personal definitions of class in 20 years time.
    I believe there are now seven social classes. You can even find out which one you are part of here:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22000973

    I am a member of the Elite group, much to my dismay...
    But it doesn't say what % of the country falls into each of the 7.

    If (say) 15% are scoring Elite that would devalue the label.
    It does at the end, 6% are Elite, 25% established middle class, 6% technical middle class, 15% new affluent workers, 14% traditional working class, 19% emergent service workers and 15% Precariat
    Ah OK, Thanks. Yes I guess 6% is just low enough to merit the Elite tag.
    What’s funny about surveys like this is how everyone slags it off and bigs-up their working class roots, whilst secretly really hoping they come out as Elite.
    Do I sense that you have done it and come up just short?
    LOL it *really* matters to you, this class thing.

    Working class (if I may) northern lad comes to London, ends up working at Goldman (or with Goldman or near Goldman) and is thereby thrust into The City, with its attendant braying toffs (as well as of course plenty of pin-sharp northern lads) and gets hugely confused about life and priorities and what is this fresh hell I have chanced upon and appears, from your stated political views and certainly today's posts, to take refuge in a "hate the stupid poshos" line.

    Boy are you conflicted.

    I honestly wouldn't worry about it so much. People will accept you at face value (or post value here on PB). You don't need to make such a big thing about class because you clearly need to work through a few things.
  • northern_monkeynorthern_monkey Posts: 1,493

    Chris Grayling keeps getting appointed by a series of Prime Ministers to different important roles.

    I’m therefore inclined to believe that, rather than the conspiracy theories out there, he has some set of skills.

    I just have no idea what they are.

    I assume he is perfectly content to, repeatedly, take on the worst tasks on behalf of the party. He must've been promised a peerage or something when he leaves the Commons. Despite all the bad press he gets, all the horlicks he keeps making of things, he doesn't seem particularly bothered, does he? I suppose it's quite admirable in some weird way.
  • BannedinnParisBannedinnParis Posts: 1,884

    Scott_xP said:
    What happened to the EU ventilator and EU PPE schemes you were so excited about ?
    And has ScottP actually read the piece? And if so, does Scott agree or disagree with the Government's decision? Seems like a mighty good time not to be in the EU to me.
    ANSWERS ON A POSTCARD

  • Stark_DawningStark_Dawning Posts: 9,232

    kle4 said:

    People cannot even consistently agree on what left and right wing mean, theres no hope of agreeing the 3 or 7 or whatever classes we now have.

    I would like to see the ONS take a lead on this. Create some new measures with distinct and clearly definited terms, not using the word "class" at all, one based on background and education, another on wealth, another on employment status. Standardise and promote awareness of them so this discussion isnt repeated with chaotic personal definitions of class in 20 years time.
    I believe there are now seven social classes. You can even find out which one you are part of here:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22000973

    I am a member of the Elite group, much to my dismay...
    Wow. I ticked the highest box for savings and still came out as a financially insecure emergent service worker. What do I need to do to be content?
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,243
    MrEd said:

    Alistair said:

    MrEd said:

    Alistair said:

    I believe this is the House by-election that got @MrEd confident about Trump doing well.

    On the night the GOP candidate was ahead by 40 points, indeed that's what Wikipedia lists but all the votes have not been counted this is 2018 mid terms all over again.

    Whilst the Dem candidate won't win it is far closer than has been made out. This is what November is going to be like.

    https://twitter.com/kkondik/status/1281389586757963781?s=19

    @Alastair I did indeed as that was the percentage at the time I posted (not sure it was Wikipedia I used but can't remember). But you are right, it is a lot closer and that percentage wouldn't be great.

    One other point though. This special election took place because the NY-27 Rep had been sent to prison. I think one of the main reasons why people were saying CA-25 shouldn't be representative for the GOP is because the previous incumbent had resigned in a scandal and so that contributed to the Republican win. So, IF a previous Rep being tainted by a scandal impacts a special election result, it should apply in this case as well. What's sauce for the goose.....
    Of course, special elections are special which is why you can't read too much into them.

    The interesting thing from this one though is just how many Dems must have been postal voting to swing the on the night figure to the current total.

    Dems will be voting by mail come November and hoo boy do the USA states have a lot of voting by mail problems (New York had a massive rejection rate)
    Yes, that's true on all counts. I read that Joe Biden had hired 600 lawyers in most of the states and presumably that is because there will be a blizzard of lawsuits unleashed around eligible post-in votes. I think a few posters on here have said that there needs to be a clear win in this election otherwise there will be chaos and I think that is right.
    Re: "600 lawyers" do not know your source BUT note that Democrats typically recruit lawyers - mostly volunteers with a handful of paid - as part of their "voter protection" effort; note that Republicans do something similar re: "voter security"; before he made a name for himself on SCOTUS Chief Jusitice Rehnquist was (in)famous for his aggressive challenges against Hispanic voter in Arizona.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    kinabalu said:

    TOPPING said:

    kinabalu said:

    TOPPING said:

    Very amusing to log on to PB (which I don't do all day every day) and see people are discussing class.

    What on earth is the point?

    I think it's been useful. Especially the matter of how retirement fits into the puzzle.
    I think you haven't quite got over your "City years".
    I do so wish I had spent my prime adding value rather than extracting it. As I age this preys more and more. But in true "me" fashion I am forever angsting about it rather than acting to rectify. Talk talk talk.
    I'm sure you were adding value. What were you doing? Most everything in the City is designed to add value, although (hola @Cyclefree) there can be much abuse also.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    edited July 2020
    Hagia Sophia decision is interesting. Christian iconography being preserved is good mind - the past probably safer in Instanbul than downtown Seattle....
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 8,480
    edited July 2020

    kle4 said:

    People cannot even consistently agree on what left and right wing mean, theres no hope of agreeing the 3 or 7 or whatever classes we now have.

    I would like to see the ONS take a lead on this. Create some new measures with distinct and clearly definited terms, not using the word "class" at all, one based on background and education, another on wealth, another on employment status. Standardise and promote awareness of them so this discussion isnt repeated with chaotic personal definitions of class in 20 years time.
    I believe there are now seven social classes. You can even find out which one you are part of here:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22000973

    I am a member of the Elite group, much to my dismay...
    Wow. I ticked the highest box for savings and still came out as a financially insecure emergent service worker. What do I need to do to be content?
    Haha. I came out as "traditional working class" on that survey, which is definitely not my background.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,631
    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Alistair said:

    Ah, the working class business owner.
    Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
    Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
    What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
    You don't need to be a business owner to hope for better for your children. The problems come when business owners treat their employees like they're disposable and prevent them from realising their dreams for their children. Aspiration is not binary.
    I don't think it's at all helpful to view people as traitors to their class simply because they have made some money. But equally one might question whether they are still members of that class in the way that many people understand it.
    Although I have always been middle class I have certainly moved from one end of that wide envelope to the other in material terms over the course of my life, so I am certainly no stranger to, or enemy of, aspiration.
    But your argument wasnt against bad business owners exploiting workers, it was that you cant be a working class business owner. Take a previously working class brickie who decides to employ five of his mates, they all work the same duties and hours but he happens to be the owner of the firm. On his first day of ownership does he automatically change class? Is he supposed to be aware of this?
    Per Pidcock, you leave the working class at the point where you can live off your wealth. So with your example that would not be on the 1st day or anything close to it.

    Usual caveat. Life is not so precise. But it's a helpful thought imo.
    But its nonsense! So on retirement everyone stops being working class?

    In this country its also perfectly possible to live off state benefits without ever doing a days work. Not fun or recommended, but do-able. So at birth we are all excluded from being working class.

    On a personal level I could certainly retire early today and survive, just not at the level I would like to so will probably end up working another 15 years or so. Which level sets my class, my desired income, historic income or average income, or state sustenance?
    I can answer these questions on Laura's behalf. On retirement you carry on being what you were before you retired. Being jobless on benefits does not count as living off your wealth because it is not living comfortably. Which means - let's put this out there - that your capital needs to be sufficient to generate an income of at least the average wage without any labour input from you. If you're in that boat you can only be "cultural" working class - which is the softer, subjective and imo less useful concept (albeit not irrelevant).
    How do I know how long Im going to live? If its 75 Im excluded from working class on your definition, if l lived to 95 I would be eligible. This is silly.
    It's silly if we get too literal about it. My point is mainly that of the 2 extremes - class is all about money or all about attitudes - I prefer the 1st one. I think that's more useful when it comes to the true economic interest of people (whether they see it or not).

    But OK, since I don't like to dodge questions. We don't know how long you're going to live. But remember we've said that when you become a pensioner - at say 65 - you remain in the class you were in on the day before that event. Thus at this point we only need to ascertain if your wealth is sufficient to live comfortably on UNTIL you reach 65. If it is, you can be "Stocky" working class but not "Pidcock" working class.
    Sorry to be a literal pedant and all that but it really is still nonsensical. At 64y 11m everyone is no longer working class, as they only need a months average wages. By the last day they only need one days average wages to prevent them being working class. At retirement date their class is fixed, so you have no working class retirees.

    The group the Labour party has really lost are working class retirees.
    Grr.

    So, if you approach retirement in a position whereby your wealth alone is generating a comfortable income then whatever class status that signifies continues to the grave (barring accidents).

    As for Labour, yes, our biggest problem is not about class it's about age. We are going gangbusters with the under 40s - setting records there - but it's the opposite of that with the over 65s.

    If we could make 'full set of own teeth' a condition of voting we'd be in great shape.
    Strange that, the ones not keen on a true left wing government are the one's who have actually experienced one. The ones most in favour are people who have never experienced one. I wonder if this tells us something?
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818
    edited July 2020
    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Alistair said:

    Ah, the working class business owner.
    Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
    Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
    What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
    You don't need to be a business owner to hope for better for your children. The problems come when business owners treat their employees like they're disposable and prevent them from realising their dreams for their children. Aspiration is not binary.
    I don't think it's at all helpful to view people as traitors to their class simply because they have made some money. But equally one might question whether they are still members of that class in the way that many people understand it.
    Although I have always been middle class I have certainly moved from one end of that wide envelope to the other in material terms over the course of my life, so I am certainly no stranger to, or enemy of, aspiration.
    But your argument wasnt against bad business owners exploiting workers, it was that you cant be a working class business owner. Take a previously working class brickie who decides to employ five of his mates, they all work the same duties and hours but he happens to be the owner of the firm. On his first day of ownership does he automatically change class? Is he supposed to be aware of this?
    Per Pidcock, you leave the working class at the point where you can live off your wealth. So with your example that would not be on the 1st day or anything close to it.

    Usual caveat. Life is not so precise. But it's a helpful thought imo.
    Under her definition, I'm still working class, then Kinabalu. That doesn't ring true, I own a flat in Hampstead and work for an international bank in investment markets. I'm the very definition of comfortable middle class.
    Yes. She is saying you're working class, don't kid yourself otherwise. And so was I until I didn't have to do it anymore.

    Totally understand that this is not definitive. It's a complex area that impinges on identity which is always sensitive.

    But I do think her Marxist lens on it is a useful one to use. Certainly more useful than the other extreme - that class boils down to attitudes and as such is essentially self-defined. Not sure where that gets us.

    Plus on a partisan political note. If Labour is the party of the working class it makes sense for them to define it to include most of the population.
    Just occurred to me.
    If nowadays you can choose your Gender, surely you should be allowed to choose your Class.
    I suspect that those allowing the former might be against allowing the latter.
    I suspect a lot of left wing luvvies definitely identify as working class, despite significant buckets of cash and very nice houses...
    I'm used to this sort of comment. But I would ask you to note that I have been arguing exactly the opposite all thread. That IDing as working class when you're minted is bollox.
    Labour's great mistake is to assume that working class people want to stay working class. Often, they don't. Being working class isn't a state of grace. It can be pretty unpleasant and depressing, I imagine.

    The state of grace is being where Polly Toynbee is, a wealthy person 'on the side of' the working class. (but also well insulated from it). A wealthy person who is also 'moral'.

    This is the Nirvana that many studying soft subjects at our universities aspire to. They look up to the BBC, the third sector, the quangos, the arts, the race industry, education......and they dream the heady dream.
    And is this dream less worthy than the one of getting rich and shitting on those who haven't?
    No but getting rich in the private sector is a classless dream. Always was. The leftist dream is one of a person who is exclusively middle class. And white middle class at that.

    Working class people need not apply.

    For the kind of people we are talking about, working class people exist and must remain that way so that they can be 'represented'. Same with disadvantaged BAME people. They have to stay that way for the vast white leftist panoply of well paid people 'on their side' to continue to exist.

    That's why Patel and Co. excite such ire from the left. They don't need highly paid 'representatives' or 'advocates' or people 'on their side' any more.

    They threaten the leftist Nirvana. And when there is a threat the response is vicious. As pensioners are about to find out with TV licences.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Alistair said:

    Ah, the working class business owner.
    Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
    Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
    What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
    You don't need to be a business owner to hope for better for your children. The problems come when business owners treat their employees like they're disposable and prevent them from realising their dreams for their children. Aspiration is not binary.
    I don't think it's at all helpful to view people as traitors to their class simply because they have made some money. But equally one might question whether they are still members of that class in the way that many people understand it.
    Although I have always been middle class I have certainly moved from one end of that wide envelope to the other in material terms over the course of my life, so I am certainly no stranger to, or enemy of, aspiration.
    But your argument wasnt against bad business owners exploiting workers, it was that you cant be a working class business owner. Take a previously working class brickie who decides to employ five of his mates, they all work the same duties and hours but he happens to be the owner of the firm. On his first day of ownership does he automatically change class? Is he supposed to be aware of this?
    Per Pidcock, you leave the working class at the point where you can live off your wealth. So with your example that would not be on the 1st day or anything close to it.

    Usual caveat. Life is not so precise. But it's a helpful thought imo.
    Under her definition, I'm still working class, then Kinabalu. That doesn't ring true, I own a flat in Hampstead and work for an international bank in investment markets. I'm the very definition of comfortable middle class.
    Yes. She is saying you're working class, don't kid yourself otherwise. And so was I until I didn't have to do it anymore.

    Totally understand that this is not definitive. It's a complex area that impinges on identity which is always sensitive.

    But I do think her Marxist lens on it is a useful one to use. Certainly more useful than the other extreme - that class boils down to attitudes and as such is essentially self-defined. Not sure where that gets us.

    Plus on a partisan political note. If Labour is the party of the working class it makes sense for them to define it to include most of the population.
    Just occurred to me.
    If nowadays you can choose your Gender, surely you should be allowed to choose your Class.
    I suspect that those allowing the former might be against allowing the latter.
    I suspect a lot of left wing luvvies definitely identify as working class, despite significant buckets of cash and very nice houses...
    I'm used to this sort of comment. But I would ask you to note that I have been arguing exactly the opposite all thread. That IDing as working class when you're minted is bollox.
    Something about actors really winds people up. Don't get it myself. For a profession that involves a huge amount of hard work mostly for little money, brings a lot of happiness to paying customers and is something that the UK excels at, it seems to make a certain kind of person on the Right very angry.
    Re wealthy people posturing as working class, I actually think it's the "self made" Sugar and Stringfellow and Ashton types who do a lot of it. But not being "luvvies" (perish the thought) they escape censure. Until NOW!

    On actors, though, Michael Caine - who I like, don't we all, national treasure - has always irritated me slightly with that cockney shtick of his.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772

    This point is probably obvious enough to have been made already, but I think it's worth repeating if so - Johnson could already make loads of money making funny speeches, but he chose to give that, and the newspaper column, up in order to be PM.

    He's been working towards becoming PM for years, it's not something he will give up easily after all that time.

    When was the last time a PM walked away from the job willingly?

    Cameron.
    I disagree. I said at the time that he should have stayed on to deal with the mess that he'd created, but I was assured on here that his position was untenable, due to the way the Referendum campaign was fought and his being on the losing side.

    Given the way that May was treated this was probably true, so his departure was as willing as Blair's - possessing more dignity than some due to recognising reality at an earlier stage.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772
    So when do we think the Windies declare? After lunch tomorrow?
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    edited July 2020
    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Alistair said:

    Ah, the working class business owner.
    Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
    Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
    What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
    You don't need to be a business owner to hope for better for your children. The problems come when business owners treat their employees like they're disposable and prevent them from realising their dreams for their children. Aspiration is not binary.
    I don't think it's at all helpful to view people as traitors to their class simply because they have made some money. But equally one might question whether they are still members of that class in the way that many people understand it.
    Although I have always been middle class I have certainly moved from one end of that wide envelope to the other in material terms over the course of my life, so I am certainly no stranger to, or enemy of, aspiration.
    But your argument wasnt against bad business owners exploiting workers, it was that you cant be a working class business owner. Take a previously working class brickie who decides to employ five of his mates, they all work the same duties and hours but he happens to be the owner of the firm. On his first day of ownership does he automatically change class? Is he supposed to be aware of this?
    Per Pidcock, you leave the working class at the point where you can live off your wealth. So with your example that would not be on the 1st day or anything close to it.

    Usual caveat. Life is not so precise. But it's a helpful thought imo.
    Under her definition, I'm still working class, then Kinabalu. That doesn't ring true, I own a flat in Hampstead and work for an international bank in investment markets. I'm the very definition of comfortable middle class.
    Yes. She is saying you're working class, don't kid yourself otherwise. And so was I until I didn't have to do it anymore.

    Totally understand that this is not definitive. It's a complex area that impinges on identity which is always sensitive.

    But I do think her Marxist lens on it is a useful one to use. Certainly more useful than the other extreme - that class boils down to attitudes and as such is essentially self-defined. Not sure where that gets us.

    Plus on a partisan political note. If Labour is the party of the working class it makes sense for them to define it to include most of the population.
    Just occurred to me.
    If nowadays you can choose your Gender, surely you should be allowed to choose your Class.
    I suspect that those allowing the former might be against allowing the latter.
    I suspect a lot of left wing luvvies definitely identify as working class, despite significant buckets of cash and very nice houses...
    I'm used to this sort of comment. But I would ask you to note that I have been arguing exactly the opposite all thread. That IDing as working class when you're minted is bollox.
    Something about actors really winds people up. Don't get it myself. For a profession that involves a huge amount of hard work mostly for little money, brings a lot of happiness to paying customers and is something that the UK excels at, it seems to make a certain kind of person on the Right very angry.
    Re wealthy people posturing as working class, I actually think it's the "self made" Sugar and Stringfellow and Ashton types who do a lot of it. But not being "luvvies" (perish the thought) they escape censure. Until NOW!

    On actors, though, Michael Caine - who I like, don't we all, national treasure - has always irritated me slightly with that cockney shtick of his.
    Father = market porter; mother = cook/charwoman (wiki).

    Most actors would swiftly have lost their original accent and replaced it with something a bit more RP. Not him. And this irritates you?
  • nichomarnichomar Posts: 7,483
    DavidL said:

    So when do we think the Windies declare? After lunch tomorrow?

    ..
  • nichomarnichomar Posts: 7,483
    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Alistair said:

    Ah, the working class business owner.
    Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
    Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
    What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
    You don't need to be a business owner to hope for better for your children. The problems come when business owners treat their employees like they're disposable and prevent them from realising their dreams for their children. Aspiration is not binary.
    I don't think it's at all helpful to view people as traitors to their class simply because they have made some money. But equally one might question whether they are still members of that class in the way that many people understand it.
    Although I have always been middle class I have certainly moved from one end of that wide envelope to the other in material terms over the course of my life, so I am certainly no stranger to, or enemy of, aspiration.
    But your argument wasnt against bad business owners exploiting workers, it was that you cant be a working class business owner. Take a previously working class brickie who decides to employ five of his mates, they all work the same duties and hours but he happens to be the owner of the firm. On his first day of ownership does he automatically change class? Is he supposed to be aware of this?
    Per Pidcock, you leave the working class at the point where you can live off your wealth. So with your example that would not be on the 1st day or anything close to it.

    Usual caveat. Life is not so precise. But it's a helpful thought imo.
    But its nonsense! So on retirement everyone stops being working class?

    In this country its also perfectly possible to live off state benefits without ever doing a days work. Not fun or recommended, but do-able. So at birth we are all excluded from being working class.

    On a personal level I could certainly retire early today and survive, just not at the level I would like to so will probably end up working another 15 years or so. Which level sets my class, my desired income, historic income or average income, or state sustenance?
    I can answer these questions on Laura's behalf. On retirement you carry on being what you were before you retired. Being jobless on benefits does not count as living off your wealth because it is not living comfortably. Which means - let's put this out there - that your capital needs to be sufficient to generate an income of at least the average wage without any labour input from you. If you're in that boat you can only be "cultural" working class - which is the softer, subjective and imo less useful concept (albeit not irrelevant).
    How do I know how long Im going to live? If its 75 Im excluded from working class on your definition, if l lived to 95 I would be eligible. This is silly.
    It's silly if we get too literal about it. My point is mainly that of the 2 extremes - class is all about money or all about attitudes - I prefer the 1st one. I think that's more useful when it comes to the true economic interest of people (whether they see it or not).

    But OK, since I don't like to dodge questions. We don't know how long you're going to live. But remember we've said that when you become a pensioner - at say 65 - you remain in the class you were in on the day before that event. Thus at this point we only need to ascertain if your wealth is sufficient to live comfortably on UNTIL you reach 65. If it is, you can be "Stocky" working class but not "Pidcock" working class.
    Sorry to be a literal pedant and all that but it really is still nonsensical. At 64y 11m everyone is no longer working class, as they only need a months average wages. By the last day they only need one days average wages to prevent them being working class. At retirement date their class is fixed, so you have no working class retirees.

    The group the Labour party has really lost are working class retirees.
    Grr.

    So, if you approach retirement in a position whereby your wealth alone is generating a comfortable income then whatever class status that signifies continues to the grave (barring accidents).

    As for Labour, yes, our biggest problem is not about class it's about age. We are going gangbusters with the under 40s - setting records there - but it's the opposite of that with the over 65s.

    If we could make 'full set of own teeth' a condition of voting we'd be in great shape.
    Strange that, the ones not keen on a true left wing government are the one's who have actually experienced one. The ones most in favour are people who have never experienced one. I wonder if this tells us something?
    When did the UK ever have a true left wing government?
  • BannedinnParisBannedinnParis Posts: 1,884

    kle4 said:

    People cannot even consistently agree on what left and right wing mean, theres no hope of agreeing the 3 or 7 or whatever classes we now have.

    I would like to see the ONS take a lead on this. Create some new measures with distinct and clearly definited terms, not using the word "class" at all, one based on background and education, another on wealth, another on employment status. Standardise and promote awareness of them so this discussion isnt repeated with chaotic personal definitions of class in 20 years time.
    I believe there are now seven social classes. You can even find out which one you are part of here:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22000973

    I am a member of the Elite group, much to my dismay...
    So, I've gone through this as myself, then repeated it based on what I know about my mum, my dad (they're divorced), my middle brother (Sergeant Banned, REME) and my youngest brother (Chef Banned)

    Me - technical middle class
    Mum - traditional working class
    Dad - established middle class
    Brother 1 - established middle class, but eyeballing it, he's right on the border with new affluent worker.
    Brother 2 - emergent service worker

    now that agrees actually quite closely with what I would have expected given what I know about us. But that's one family, and almost five different social classes.

    Just found it interesting, don't know what it means.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    edited July 2020
    The Times has the lowdown on the vaccine scheme, it sounds rubbish.

    "Under the terms of joint procurement, member states are required to hand over “live” negotiations with producers to the commission and empower it to distribute a successful vaccine in the order and quantities it sees fit."


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/britain-won-t-be-part-of-eu-coronavirus-vaccine-scheme-plh858jf2

    The government has already secured priority orders with Astra and GSK for two types of vaccine and is in talks with the American outfit to get priority access as well.

    As I said before, they need us in the scheme more than we need to be in it.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,631
    nichomar said:

    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Alistair said:

    Ah, the working class business owner.
    Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
    Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
    What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
    You don't need to be a business owner to hope for better for your children. The problems come when business owners treat their employees like they're disposable and prevent them from realising their dreams for their children. Aspiration is not binary.
    I don't think it's at all helpful to view people as traitors to their class simply because they have made some money. But equally one might question whether they are still members of that class in the way that many people understand it.
    Although I have always been middle class I have certainly moved from one end of that wide envelope to the other in material terms over the course of my life, so I am certainly no stranger to, or enemy of, aspiration.
    But your argument wasnt against bad business owners exploiting workers, it was that you cant be a working class business owner. Take a previously working class brickie who decides to employ five of his mates, they all work the same duties and hours but he happens to be the owner of the firm. On his first day of ownership does he automatically change class? Is he supposed to be aware of this?
    Per Pidcock, you leave the working class at the point where you can live off your wealth. So with your example that would not be on the 1st day or anything close to it.

    Usual caveat. Life is not so precise. But it's a helpful thought imo.
    But its nonsense! So on retirement everyone stops being working class?

    In this country its also perfectly possible to live off state benefits without ever doing a days work. Not fun or recommended, but do-able. So at birth we are all excluded from being working class.

    On a personal level I could certainly retire early today and survive, just not at the level I would like to so will probably end up working another 15 years or so. Which level sets my class, my desired income, historic income or average income, or state sustenance?
    I can answer these questions on Laura's behalf. On retirement you carry on being what you were before you retired. Being jobless on benefits does not count as living off your wealth because it is not living comfortably. Which means - let's put this out there - that your capital needs to be sufficient to generate an income of at least the average wage without any labour input from you. If you're in that boat you can only be "cultural" working class - which is the softer, subjective and imo less useful concept (albeit not irrelevant).
    How do I know how long Im going to live? If its 75 Im excluded from working class on your definition, if l lived to 95 I would be eligible. This is silly.
    It's silly if we get too literal about it. My point is mainly that of the 2 extremes - class is all about money or all about attitudes - I prefer the 1st one. I think that's more useful when it comes to the true economic interest of people (whether they see it or not).

    But OK, since I don't like to dodge questions. We don't know how long you're going to live. But remember we've said that when you become a pensioner - at say 65 - you remain in the class you were in on the day before that event. Thus at this point we only need to ascertain if your wealth is sufficient to live comfortably on UNTIL you reach 65. If it is, you can be "Stocky" working class but not "Pidcock" working class.
    Sorry to be a literal pedant and all that but it really is still nonsensical. At 64y 11m everyone is no longer working class, as they only need a months average wages. By the last day they only need one days average wages to prevent them being working class. At retirement date their class is fixed, so you have no working class retirees.

    The group the Labour party has really lost are working class retirees.
    Grr.

    So, if you approach retirement in a position whereby your wealth alone is generating a comfortable income then whatever class status that signifies continues to the grave (barring accidents).

    As for Labour, yes, our biggest problem is not about class it's about age. We are going gangbusters with the under 40s - setting records there - but it's the opposite of that with the over 65s.

    If we could make 'full set of own teeth' a condition of voting we'd be in great shape.
    Strange that, the ones not keen on a true left wing government are the one's who have actually experienced one. The ones most in favour are people who have never experienced one. I wonder if this tells us something?
    When did the UK ever have a true left wing government?
    Wilson, Callaghan Atlee....although the last admittedly would only be remembered by the over 75's. Or do you claim they weren't left wing?
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    Interesting comments on where the Lincoln Project is showing it's ads

    https://twitter.com/Robillard/status/1281301087581024256
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    MaxPB said:

    The Times has the lowdown on the vaccine scheme, it sounds rubbish.

    "Under the terms of joint procurement, member states are required to hand over “live” negotiations with producers to the commission and empower it to distribute a successful vaccine in the order and quantities it sees fit."


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/britain-won-t-be-part-of-eu-coronavirus-vaccine-scheme-plh858jf2

    The government has already secured priority orders with Astra and GSK for two types of vaccine and is in talks with the American outfit to get priority access as well.

    As I said before, they need us in the scheme more than we need to be in it.

    Seems like a sensible decision.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    MaxPB said:

    kinabalu said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Alistair said:

    Ah, the working class business owner.
    Absolutely, who does he think he is getting above himself? Where's his cap?
    Doesn't this come down to whether you view class as predominantly a description of economic interest groups or something cultural and performative? If the former, a working class business owner is a contradiction: you cannot be both capital and labour at the same time. If the latter, then a person could define themselves as working class in cultural terms (eg call their evening meal "tea") and be a billionaire capitalist. To my mind the first usage is more useful, because it is tied to something concrete, but then I am an economist. The culture warriors on here might prefer the more performative use of the phrase.
    What we need in this country is far more "working class" business owners, people who are aspirational and hope for better for their children. I find the idea that someone is a traitor to their class because they want to get on or have ambitions deeply offensive and immoral. I therefore prefer the second description but I wonder how useful the economic version of your definition is if membership is that transient. Better to focus on gig workers, the unemployed or specific sectors that tell you more about the issues they are facing.
    You don't need to be a business owner to hope for better for your children. The problems come when business owners treat their employees like they're disposable and prevent them from realising their dreams for their children. Aspiration is not binary.
    I don't think it's at all helpful to view people as traitors to their class simply because they have made some money. But equally one might question whether they are still members of that class in the way that many people understand it.
    Although I have always been middle class I have certainly moved from one end of that wide envelope to the other in material terms over the course of my life, so I am certainly no stranger to, or enemy of, aspiration.
    But your argument wasnt against bad business owners exploiting workers, it was that you cant be a working class business owner. Take a previously working class brickie who decides to employ five of his mates, they all work the same duties and hours but he happens to be the owner of the firm. On his first day of ownership does he automatically change class? Is he supposed to be aware of this?
    Per Pidcock, you leave the working class at the point where you can live off your wealth. So with your example that would not be on the 1st day or anything close to it.

    Usual caveat. Life is not so precise. But it's a helpful thought imo.
    Under her definition, I'm still working class, then Kinabalu. That doesn't ring true, I own a flat in Hampstead and work for an international bank in investment markets. I'm the very definition of comfortable middle class.
    Yes. She is saying you're working class, don't kid yourself otherwise. And so was I until I didn't have to do it anymore.

    Totally understand that this is not definitive. It's a complex area that impinges on identity which is always sensitive.

    But I do think her Marxist lens on it is a useful one to use. Certainly more useful than the other extreme - that class boils down to attitudes and as such is essentially self-defined. Not sure where that gets us.

    Plus on a partisan political note. If Labour is the party of the working class it makes sense for them to define it to include most of the population.
    Just occurred to me.
    If nowadays you can choose your Gender, surely you should be allowed to choose your Class.
    I suspect that those allowing the former might be against allowing the latter.
    I suspect a lot of left wing luvvies definitely identify as working class, despite significant buckets of cash and very nice houses...
    I'm used to this sort of comment. But I would ask you to note that I have been arguing exactly the opposite all thread. That IDing as working class when you're minted is bollox.
    Labour's great mistake is to assume that working class people want to stay working class. Often, they don't. Being working class isn't a state of grace. It can be pretty unpleasant and depressing, I imagine.

    The state of grace is being where Polly Toynbee is, a wealthy person 'on the side of' the working class. (but also well insulated from it). A wealthy person who is also 'moral'.

    This is the Nirvana that many studying soft subjects at our universities aspire to. They look up to the BBC, the third sector, the quangos, the arts, the race industry, education......and they dream the heady dream.
    And is this dream less worthy than the one of getting rich and shitting on those who haven't?
    No but getting rich in the private sector is a classless dream. Always was. The leftist dream is one of a person who is exclusively middle class. And white middle class at that.

    Working class people need not apply.

    For the kind of people we are talking about, working class people exist and must remain that way so that they can be 'represented'. Same with disadvantaged BAME people. They have to stay that way for the vast white leftist panoply of well paid people 'on their side' to continue to exist.

    That's why Patel and Co. excite such ire from the left. They don't need highly paid 'representatives' or 'advocates' or people 'on their side' any more.

    They threaten the leftist Nirvana. And when there is a threat the response is vicious. As pensioners are about to find out with TV licences.
    Thats a very big chip on your shoulder.
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