According to Angela Rayner 'Working class people do not want "handouts" but support to find jobs.'

M0nica

I do not define class. It is an old fashioned and outdated term that it suits politicians to use.

The only measurement of difference between people these days is income. Taking it in percentiles, Those living in the bottom 10 perencentile will have a very different life style to those in the 30th percentile.

The days when a person's occupation defined how they lived, ate, and entertained themselves has long gone. Now that is all constrained - or not - by how much money they have coming in and where, housing costwise, they live.

You sound like you are working really hard to feel indignant about nothing.

You sound like you have a beef about Monica.

But we do grade and classify people for the purposes of statistics and still use the terms working and middle class by the ONS (office for national statistics)

"In the UK, social grades are a socio-economic classification system, often used in market research and advertising, and are based on the occupation of the head of the household, with the most common grouping being ABC1 (middle class) and C2DE (working class)"

Social Grade Categories:
A: Higher managerial, administrative, and professional.
B: Intermediate managerial, administrative, and professional.
C1: Supervisory, clerical, and junior managerial, administrative, and professional.
C2: Skilled manual workers.
D: Semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers.
E: State pensioners, casual and lowest grade workers, unemployed with state benefits only.

Called social grade data
www.ons.gov.uk/census/aboutcensus/censusproducts/approximatedsocialgradedata

You can hardly used these in speeches when you are trying to roughy define a group.

Although I think our society is far less "class ridden" than before I think there is still class snobbery going various ways, cliches about different social groups. Education attainment, which bit of town they live in, habits and choices, ideas about "posh"....some parents having ideas of whom they would like their children to mix with..... lots of tiny markers.

Politicians have to use broad terms when describing people and I think most people knew who Raynor was referring to broadly. "Working class" is different from "working people", which we can take literally as "people in work"

Its almost certainly likely to be different in Australia, in the UK we have lived with ideas of class for centuries but Australias history is very different.

As a sociologist who studied in the 60s one of my first essays was "we are all middle class now" discuss. Well we weren't then and we're not now. We're not a meritocracy either. Classification by social class is alive and well and everyone classifies people whether they recognise it or not.

MOnica describes working class to day exactly as it was in the
40’s, 50’s and 2025

She is getting better at avoiding interviewers' questions. Her comment about working class people preferring support to handouts is doubletalk in order to support welfare cuts.

Doodledog

I don't see why saying one group of people does or doesn't want something should be taken to mean that a different group of people do or want the opposite. There is no logic there at all.

This.

worriedwell, not indignant just havng a 'sigh' feeling over all this parroting of meaningless words 'working class', 'wealthy' etc etc. dislike the mindless use of imprecise words, to hide emptyness of mind and making lots of fuss about seeming to say things will be done, when at the end of the day, nothing much happens.

MOnica I agree about the hackneyed phrases.
Is there not a politician out there who can express themselves without resorting to sound bites and cliches?

Ilovecheese

I don't think that is what she means. I think there is an assumption among the political class that working class people are a bunch of lazy scroungers. She is trying to say that working class people are as decent and hard working as anyone else.

I agree and actually there’s a case these days for saying anyone who is, or has, worked is “working class”

This whole ridiculous class system is simply a myth these days, perpetuated mainly by our Eton boys, and at the other end of the scale, the “new rich”, the much aligned nouveau riche.

Most of us are quite happy to be in work, financially secure, and too busy living their lives to care about outdated class systems.

Quote M0nica Wed 26-Mar-25 09:58:37
worriedwell, not indignant just havng a 'sigh' feeling over all this parroting of meaningless words 'working class', 'wealthy' etc etc. dislike the mindless use of imprecise words, to hide emptyness of mind and making lots of fuss about seeming to say things will be done, when at the end of the day, nothing much happens

Do tell , if working class no longer exists how can Angela Rayner say what can be done to free many of it ?

foxie48

As a sociologist who studied in the 60s one of my first essays was "we are all middle class now" discuss. Well we weren't then and we're not now. We're not a meritocracy either. Classification by social class is alive and well and everyone classifies people whether they recognise it or not.

I think its ingrained in there, although things have changed a lot.

Haven't you noticed; all Labour politicians have been trained to refer to 'working people'?
Rayner likes to identify as working class as she presents her lack of grammar as actually her working-class dialect.
Her words.

There is a relationship between income and social class but it's far from the only measure, occupation and education are also part of the mix as is wealth that is inherited. Teachers, who might earn less than a good plumber, are generally considered middle class (lower MC) whereas a plumber will be classified as working class, it is just the way it works.

I believe that as we can’t escape our roots, it’s more authentic not to put on a fake accent or speech pattern, and it’s only people who are trying to pretend they are something they aren’t who try to do so. I don’t like bad grammar, but rather that than Hyacinth Bucket.

I guess we would call her a bogan which is slightly different from working class. Kind of crass.

No, she isn’t a bogan nanna8, she just has a Northern accent and is from a working class background, as many in Australia are too.

I was born in a South Wales mining village, moved to Mid Wales, two years ago moved back to same South Wales area,
shocked to find little difference to the 40’s and 50’s

Sago

You sound like you have a beef about Monica.

No I actually agree with her on many things but this just seems a nothing issue to me.

M0nica

*worriedwell*, not indignant just havng a 'sigh' feeling over all this parroting of meaningless words 'working class', 'wealthy' etc etc. dislike the mindless use of imprecise words, to hide emptyness of mind and making lots of fuss about seeming to say things will be done, when at the end of the day, nothing much happens.

I seem to remember it used to be lower middle and upper class. Obviously lower sounds insulting so changed to working class which isnt insulting but it can be confusing as lots of people who aren't classed as working class work.

foxie48

There is a relationship between income and social class but it's far from the only measure, occupation and education are also part of the mix as is wealth that is inherited. Teachers, who might earn less than a good plumber, are generally considered middle class (lower MC) whereas a plumber will be classified as working class, it is just the way it works.

That's the basis on which we classify social strata which is necessary to work out policy and know whats broadly speaking happening in society (the A to E classifications).

Inadequate as they are, politicians have to use "shorthand phrases". What useful ones could we use Its not just about income, its social habits, we make decisions about health, education, welfare, based on them.

Class in modern Britain is a whole subject in itself.
Class and Status.
It's nuances are everywhere.
I have friends who would not eat at McDonalds, being at all overweight is a nono, and it's all about keeping up appearances.
I am a big shocked that being state pensioner puts me in the lowest Class.
But I have other pensions, does that help?
There was a list the other day about how you are judged by things in your house like solar panels and Ring door bells. It's all fascinating.

Bit shocked

The ABCC1C2DE classifications are very out of date. They used to make some sort of sense, but ignored women, as households were classified according to the occupation of the 'head of the house' who was the man.

Now there are more useful classification scales, including one from the BBC which suggests that there are seven classes in the UK:

Elite - the most privileged group in the UK, distinct from the other six classes through its wealth. This group has the highest levels of all three capitals

Established middle class - the second wealthiest, scoring highly on all three capitals. The largest and most gregarious group, scoring second highest for cultural capital

Technical middle class - a small, distinctive new class group which is prosperous but scores low for social and cultural capital. Distinguished by its social isolation and cultural apathy

New affluent workers - a young class group which is socially and culturally active, with middling levels of economic capital

Traditional working class - scores low on all forms of capital, but is not completely deprived. Its members have reasonably high house values, explained by this group having the oldest average age at 66

Emergent service workers - a new, young, urban group which is relatively poor but has high social and cultural capital

Precariat, or precarious proletariat - the poorest, most deprived class, scoring low for social and cultural capital

More here www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22007058.

There are also Marketing classifications which are interested in things like whether people are open to new ideas and trends, and are willing to 'adopt' technology when it is new, or wait until they have seen others use it before taking the plunge (attitudes to risk basically), and others that classify according to spending patterns and preference for tradition and acquisition of 'things' over new experiences.

Class is not about money, and never was, although at one time 'middle class' occupations did pay more than working class ones. Now, someone with a traditionally working class job, such as a plumber or joiner, is likely to earn far more than a nurse or teacher, who would once have been considered lower middle class. The old classifications just don't apply today. Also, there are many people who work in offices (once a marker of the middle class) but have very little autonomy or job security, which used to signify working-class status. Similarly, salaried (ie monthly paid) roles are much more common than weekly paid ones, but don't confer 'staff' status in the way they once did.

All the same, 'the working class' or 'working people' usually means those who rely on working to get them through the month. If they didn't get paid (whether in wages or pension) they would struggle to afford the rent or mortgage for very long, and have little control over things like working hours, where they live and so on.

loopyloo

Class in modern Britain is a whole subject in itself.
Class and Status.
It's nuances are everywhere.
I have friends who would not eat at McDonalds, being at all overweight is a nono, and it's all about keeping up appearances.
I am a big shocked that being state pensioner puts me in the lowest Class.
But I have other pensions, does that help?
There was a list the other day about how you are judged by things in your house like solar panels and Ring door bells. It's all fascinating.

Good heavens, what strange friends you have, it would never occur to me to make judgements about people on all the things you mention, nor do I have any friends that do so, or if they do they have managed to keep stum over many decades.

Anyway these things are not defined by class, they are defined by the incomes of the families involved. Obesity is often linked with lack of money, but there are plenty of obese better off people about.