To think that Owen Jones is a fraud.

[soul2000]

I watched the R.T.S Lecture he gave last night on representation of the Working Class on Television, i have never heard such opinionated rubbish.
There are three questions i would like to act Owen Jones

1. Despite having an Oxford Education why do you deliberately mispronounce

certain words, in a kind of "STOCKNEY" accent.

1. Which Comprehensive did he attend , anybody who knows Stockport knows there is a huge gap between Poynton/Bramhall and Brinnington.

3. What class does he think he is with is Oxford education and two University lecturer parents.

Thank you Soloman. I will approach it properly and give considered answers.

Not getting into the Owen Jones debate, but I see the same old "expensive tutors" line being rehashed every time grammar schools are mentioned and I really cannot let that pass without comment. I went to a state grammar school and did not have an tutor, expensive or otherwise. Nor did anyone I was at school with. The reason grammar schools now have parents desperate to hire tutors to get their children in is that there are far fewer places, because there are far fewer grammar schools. It's not rocket science.

My grammar school wasn't especially "middle-class", by the way - it took people from everywhere in the county. The only criterion for entry was an academic one - you had to be in the top whatever % of your year group.

Jones isn't a politician! He's a writer.

Seriously, Soul, did you know this?

Mind you, if he turns the Peoples Assembly into a political party I WIL be voting for him :)

or WILL, even (dyspraxic here, too)

YYY, Dad.

Hettie. I actually read Wikepedia. My Niece is a second year French and Business studies student at Liverpool , she would not have a clue about that phrase. My second Cousin who is studying Law at Manchester probably would though. My friends would think you were talking "GREEK" One is A Head of a primary school, one is a senior Architect, another friend who had naff all 10 years ago. He has just bought a £ 2 million Pound house and the best of the lot my friend who has won Northern business woman of the year for the last 3 years.

Soul - with the best will in the world, please don't use Wiki as a source for anything in your studies!

It's full of mis-information and is not recognised as an educational source. This was one of the first things we were told on my Access course, in every class, by every Tutor.

Don't use Wiki!

Well, I think that anyone at all who has gotten themselves involved in any kind of online debate, about pretty much anything, will know the term "ad hominem" usually coupled with "Strawman". Admittedly, these are both usually used wrongly, but they are used. A lot.

So now you can use it too, soul, if you find a need to.

TBF, I think she was using it to look up "ad hominem", Heart. It's a good enough resource for things like that.

I will stick to "Common English".

Ibelieve one of the biggest reasons effecting poverty and lack of life chances today was the destruction of grammar Schools.

I will stand by you on that. Destruction of social mobility. Bad times

FFS.

OK, dear. You do that.

Hi Garlic....

I wonder if anyone could translate this I have done my best, let those who can do better in translating it.

"Fece Quod Potai, faciant Meliora Potentes"

"Yes, I could have been a judge but I never had the Latin, never had the Latin for the judgin', I never had it, so I'd had it, as far as bein' a judge was concerned. I just never had sufficient of it to get through the rigourous judging exams. They're noted for their rigour. People come out staggering and saying "My God, what a rigourous exam!" - and so I became a miner instead. A coal miner. I managed to get through the mining exams--they're not rigourous, they only ask one question, they say, "Who are you", and I got 75 per cent on that. I'd rather have been a judge than a miner. Being a miner, as soon as you are too old and tired and sick and stupid to do the job properly, you have to go. Well, the very opposite applies with judges"

I liked Chavs. It was something worth saying.

But I did get a bit meh after a while - the constant quoting of Telegraph and Mail over their attitudes to wc people was a bit like shooting fish in a barrel.

Two books with more considered opinions :Them and Us Will Hutton and The Great Tax Robbery Richard Brooks. David Lammys Book out of the Ashes was quite good. The Corporation by Joel Barkin tells the story of The "Pathological Pursuit of profit and power" that American Corporations have had since the 1930s.

An yes wc doesn't = poverty

There are many wc people who earn a reasonable wage: delivery drivers. postmen, paramedics, shop managers

the middle classes tend to think that their attitudes are sooo very important but really for alot of people as long as the wages are coming in and the overtime is available they really couldn't give a monkey's what mc people think of them.

Most of those friends i described are/were Working Class. The Business woman of the year i have mentioned was living in a Caravan when she started 16 years ago she now employs 150 and turns over 15 million. The guy who has just bought a two million pound house was cleaning cars 10 years ago, spending all his money in the pub and sleeping on the floor of mates houses.

Just a point, I went to the same secondary school as Owen Jones (although several years before him, I am very old). Lots of my classmates had the same accent, it's not a 'stockney' fake accent, some Bramhall people drum into their DCs to speak like they are from the south east without a local accent, but most don't. (Plus the posh people send their DCs to the many private schools in the area.)

I also know several people who went to Oxford or Cambridge with strong regional accents and still had their strong accents upon graduating (I went to a much lower status uni, and most of my friends kept the accent they arrived with).

It's not a sign of someone putting on a fake common accent or trying to be something they are not, if from his background he spoke with a "South East posh" accent, it would seem faker to me, given his background.

That's not a comment on what he actually said, but it annoyed me you assume it's part of a "working class lad made good" act. He's not posh, but his accent is normal from someone raised in a Middle Class North Cheshire family, which he was.

Also, there is no secondary school in Brinnington.

Is this one of those he went to a Private School so can't say shit posts? Reminds me of that time Louise Mensch was tweeting and mickey taking about all the leftie MP. Who had gone to Oxford. Until someone pointed out that she too went to erm? Oxford!

I thought this thread was going to be about Gavin and Stacey. As you were

MPs. Bloody phone!

FFS. I was suggesting you USE google as a basic way if discovering thAt Owen jones, whatever you think of him, does not only talk about benefit cuts. Now, one last time. Are you or are you not going to explain what it is Owen jones says that you disagree with and why? Because otherwise
I'll continue to assume you've got no fucking idea what you're talking about, and clearly don't understand what any o his arguments actually are. And please, please stop revelling in ignorance as if it's some sort of badge of authenticity.
"I will stick to common English."
Yeah, good luck with that degree

Dont. I am from a Middle class family from (Knutsford) so i know what the accent is. However am i middle class or not, yes i was brought up in very affluent circumstances (Poor education though) my dad was a self made wealthy businessman, but if you know North Cheshire, you know most of the successful people there are working class. It brings the point what does Working Class mean does it mean how much money you have or what lifestyle or does it mean something else.