Laura Cummings: The great class divide

Published on Tuesday 8 December 2009 08:52

IT HAS been described as the most important dividing line in British society. While racism and sexism are, thank goodness, no longer socially acceptable, prejudices based on social class are something else entirely.

How often is a stranger judged on how they pronounce certain words, where they went to school or what they do for a living?

Judging people on their social class is surely still a fact of life in modern Britain.

It didn't need former Labour minister Alan Milburn's social mobility report to prove that. But its findings – such as 75 per cent of judges and 45 per cent of senior civil servants being privately educated – certainly spelled out the extent of the class divide.

So you can imagine the glee with which Labour spin doctors must have greeted those photographs which emerged last year of David Cameron and some of his Tory colleagues drinking in ridiculous Edwardian outfits at their posh Oxford drinking club.

But something interesting has happened since then. There has apparently been divided opinion amongst the Labour elite about whether to beat their Tory opponents with the "posh" stick.

It seemed to backfire at the Crewe and Nantwich by-election after Labour activists dressed as Lord Snooty to taunt their supposedly-privileged Conservative opponent.

Perhaps their fears are simply about being seen to be indulging in negative politics, and the tactic reportedly remains a bone of contention in Labour circles.

The perceived wisdom would be that Labour is looking at an open goal in these times of recession.

But is that true? Are we all still so hung-up about class? A new YouGov poll might suggest the answer is yes. It says the majority of voters – 52 per cent against 31 per cent – believe David Cameron and the Tories favour the rich and are too distant from "commoners" beneath them.

Bob Morris, professor of economics and social history at Edinburgh University, certainly thinks so.

"Someone who is an ordinary clerical worker will still feel that somebody who talks differently from them, is wealthy and had a different education from them, doesn't really understand them," he says.

"I think it's correct to say class is one of many things people make their judgements on, but it's not the only thing and never has been. It can be one of the things, along with religion and nationality, and it might be personality and gender that you make your judgements on too.

"The divide is still there between the classes and the inequalities are still there. It is still much harder work if you are from a wage-earning family to be successful in education than if you are from a well-paid professional family."

While recognising the power of social class prejudice, Edinburgh author and social commentator Roddy Martine says it cannot be blamed for all life's ills.

"A lot of people blame class for missing out on things and it's a big nonsense," he says. "I think everybody should be aspirational, but the big problem in Britain is we have got these hang-ups about where people come from. I think we have a very bad habit of blaming anything but ourselves for a lack of success in life. If people really want to get on in life, they do.

"In society we have people going up the ladder and people going down, and it's all what we make with our own individual lives that matters."

Since the collapse of mining and other heavy industries, the social landscape of Scotland in particular has changed dramatically, with an estimated 80 per cent of us now regarded as middle class.

But the networks that keep social class and the resulting divides in place are still going strong, according to John Adams, professor of economics at Edinburgh Napier University.

"There is nothing wrong with posh upper-class people in themselves," he says. "The problem is these social networks that they are involved in that seem to give them access to things that an ordinary person doesn't get access to – the best schools, etc. Class used to be thought of in terms of money, but in fact it is really access to privilege and that gives some people an easier road in life.

"It depends on the family they are born into and the social network that family has, and what you tend to find is the same kinds of occupations are entered into by generation after generation after generation.

"The opposite to that is where we have people who enter into unemployment, generation after generation after generation, and that has very much been the story of Britain for a very long time – it has not changed much at all."

Mr Adams adds: "I don't think we were ever obsessed by class and I don't think we are now, but fundamentally, the class system we all recognise from 150 years ago has not changed."

However, he says that over the last two decades, Britain has developed an "underclass" – people who are not working, including youngsters, single parents, and the mentally ill, among others.

And he warns of the emergence of another social class arguably even less popular than the old ruling elite.

"What has also happened in Britain over the last 20 years is the development of a professional political class," says Mr Adams. "MPs, MSPs and MEPs almost want to spend most of their time telling the rest of us how to live our lives."