Fuck! Apparently I'm The Elite!!!

[hopefullyhelpfully]

Genuinely a bit confused. At a Halloween party tonight when a friend of a friend who I know vaguely said that I was part of The Elite and so would automatically be biased towards maintaining status quo. She was sort of joking but not IYSWIM?

This is news to me. Do I get a badge? Is there a T-shirt? A handshake?

I suppose I'm interested in other people's opinions. Does the Elite now encompass the well off middle class whatever their background? I don't know anyone with any influence nationally....
In context I'm from Manchester, went to a bog standard Comprehensive. DH from Luton. Our parents are respectively a printer, teacher, nurse and warehouse manager. We both benefited enormously from free university education (Oxbridge and Imperial) and the house price boom (we're late 40s) and are in lucrative jobs London living in an expensive house. We privately educate both children for secondary but not for primary.
This makes me the poshest person I could ever have imagined as a child BUT surely not this nebulous Elite???
I'm honestly interested in how other people see this...
(DH just laughing. He's now drinking a cup of tea in his dressing gown and a bow tie!)

I thought The Elite were an army thing.

They have their own rules in Warhammer.

You're not the elite

You've some money but not elite levels

When I saw Grayson Perry talk, he said the liberal elite live in Islington and have a kitchen island.

Is that you?

Crikey. I don't live in Islington but I do have a kitchen island.

Am I a bit elite?

Surely kitchen islands are ubiquitous? In fact there are probably genuine members of the elite lovingly polishing great grandmamas sideboard and mocking people with granite topped islands.

It's some kind of tribal thing.

According to the IFS, to be in the top 1% of income tax payers in the UK (i.e. to be among the 310,000 individuals with the highest income), a taxable income of at least £160,000 is required.

Depending on how lucrative your job is, you could be in the "elite".

You also attended "elite" universities, Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial being in the global top 10.

FWIW I don't think being elite is a bad thing.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22000973

Oh dear! But what did she mean? Does she despise the Elite? Does she think it is out of touch? Too conservative? In my mind the Elite is a sort of a corp of intellectuals who tries to sway things to a different direction for the greater good.
A sort of illuminati....
Unless she thinks you took the trouble to come all the way from Manchester to start a secrect sect

Well you’ll get a bunch of miserable fuckers on this thread so enough berating your for even considering such a thing and telling you that you are simultaneously a pleb and monstrously wealthy.

I will just say that your DH sounds fab.

Play up to it! Maybe get DH to dress as Jeeves?

Kitchen island defo elite.

Us povs have to make do with galleys.

Middle classes get a kitchen peninsula with possibly a breakfast bar side to it.

Yeah maybe, was she referring to liberal elites. The ones I know are a similar age to you & had fairly normal backgrounds but through timing &
luck are in 1.5m houses, they have good jobs but not good enough to buy 1.5m houses (without loads of equity) so don't see themselves as elite. They can afford private schools because they have good jobs but not huge mortgages & still shop in Aldi & drive 2nd hand cars so again don't see themselves as elite

It's just ... not us though.

I'm a bit pissy about it now and feel weirdly judged and found wanting. (Am also a bit pissed which isn't helping)
DH says that I'm cross that my Professional Northerness is being impugned....

BTW you must have 4 ovens....

Pregosaurus9

Ooops. Perhaps drunker than i thought....

Anyway pregosaurus9 I think you're onto something. A whole class system defined by Formica.

Generally if you benefit from right wing conservative governments then you're privileged. I guess any privileged group can be considered an elite. There are several. Right now, graduates, google and facebook employees, commanding great salaries at 27 and believing that it's just a plain sailing upwards trajectory from here on in.. academic elite, city high fliers, and a more normal but privileged middle class glossy posse, rich-ish, everything ticking along

You're reacting to the word elite emotionally. As a child, I imagined I'd be privileged in my adulthood. I'm not though, nouveau pauvre, but I guess I'm more fortunate than some.

ELite not as narrow a band as 1% imo. I'd say the top 20% have enough money to live a life that is cushioned at every turn.

Isn’t it a classification on the bbc social class calculator?

Basically you are elite if your house is worth a lot on money!

The fact that you're from the North of England interests me because as a foreigner I did find it interesting that people from the south of England perceive themselves to be more elite. No matter what the actual circumstances. I think being from the North of England is a good disguise :-p You can have all the wealth and privilege and opportunity and advantages known to man but if you have a faint northern accent, you're let away with all of your privileges!

Moneyed but definitely not elite. HTH

Yeah. Not elite.

Elite is different from, day, the aristocracy.

I think an Oxbridge education plus lucrative London jobs plus privately educated children makes you pretty elite, given its meaning.

Don't you? Surely you realise how different your family is to them vast majority out there?

(Not dissing, btw, just surprised you don't get it).

Chippychip1 Liberal Elite sounds more like us. Plus it has cuddly "liberal" in it so I'm less pissy about it.
We do benefit from conservative policies but never vote for them.

Well this is an education.

I thought we were just where we are due to age+luck+degrees in STEM subjects but that our essential selves are still the same...

Told you...here they are. You’re a pleb and so wealthy you don’t get it

I think these days you are an ‘elite’ in some people’s minds if you voted remain and eat hummus occasionally

Pretty sure you can be Northern and elite so don't let that stop you. Sleep in your diamonds and demand champagne for breakfast. Your DH can leave his bow tie on.