A broken country?

growstuff
people who relied on the state, lived in a council house, were in a union, voted Labour, etc
That's my family! The state paid our family allowance, gave me a clothes allowance when I went to secondary school and paid for education and health care. I lived in a council house until I was 13 and my dad was a signed up union member. BUT we were also fiercely ambitious. Both of my parents left school at 13, my dad did a book keeping course when he left the army and worked as an accounts clerk. My mum worked at several jobs stepping up to something better each time. They eventually opened their own business and made sure both myself and my brother were educated and had professions. But they never lost sight of their origins and remained union and Labour people all of their lives.
It's a question of caring about other people and not writing off people who are born into poorer circumstances or need state help something you seem happy to do.

I grew up in a council house,as did many in the West of Scotland in the post war years .My dad went into the navy at 17 ,he'd worked in a grocers since he was 13 when his mum died and his stepdad sent him to live with a neighbour.Council housing has never been looked down on here the way it is in some parts of England ,I left my council house when I got married ...to live in another council house.We were very fortunate to get a brand new 3 bedroom house on a new estate or scheme as we call them .It had rates ,heating and a garage all included in the rent .
If we hadn't got that house we'd have had to save for ever to get a deposit on a flat .As it was having a decent home meant we could channel money towards opening our business which we did when I was 22. We only moved because we wanted our daughter to go to the school local to our office,to make life a bit simpler as I dont drive.We bought our first flat when mortgage rates were 16and a half %.I have never been ashamed of my roots .The clear snobbery on here is astonishing .No one should have to tie a mortgage round their neck if they dont want to,housing should be available for folk who prefer to rent
.

Council housing is not subsidised ,if managed correctly it should pay its way and give the council collateral for borrowing

I too am astonished at the snobbery of some posters and even more astonished that the seem to be proud of their opinion.
I'm another one of those people whose parents relied on the state, lived in a council house, were in a union, voted Labour, etc
DH and I are proud of our roots and always reinforced those working class values is our children.
My father was a chronic invalid and my mother had a full time job nursing him, so the state had to subsidise us, through no fault of our own. .
I got my self a job at 14, worked in a bar at 18 to get myself through university to make a better life for myself.
The day DH and I got married, I had 2p in my purse and a 15% mortgage.

I'm speechless at some of the comments on here.

snobbery? here?

Post war, if you lived in a city that had been badly damaged by the Luftwaffe homes of any sort were like hens teeth.

So a council property was essential to millions of families.

I am surprised at the ignorance shown on this thread.

Or maybe not.

I actually thought the statement was a bit silly. Not everybody who lived in a council house voted Labour, were members of a union, relied on the state, etc, etc. Incidentally, what exactly does "rely on the state" mean - surely everyone - apart from the super rich -relies on the state to some degree? Even the super rich benefit from our road and transport system, our emergency services and so on (and sometimes pay very little towards it). Apart from coming across as snobbish, it is also far too general a statement.

My dad went to public school and worked in an office, and my parents bought their own house. But my dad was a committed socialist. My mum came from a less educated background but was more drawn to Conservative ideology, like her dad who, despite his fairly lowly job in a shop, admired and identified with the values of what he called "the gentry". Many of my friends lived in council houses, my best friend being one of them. Her dad was a bus inspector. Her parents both voted Conservative. I can think of many similar examples, including our next door neighbour who had a (well paid) job on the factory floor at Fords and was in a union, but who had very different political opinions from my dad.

trisher Don't shoot the messenger! What I was doing was describing the prejudices my parents (particularly my mother) had - and there were plenty of other people like them. (Maybe it gives a clue as to why I never had a wonderful relationship with my parents.)

I guess I was a child of the sixties and was very much a rebel against the sexism and racism of the time (neither of which was exclusive to any political party). I sometimes read about the nostalgia for the fifties and sixties and I end up scratching my head (metaphorically) because the lives I read about had very little to do with mine.

BTW I was brought up in a town which was heavily bombed, but the post-war building boom of the fifties meant that there was an increasing number of houses for sale.

Post-war "relying on the state" meant using the NHS, state schools and the benefit system because they were new. And, yes, I agree that the state does far more than provide healthcare, education and welfare.

Marydoll I would be a hypocrite if I claimed to have "working class roots" in the usual sense of the concept. I'm not proud nor am I ashamed of not feeling rooted in the working class. Personally, I think it's a silly idea anyway, because the vast majority of people work.

PS. I'm very suspicious of inverted snobbery.

Apologies then growstuff. I too grew up in a heavily bombed town, perhaps the most heavily bombed after London. Although no one knew about it because it was seen as too dangerous to security to publicise. The council had an excellent programme of council house building, although actually the bombing managed to miss some of the worst slum areas in the city and devastated the shopping centre. I thought every city had streets with "bombed buildings" at the end of them and houses with wallpaper and staircase marks on the walls. Funny how you just accept things as the norm when you are a kid.

I'm struggling to find any snobbery on this thread. Who is the supposed culprit?

If it is who I think you're all thinking it is then I think you've misread her post.

It"s a public forum and we are all going to have different perceptions and interpretations of posts.

I'm not explaining this very well , but my perception of " working class", is that of poor, Irish immigrants coming to Scotland, seeking work., and living in poverty, because that is my experience, which may be totally different from other people's concept of working class.

I probably AM an " inverted snob", proud to have dragged myself out of the abject poverty I was brought up in, by getting an education.
That is what is great about this country, education is free!

I suspect that there will be few on here, who have experienced such poverty as a child, that their mother didn't have enough money in her purse to buy a loaf of bread.

I'm not an inverted anything ,just someone proud of my roots.My maternal GM's political influence on me has lasted all my life.My fathers awful start didn't stop him being a wonderful husband to my mum for almost 50 years and a fantastic dad .
Like Marydoll my ancestors came from Ireland during the famine and lived in poverty for years ,her daughter my GM told us about GGM being the kindest hearted woman in the world ,while having very little themselves they took in an old woman who was blind and who would have ended her days in the workhouse..no benefits then.They cared for her until she died .

In my view, working class in past generations were persons who worked in Britains many factories, warehouses or as stevedores on the docks etc. The foregoing all involved heavy manual or very repetitive work and were recognised as working class people due to the fact that such workers normally had a background of their parents being engaged in the same industries and work.

Today that has very much changed in my experience. The working class are now those that work in large distribution centres as pickers, forklift drivers and yard shunter's etc. That employment can mean working very long hours and also shift work which involves very unsocial hours. However, that employment is normally well paid and very stable.

Along with the above, you have those who work in call centres or mainstream retail outlets which still can involve unsocial hours in many cases but that is carried out on minimum wage variable hour contracts.

Finally, you have those working in the events industry or fast food and coffee chain outlets etc, who very often work on zero-hour contracts or in many cases Gig Economy terms of employment where there is no guaranteed income.

The difference in the present day to previous generations would be that those who work in todays above industries come from backgrounds that cross all social bands in upbringing, People find themselves working in the above "minimal employment condions" is purely down to having only obtained poor education grades while in mainstream education.

Many such people employed in the above conditions do not view themselves as "working class." Indeed, I believe that a such term is rarely used by anyone in these times especially in reference to themselves.

In my early years of upbringing, whole generations of families worked in Bristols huge cigarette industry and its associated supply companies, and those people were proud to refer to themselves as working class.

However, those industries along with the lifelong employment they provided is now long gone, and no one now wishes to be referred to as working class, for that carries the stigma of failure in these times.

Marydoll That's not what I mean by an inverted snob and I don't think it's how it's normally understood. My understanding is that "inverted snobs" look down on people who don't come from that kind of harsh background. I didn't and I'm not going to pretend I did. The fact that I'm now amongst the poorest people in the country is down to my own bad judgment and some bad luck. Nevertheless, despite my upbringing on Merseyside, I still speak standard English and had a private school education. There's not much I can do about that and I do object to people who think I'm a snob.

growstuff, as I have previously said, we all interpret posts and comments differently. What a boring old world it would be, if we all thought the same.
As we cannot hear intonation, nor see facial expression, we have to take the written word at face value.

I fully accept that my interpretation of your post may not be what you meant, but that was how I read it.
Of course you are entitled to post your views, as I am mine, we do not need to agree, but should be able to do so without animosity and respect each other's opinion.

I did not intend this to become personal, that is not my way, so I shall retreat to the gentler and more supportive threads and comment no more.

I'm not really that bothered by what you think of me. I happen to have quite strong views of anybody who defines themselves by class because I think it's an outdated way of viewing society. I have never felt I belong to any particular class after I rejected my parents' way of judging people.

I don't think it would matter if you could see my face. There was nothing else behind what I wrote.

What do you mean by working class values?

Johnson making sure that the gulf between those with power and those without power is widened.

Armando Iannucci
@Aiannucci
Govt bill in Queen’s Speech to make voters show ID at elections is stolen from US Republicans playbook. There’s very little voter fraud in U.K.; this measure designed to suppress voting by the least advantaged. A hint of what’s to come under an unchecked Johnson Government.

A good question

Georgi Georgiev #FBPE
@radi_georgi

So Brexit Party Ltd. abstained when European Parliament requested the British woman held in Iran to be released. Brexit Party Ltd. voted against a resolution that is amended against the Russian meddling in Europe. What is the point of the Brexit Party Ltd.? To resurrect fascism?

Worrying times

Kevin Maguire

We should all be concerned at the Met Police's draconian ban on Extinction Rebellion protests. Clear roads, yes. Prohibit peaceful demos, no. The right to protest is a fundamental right in any vibrant democracy

Mayor of London

I am seeking further information from senior officers about the operational decision to impose a section 14 order on Extinction Rebellion Autumn Uprising – and why this was necessary.

A populist authoritarian state?

The police action has Patel’s hands all over it.

When has Johnson’s government allowed a little thing like the law get in its way?