The Upper Class

Reply 20

11

Essexdan86
Hence the need for more grammar schools!

What about those who are neither rich nor clever (enough)?

only nihilism
It's not really a valid objection now that oxbridge etc take your schooling into account, we really are pretty meritocratic in the academic sense.

Private schools nevertheless do still provide a disproportionate number of the people who apply to Oxbridge in the first place. Because they provide a disproportionate number of AAA candidates. Because they probably do genuinely provide a better standard of education than the majority of comprehensives.

Reply 21

EssexDan86

17

Huw Davies

What about those who are neither rich nor clever (enough)?

There's always the opportunity to join a vocational trade. Plumbers and electricians can make an absolute fortune!

Reply 22

Invocation

12

purist

The upper class is no longer just associated with your birth. The great thing with our society is that anyone can earn money and money gives you access to the upper class as it gives power.

Today there is an upper class however it is determined by your wealth. Anyone can become the upper class

Nope. Social mobility barely exists any more, and is getting worse.

Reply 23

Debo

Education is so important.

There are not many public (private) schools in England, are there? It seems to me that you still have a good state education that provides equality in a country. I see the english upper class very small and exclusive. But at the same time there's a strong middle class that can always hope for better. Maybe getting closer to the "upper class"

In Argentina, for example, the division between "classes" is quite strong. There are heaps of children going to private schools because estate education is, in most cases, a disaster. As some students get to learn english and even a third language, others hardly attend classes because of strikes. There are many children with no future..

I think I may be out of subject but my point is - Upper classes are merely kings and queens and people who have a inherited a good family. BUT. good opportunities through education make this upper class larger and larger. It is so large you can consider it a very good middle class, right?

In my humble opinion, I may be wrong, but England offers good opportunities - Not exactly equal ones of course, and I know some of you are not so happy about education (and that you are probably right). but I still believe that even the A levels system garantizes that you are not to be stucked in the same "class" as your parents and grand-parents.

Education is a way out, isn't it?

This message is confusing, I hope you are able to get the general idea :s-smilie:

haha

sorry if it's far from the very original subject

Reply 24

Debo

_ÆNIMA_

Social mobility barely exists any more, and is getting worse.

Probably right. But agree that this social mobility still exists (although barely ) because ambition and good education can open a lot of doors.

But I understand that, even with excelent grades and ambition, getting to the top coming from a vey poor origin takes time. It may take forever.

Reply 25

Arteta

15

I certainly don't know as much about this as some of you. But i think it's definately there. Like other said i don't think money is just the answer. I don't think any entertainer could be classed as upper class, unless they were that beforehand.

Do you think that the way in which a person makes their millions can win them upper class status? As well as their social group?

Reply 26

SolInvictus

11

Overground

Does the Upper Class still exist? In what form?

I am sure it does in the form of Royalty/Nobility/Aristocracy, but the numbers of these social groups are tiny.

Would anyone on here consider themselves Upper Class, or know anyone who is?

I think it should be redefined to include particular groups of the very rich, because it is quite ridiculous to hear of people who live in mansions with eight cars described as 'Middle Class' as they would be in our current class system.

I wouldn't say I have ever met an Upper Class person, so they hold an air of intrigue :biggrin:

I don't think you get aristocracy in Birmingham. Here the class system is more like: Working Class/Middle Class/Middle Clarse, as in people who's children have been born and bred here yet speak in Southern accents, somewhat bizarrely because they must be making a strenuous effort to do so.

Some people will claim the Class System is obsolete nowadays, but I don't think this holds true. In fact snobbery and inverse snobbery these days are still widespread - just think about the 'Chav' phenomenon.

I'm sure this subject has been done to death but I haven't seen it in the couple of months I've been active. What can I say, this country is obsessed with the notion of social status .. :s:

not me though

That's just Solihull.

Reply 27

SolInvictus

11

While I certinaly come from upper class extraction, and my parents (especially my mother) fit the mold, I am quite 'prol' shall we say, and my values and outlook tend to be far more bourgoise.

Reply 28

cottonmouth

11

Jennybean

I didn't really think there was still an upper class in this country til quite by chance I read a copy of Tatler in an airport.

Oh crap! Are you okay? I briefed a few pages of that used-tissue rag once, and nearly vomited, which would have made me angry, as i'd just eaten some gooood food.x

Reply 29

The Menace

only nihilism

Private schools don't make you smarter just more arrogant as well as more likely to be better qualified/homosexual.

LOL

Probably true as well from what I've seen.

Reply 30

Jennybean

13

cottonmouth

Oh crap! Are you okay? I briefed a few pages of that used-tissue rag once, and nearly vomited, which would have made me angry, as i'd just eaten some gooood food.x

I know you should write an angry letter to the editor warning them of the effects their magazine has on people who can't actually afford to replace regurgitated food with fresh supplies of caviar and paté. It was actually just really funny, there was this feature about some rich cow having a tea party (thrilling stuff) and she was talking about one of the daughters of a high society family and saying "Oh yes she's terribly funny, one day she decided to run away from home because she felt so put upon, she ended up flipping burgers in some dreadful joint somewhere in America and came home after three weeks. She said, 'I just sort of realised home was quite nice after all.' " My friend and I were like, oh how FRAHTFULLY hilarious. How are you dude, haven't seen you around in ages.

Reply 31

L i b

19

Debo

There are not many public (private) schools in England, are there?

Public and private schools are not the same thing. While a public school is a private school, not all private schools are public schools. The 'public' ones are usually the more established ones - the nearest thing to a list being the members of the HMC.

There are enormously more minor private schools than that though. So it does work out to a fair number.

Maybe getting closer to the "upper class"

As mentioned before, you can't really aspire to upper class status: it is more to do with birth than actions in your lifetime.

Not that most people particularly want to be upper class these days anyway.

Reply 32

sour stone

Don't know if they exist in actuality... but since moving down south the general appearence of snobbery is quite hard to miss...

Up in the midlands everyone seems to be working class of some description. In appearence anyway.

In town centres up the midlands people will eat crisps in the street, they carry Lidl and Somerfield's bags. They wear hi-viz vests and undertake duties involving manual labour.

Sure some of these folks are down south do too, but not on the same scale it would seem.

I see more people in suits, and with briefcases and often my crappy little Punto is overtaken by flash Mercs, Beamers, Volvos and Audis.

A lot of people I deal with at the M&S/BP Connect I work at seem to come in and buy around fifty quid worth of fancy food, like avocados and stuff and talk in what I would call a snobbish, noble accent. Which creeps me out... Although I think I creep them out by saying "hey up duck..." as a greeting. They certainly notice it? I just do, I don't notice I say it. Everyone points it out though.

Whether the class divide still exists, which I reckon it still does to an extent, the appearence of snobbery down south seems more prominent than up north...

Maybe I'm wrong... Maybe I'm right.

Whatever, point made.

EDIT: I realise somebody may point out that avocadoes are not fancy food... but to me they seem fancy...

oh and

EDIT 2: More people I've met down south seem to have come from Convent schools or one person from a very exclusive private school, which cost like £3000 a term or something... Pretty much everyone I know from where I live went to shabby comprehensive secondary schools and the same adjoining sixth forms provided... This would lead me to believe that if upper class exists, then it's in the south... I don't know whether being upper class is a good thing though, money ain't everything

Reply 33

Nally

10

I think the upper class still exists and I don't think it is something people can attain just through making millions. I wouldn't call Richard Branson upper class, nor any other entertainer/entrepreneur/businessman who made a fortune. I wouldn't call Peter Jones upper class either!

I think it is to do with breeding, and there are certain surnames which are synonymous with the 'upper classes' and always will be. My parents (although not upper class) work with and are friends with a lot of upper class people and the divide is still definitely in place IMO.

Reply 34

Gilliwoo

sour stone

EDIT: I realise somebody may point out that avocadoes are not fancy food... but to me they seem fancy...

Are they so rare where you come from? :p:

Reply 35

sour stone

Anne Robinson

Reply 36

sour stone

Gilliwoo

Are they so rare where you come from? :p:

Not sure... I think it's because nobody I know has ever eaten one, or would think to - we stick to apples. In fact one person I know didn't know what one was?

But in M&S they love that stuff, they sell like hot cakes...

Reply 37

curiouslyorange1989

I personally beleive that anyone with any bonce in the working class has every oppotunity to move up. The majority of people who were working class twenty years ago and had anything going for them have moved up in the world and are now lower middle class. I beleive social mobility has resulted in the creation of a chav dominated underclass. For example my parents grew up on a council estate in bensham (the wrong end of gateshead) yet with a bit of education and some self motivation i have lived it up in a 4 bedroom detached house on a distinctly middle class estate. The benifit class (as i call them) are whats left of the lazy and useless elements of the working class left behind when we all graduated and got jobs!

Reply 38

Tomber

13

Renal

Would somebody with a 'high class' accent become prime minister? Look at the effort to appear 'normal', Blair is a prime example of this, he would rather talk about playing guitar or watching football than politics.

And saying 'y'know' every other word in speeches, that used to grate on me so much. :mad:

Reply 39

AnythingButChardonnay

14

I think that in many ways we are worse off as a country without the class system we once had. Thanks to successive labour governments, everyone now gets treated equally - badly.

The Upper Class

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