Corbyn / BBC declare social class of employees?

trisher no - because I look at their suitability for a job, my own background has no relevance.

That's a load of old tosh POGS all cultural change isn't bad and if there hadn't been any I would probably have been cleaning somewhere or serving behind a bar as my grandmother's did. In fact I probably wouldn't even be allowed a vote.

Oldwoman70 you might think so, but research says otherwise www.businessinsider.com/managers-hire-people-who-remind-them-of-themselves-2014-5?IR=T

trisher

"Yes of course they should, and in the past because of the way the BBC funded and financed programmes there was not only greater diversity of programme makers, but a range of award winning programmes made. "
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Interesting . How is the funding of the BBC different to the past ?

" So we had people funded through them such as Ken Loach and Mike Leigh and from this source came great drama which actually influenced and highlighted social problems. "

So the BBC in your opinion no longer produces programmes that highlight social problems?

As for Ken Loach he was grammar school educated, studied law at Oxford and is highly politically motivated. Where would he fit in o Corbyns need to know of his Social Class to make programmes for the BBC?

Mike Leigh was grammer school educated and did not go to university as far as I am aware but if I am not mistaken from his mothers side he could be classed as coming from quite a high Social Class . Happy to be corrected if I am mistaken How would he fit in to Corbyns need to know what Social Class he comes from?

So what has the Social Class of either of them have to do with their programme making. An individuals Social Class is not an indicator of the work nor beliefs that they hold as individuals and you have just made that point.

trisher

" That's a load of old tosh POGS all cultural change isn't bad".

No it is not but verging Social Engineering , using Social Class to denote whether or not an individual is the right person most certainly is.

I think you miss the point re the ' creeping' and what we have witnessed in history before.

We beg to differ once again.

POGS the BBC make very few programmes now. They buy most in from production companies. The heyday when they made some of the best comedy and drama programmes ever produced are long gone. Didn't you know the entire BBC building was closed down and production ceased. The programmes are now made by a commercial company called Studio works and you can judge the resulting standard of programmes if you look up en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Studioworks
I suppose you can argue that Ken Loach and Mike Leigh were middle class (certainly not upper) They might disagree with you. Their work stands for itself.

There were those who thought Votes For Women would bring disaster POGS One such person was Winston Churchill he thought "women are well represented by their husbands, brothers and fathers."
No doubt he thought the frog had had it.

Strange why Corbyn didn’t aim for teachers first, they have the next generation they can influence

No organisation should be forced / coerced to employ an individual so as to make up a diverse workforce.

People should be judged on their ability to the job, that and only that.

What good could possibly come out of singling out the BBC employment history.

I feel all parties should look at where their MP's and advisors come from, sorry if I am duplicating what some others have said on here, but I have only glanced through the thread.

Annie there is enough trouble recruiting teachers already if you start questioning their backgrounds there simply won't be any. The generation who went into teaching because it was the easiest way for the working class (especially girls) to get into higher ed are now retiring. Current figures show people aren't staying in the profession for many years now. It's no longer a job for life.

Realy trisher? teachers are exempt from questions of their social class ? Oh well

I would probably have been cleaning somewhere or serving behind a bar as my grandmother's did. Why?

There has always been social mobility. Two of my grandparents were born in poverty and had the disadvantages of being Irish and catholic as well. They were both separately socially mobile. One became an army officer, the other continued the social rise her DH started before his premature death.

I went to a northern predominantly technical university in the early 1960s and I would say that the majority of the male students there were from working class backgrounds, including DH, whose father worked on the assembly line in a car factory. His best friend whose father worked as a cleaner went into the navy as an officer.

I am not arguing against more social mobility, but too many people like to underestimate how much social mobility there was in the past. There always was and always will be social mobility, in both directions, and social barriers should never be used to exclude people from anything.

But demanding social tests for jobs is just a cop-out. If we had an education system that aimed at ensuring every child got a good education. This would mean offering much more social support for children in areas and schools of high disadvantage and incentives to ensure that really good well qualified teachers wanted to teach in them and help the children so that the educational levels that children achieved at 16 were roughly equal in all schools, all this fiddling around with social status of parents when applying for jobs would not be necessary.

It is just a cop-out for those too lazy and too mean to look for other than simple answers to complex problems

Cleaners have my utmost respect - especially in the hot weather we've been having this summer.

DD served behind a bar when she was at university - and has done since. It certainly taught her people skills and it could have led to an interesting and lucrative career but she turned it down.
I might have got free wine

M0nica I have already posted about education and what might constitute an equal education system that would compensate for social inequalities.

Monica My understanding is that successive governments' socio-economic classifications contain statistical information relating to education, employment and income.

Everyone has had some sort of education, employment (or lack of it), and an income. Why are you saying these factors only apply to a small number of people?

In March 2016 this government announced new measures to improve social mobility in the workplace. This surely implies that the lack of social mobility in the UK is a cause for concern. The report included comments from Matt Hancock, who I believe formerly held the post of Business and Education Minister, who said:

"Social justice is at the heart of everything this one nation government is trying to achieve. Our goal is simple: to make sure everyone has the opportunity to succeed and make the most of their talents, whatever the circumstances of their birth.

"It’s time to tackle the last workplace taboo – social mobility. The British don’t like to discuss things like their parents’ background, particularly at work. But you can’t manage what you can’t measure."

This statement seems to encompass not just the BBC but workplaces in general.

Eloethan, Yes, everyone is allocated into a socio-economic group based on all the factors you mention, but it is getting a lot less easy to do this and these socio-economic groupings, drawn up quite some time ago, are creaking at the seams, as salaries for many professional groups go down in relation to the salaries being earned by others occupationally placed in lower groups and people move more and more between different occupations that mean they keep changing social group as well. My DD recently changed her social grouping in a weekend by changing job and occupation. Her salary remained unchanged.

Anyway, we are not discussing socio-economic groups in this thread we are talking 'class' and I am trying to get a definition about what this actually means, if anything, in the 21st century. In the past 'working class' = blue collar manual work, rented housing, usually council provided, middle class= white shirt, suit and tie, mortgage/owner occupier. But these simple divisions have long gone.

The phrase 'middle class' these days seems to be a word only used pejoratively in a very narrow sense for those privately educated, graduated from Oxbridge with well off parents in quite a narrow group of extremely well paid professions and I doubt more than 10,000 people or so fall into that category, which leaves the rest of the population where?

This question of exactly how you define class in the very occupationally fluid 21st century is the question the OP posed and no one yet has given a satisfactory answer. I can see only one way of overcoming all these problems and that is to band people by income only.

Eloethan I have just re read your post and your quote from Matt Hancock The British don’t like to discuss things like their parents’ background, particularly at work The man is talking through his hat.

Admittedly talking about your background doesn't often occur in a work situation, but I have never known people to be unwilling to mention it where it is relevant, nor embarrassed by telling people, whether their antecedents lay in the landed classes or in extreme poverty.

Look at the interest in family history and tv programs like 'Who do you think you are' and the way posters on GN will happily tell you what their parents and grandparents did.

In case you are curious one of my grandfathers started life as a docker, the other, the other, the illegitimate son of a catholic in Northern Ireland, now there's a collection of disadvantages, started life as a farm labourer or factory worker and they both progressed upwards from there. My father was an army officer and DH's husband worked on the assembly line of a car factory.

not discussing parents backgrounds is but a distant memory now.In fact, it's often seen as a badge of honour if your parents came from humble beginnings.In fact, the whole concept of the British being 'anal' about keeping everything in has gone out of fashion, and all seem to be emotional and talkative about any subject at all.

It's a badge of honour for Australians to have convict ancestors - I wonder if they will have to declare that if they want to work for the BBC?

Doesn't this silly suggestion of Corbyn contravene the Data Protection Act?
Or does he intend to repeal that?

www.gov.uk/data-protection

trisher

" Annie there is enough trouble recruiting teachers already if you start questioning their backgrounds there simply won't be any. "

Couldn't make it up.

Why is the BBC employee , those who work for or produce programmes for the BBC a special breed to want to know their Social Class. ? Why is it being trotted out under the label of ' transparency'? Why not their political allegiance, sexual orientation , race etc. Nobody has answered!

Social Class is not necessarily an indicator of an individuals worth or how they conduct themselves . It sadly can be used by those who hold a partisan / slanted view of an individuals Social Class to hold an outdated Class Warfare attitude however.

M0nica It is fair enough if someone wants to discuss their background but another matter entirely if they have to declare it.

Couldn't make it up
Obviously someone could POGS!

Unbelievable though it is.

Jalima

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Jalima I was only taking the words Hancock said as being that this was a taboo subject in workplaces, which is patently ridiculous. There is no argument that making people declare it is unacceptable.

I can remember having to declare my father's occupation on my university application form back in the early 1960s and, I think, on one or two forms when I started work.

But Jalima even amongst convict descendants there are social class divisions. There was a BBC programme about 3 shoplifting sisters, one was imprisoned in England, one was deported to Tasmania and one to another Australian convict settlement. The branch in Tasmania which was an exclusively convict settlement became judges, governors and barristers. The other two remained working class. (The other Australian settlement was mixed convicts and freemen) When they met up one of the Tasmanian family commented that most people believed Australia was classless, it simply wasn't true. An interesting result of social engineering perhaps?