The working class

Re: Like I tried to explain........its NOT how much you earn......its how you plan

So ALL working class people don't plan ahead and are feckless spendthrifts. I'm afraid thats exactly what the tories want people to believe, it then makes it easy to villify them and attack them and their standard of living.

 

Re.I would say politics is more to do with history and traditions rather than class

OH dear, thats a quote from a man who once said that miners voted labour because of the left wing political dogma force fed to them at the coal face. I countered that by saying that the miners in my family and social circle voted labour because of the way they had been treated in the past, he didn't reply.

 

Re: Nudge, surpassed your self there

Well said that man.

 

Re: Nudge, surpassed your self there

My mum was a hospital ward sister, my dad a deputy at Grimey pit. I know that my mum voted for Thatcher (well Tory) first time around because she said "give a woman a chance, they can't do any worse", I also know she later didn't vote Tory because she said "Thatcher set back women's lib 20 years".
Other than those 2 statements I really have no idea how my parents ever voted, they did used to buy the Daily Mail but that was more because they disliked the Sun and Mirror formats.
I don't think my mum ever considered herself middle class but they had savings, looked to the future and their retirement, didn't "p-i-s-s it all up against a wall" (as my mum would say) and put all 4 of us through either university, college or whatever training we had chosen to take.

Perhaps it's more a point of working class people that have progressed away from traditional working class jobs vote Labour because they feel it is Labour that gave them the opportunity to move into these jobs and want other generations to also have those same opportunities.

What I recall of a Tory government 30 years ago is me struggling to find a job, my parents having to pay for my college fees whilst I was doing a temp job because neither my company nor social security would fund the day release fees for my HND course.
What I see now is youngsters starting to face exactly the same situation under another Tory led government, so excuse me if I don't think that the Conservatives do anything to help ordinary working folk.

 

Re: Nudge, surpassed your self there

Class is really difficult. I used to be such an inverted snob when I started uni. Loved to think of myself as a working class lad from Barnsley, but both my parents were teachers. However, they came from families of steel workers and butchers, and all my uncle, aunties and cousins who I grew up with were joiners, miners, factory workers. My parents where the only two from both sides to go to uni and get white collar jobs. But I wasn't necessarily brought up any diferently from my cousins. All my next generation of my cousins kids are doing really well in school and looking like going to uni. Whether thats because they grew up under Labour and have had more opportunity then their paretns did who grew up under Thatcher, I don't know.

What I do genuinely believe is that the best opportunity you can have to better yourself starts with parents. My parents always gave me the best opportunities to make the best of myself and instilled in my the desire to take those opportunities. Whether they were working class or middle class was irrelevant, it had come from their parents too.

I definitely disagree with a point earlier that Young Nudger's cousins have done so well because they went to school's in Sheffield. They would have been succesful at the state school too because of the emotional support their father gave them, not paying for a school

 

Re: Nudge, surpassed your self there

who gives a S*** about what class you are as long as your happy with your life.

 

Re: Nudge, surpassed your self there

Only sensible post in this whole thread. Well said Kev.

Labels are for clothes, not people.

 

Re: Nudge, surpassed your self there

i am going to be faulously rich anyway and i am already upper class so i don't care.

 

Re: Example..........two weeks ago I went to my uncle's 90th birthday party

go to a tory fringe meeting tell em what you said on here then ask them what class they think you are. think you'll get a shock tbh

 

I always think that if you need to work to live then you are working class, if you don't you are upper class. No middle ground for me. And I think the tories are w@nkers who don't give 2 fecks about the working class. Show me a policy that proves me wrong. I think the LibDems are even worse for forcing a tory govt on to us. I hoped they might be different to the last tory govt, but it's not looking good.

 

its worse ponty because lib dems are passing legislation which wouldn't get passed normally, are being outvoted by their own back benchers are being overlooked.in 1993 some tory backbenchers voted against hesseltines pit closures and it looked like they were going to lose it. but they did a last minute deal with ulster mps and they are responsible for the mining communities downfall.

 

so simple ! if you work for a living you are working ****ing class , we all are unless you are so rich that you do not need to work , then you are considered to be upper class

middle class ? pretentious ****ers , usually stuck up their own anus

 

The class system is no longer relevant imo, there is now a non-working class; those born into families, or often single parent families who have no job and live off the state and are content in doing so, these children then aregrowing up with zilch aspiration and follow in their foot steps.

 

The upper classes want us to believe that the class system is no longer relevent so they can carry on their class war unapposed because they have been and always will be the biggest proponents of class war, we have been brainwashed into thinking that the class war is all about red faced lefties in flat caps carrying out the politics of envy. Niel Kinnock was asked if there was still a class war going on, he replied, NO, because we signed the peace treaty but didn't realise that they ( the tories ) hadn't. I agree the class system should be irrelevent in the 21st century but it is more prevelent now than it was, say, in the 60's. I also agree about the non working class and as a socialist and working class I find it sad that they are a part of modern society but they are there because of Thatchers war against the working class which decimated vast swathes of working class areas, it is these people Cammeron wants you think of when he talks about making cuts in the welfare state because it makes the guillable workers of the working class think it wont affect them but it will.

 

With consecutive Governments, of both colours, quite happy to let them do so despite all their bleatings.

Yes they will squeeze their benefits and put em on short term schemes but then its back to normal in their box till its time to dust em down for the next election.

 

Miners were conservative with a small 'c'

No room for slackers..........its the only industry I know that the more you knew, i.e. the older you were, the poorer you became.
When you really knew the mining business they put you out to grass on the pit top on a third of what the younger guys were paid. That aint very socialist.
The miners in there political views were very conservative.
Every miner was out to make as much money as he couild and ballocks to the rest of them.
They generally didn't like other races of people. They treated women not much better than the Taliban.
They knew their's and others place in the social ladder............ etc etc etc
Generally, and we are only talking generally here, to listen to a miner talk, you would beleive that they were out an out Tory
But they voted Labour, because Labour had nationalised the pits and got them away from the Tory mine owners.
Plus the NUM, who supported Labour, was trying to get better conditions and wages for the miners.
But at the pit miners were subjected to a cart load of propaganda from the NUM.
Consequently you dont find many miners that hasn't got a strong political view.
Often people notice this strong political view when you start working in other industries.

t'owd man.......I should know.........I spent some time as a NUM official.

 

You were a union official??????

Christ, with your twisted view of what it means to be a socialist, a tory or middle class I'm glad I didn't have some one like you along side me in disscussions with management. Like I've said before, conservative miners, b0l0 ks you do talk a right load of right wing idealistic twaddle, what you have described will be pertinent to some of the old style miners and unfortunatly thats exactly how some of the old working class tyrants ran there lives and families, I knew some like that but they were disliked and laughed at by the majority of their peers, what you are doing is a typical tory trick of demonising a few then tar the rest with the same brush. I have read a few of your posts in the past and a lot seem to revolve around criticising Barnsley, its inhabitants, the people who run it, the way people vote etc. It seems to me that you are one of those people that have made their way in life from average beginnings ( I congratulate you on that ) but then start to have an inferiority complex about it and has to start disrespecting your place of origin. That I don't understand, do you still live in the area ( I bet you don't ) You are right in your assumption of how miners were treated pre nationalization by private owners, and why they voted Labour, they knew Labour was responsible for improving their safety, wages, conditions etc. but being being fed propaganda by the NUM. mmm, with your right wing views YOU thought it was propaganda they knew it wasn't. You have lost touch with or are EMBARASSED with your roots. In another post I called you a snob, unfortunatly with your comments I can't alter that view, but I now have a little sympathy towards you, it must be very frustrating being embarassed of your past.

 

Re: Example..........two weeks ago I went to my uncle's 90th birthday party

Do you get to many Tory fringe meetings Marlon? Given your preconceptions of what constitutes a 'conservative', I'm just surprised you haven't suggested that as soon as the doors are closed they shed their skin suits to reveal the lizards they really are.

 

Pretentious ****ers,usually stuck up their own anus..

well that is a great description of you that is.

 

T'owd man..tha knows nothing about me.........you continue to assume things..........

..............just poddle on...........

And remember..........when you are a union official (such as branch president of 400 men) then you get that position by those men voting for you..........
Think about it............and then think about all the assumtions and garbage you have spouted