What makes you middle class?

Any idea how the cologne favoured by the Nazi Navy came to be a signifier of the British MC?

Oh, for goodness' sake 😂

These threads are invariably a rollercoaster of hilarious, ludicrous and maddening!

Any idea how the cologne favoured by the Nazi Navy came to be a signifier of the British MC?

And surely white pumps and a floral dress is rather Hyacinth Bucket?

That’s just silly, though. We use cloth napkins at meals and I’m the daughter and daughter in law of binmen.

PS Others are very thoughtful

Some of these posts are hilarious.

You make an excellent point about the post-war period and the role of grammar schools in creating social mobility, opening up academic opportunities for those who were academically inclined. It’s easy to forget how transformative that system was for bright children from families for whom an academic education was once unthinkable! The expansion of home ownership was also a major factor in shaping the middle-class lifestyle for many families, but I don't believe it was ever sustainable.

As you rightly note, Blair’s drive to get half the population to university increased graduate numbers but has diluted the value of a university degree. In many cases, a degree is no longer a clear differentiator between working-class and middle-class. It’s hard to talk meaningfully about not being “working-class in the traditional sense” when so many young people are stuck competing for roles that barely improve their lifestyle. In practical terms, they haven’t moved up much despite having read more books than their ancestors. The grandson of a factory owner without a degree is often still far better positioned than they are.

You make an excellent point about the post-war period and the role of grammar schools in creating social mobility, opening up academic opportunities for those who were inclined that way. It’s easy to forget how transformative that system was for bright children from families for whom an academic education was once unthinkable! The expansion of home ownership was also a major factor in shaping the middle-class lifestyle for many families, but I don't believe it was ever sustainable.

As you rightly note, Blair’s drive to get half the population to university increased graduate numbers but has diluted the value of a university degree. In many cases, a degree is no longer a clear differentiator between working-class and middle-class. It’s hard to talk meaningfully about being “working-class in the traditional sense” when so many young people are stuck competing for roles that barely improve their lifestyle. In practical terms, they haven’t moved up much despite having read more books than their ancestors. The grandson of a factory owner without a degree is often still far better positioned than they are.

NB a few types - it was not supported by a corresponding increase in graduate jobs.

True, but they are also much more highly educated than in the past. Particularly in the 50s and 60s the grammar schools created huge social mobility, with many children from poor backgrounds succeeding in passing the 11+ and going to highly regarded universities (something that was unthinkable before the war). There was a huge increase in home ownership, which largely benefitted the working classes who had never owned property before.

Sadly a lot of that is reversing, with people becoming disenfranchised. Blair’s drive to get half the population to university increased graduate numbers, but reduced funding available for brilliant students from poorer backgrounds ( free university education and the grant scheme was replaced university fees and loans with compound interest). It was also supported by a corresponding increase in graduate jobs. Only about a quarter of jobs require / strongly prefer university graduates. Consequently, we have a large Johore if young adults with university debt in the tens of thousands, but without a career and salary commensurate with it. These people are not ‘working class’ in the traditional sense, but they face barriers to the middle class lifestyle that became far more widespread in the second half of the 20th century.

Earning over £250k a year. Not giving a toss what kind of car your neighbour has. Not having neighbours!

Loads of books, placing huge importance on education, not having a TV in the kitchen(!), not having plastic surgery. Not many people are middle class. Most are working class.

We’ve got a driver. What happens then?

I think the working-class population has remained broadly the same. It's just that there are no longer many manufacturing jobs, so the new working-class is sat behind a desk rather than a factory assembly line.

Thought he was an Aston Villa fan .......

I wouldn't call that a great test. I'd think that person was a bit of a twat to be honest.

I went to a talk once where the speaker had a great self-test:
If you use cloth napkins at mealtimes, you're upper middle class or above, disposable serviettes and you're lower middle class, and if you wipe your mouth on your sleeve you're working class.

Try reading. I didn’t say no working class people exist, but that most people are middle class. Those jobs are not all inherently working class jobs and are not always done for someone’s entire career. They are simply low paid jobs. Income and class are not the same thing. The term working class dates from a very specific time in our history and refers to very specific communities. Before WW1 they made up the vast majority of the population (up to 80%) were working class.

My husband and his late wife were working class but their children are middle class, with tennis and riding lessons and both parents being university graduates.

By dint of my dad being a lecturer at a college of further education, I could be considered middle class but on the other hand, my mother was a nursing auxiliary and/or factory worker for much of her life

And yet despite the higher educational attainment and greater diversity of life paths we still have a working class.

That should read white collar jobs

I didn’t say those jobs don’t exist. It’s simply that the term working class dates from an era when we had a more stratified society in which half the population were servants and many people were coal miners, farm labourers and factory workers from families that had done those jobs for generations and communities just like them. These days the variety of life paths is much greater. Educational attainment is much higher and career choices exist in a way that they didn’t in the past. More people go into white plat jobs, farm labour has mostly been mechanised and we have exported most of our manufacturing and mining overseas or made it high tech.

Why would you imagine ‘very few people have working-class jobs’? What class do you imagine do the majority of low-paid care work, cleaning, retail, hospitality/catering/barwork, seasonal agricultural work, zero hour contracts doing stuff like Deliveroo, factory production line work, pick and packer in warehouses etc?

Almost everyone is middle class now. Very few people have working class jobs and the landed gentry with a lot of fulltime staff have almost entirely vanished. Within the middle class there is everything from minimum wage to executive pay, but they are just different wealth brackets. Sometimes they live in broadly identical terraced houses, but one is in a cheap corner of the country and one an expensive area.

Middle Class...olive oil, quinoa, watercolour painting, thank-you letters, membership of RHS, sailing, napkins,Landmark Trust, NT volunteer, last night at the proms, 4711, Birkos, flower arrangements from own garden, omlette, sourdough, porridge, vegetable soup, white pumps & floral dress, walking, gap year, playing cello, DB surname, Subaru Estate, hand thrown pottery crockery, Maldon Salt, shoe polish, hiking boots, reading books, architect, vet, Remainer...

I think that's a bit rigid.

If there were no class mobility in this country, then we would be a caste-based society. I agree that class isn't determined by income alone, but it's unrealistic to think that one who can afford a brand new Porsche (not that I'd recommend it as an investment) and a four-bedroom detached house in a pleasant suburb is beneath another who is struggling from paycheck to paycheck but was raised in a more "cultured" family. Status is precarious for all but those at the very top of society who are insulated by connections and inherited wealth. For the rest of us, the differences aren't so absolute as we like to believe, and there is definitely such a thing as downward mobility.