Lunching with a friend the other day we got onto the thorny issue of class and, not least, its connection with personal progress. Just how big a barrier is it? Are the English stymied by class from the word go – a very relevant question with an Eton boy now in 10 Downing Street and a Westminster boy as his deputy?
We decided the answer is “no”, as long as you can adapt and adopt the ways of the upper middle classes, the key group of people “running” the UK. As with my earlier post on “adopting group norms” in order to fit in, giving those you want to impress the required (or acquired) certainty that you are of the “right stock” may be to your ultimate advantage.
Both my friend and I decided we were “upper lower-middle class”, which we came to define as people from a lower-middle class background who had managed to fool the upper-middle classes that we belonged in their camp. Yet we then got into listing the give-away signs that reveal you as from the right side of the tracks. That you are truly of the Upper-Middle Classes (rather than - like my friend and I - as arrivistes trying to bluff our way in).
Here were our thoughts:
1) Cars: The U-MCs drive a battered Volvo, or similar such car. Not for them the “flash mowtaa” of the wide boy, oh no. Cars are for ferrying kids and animals and large implements over potentially tough terrain – so something old, muddy and big is a must.
2) Media: Depending on their prejudices they may read various broadsheets but, at home, they all listen to Radio 4. In fact, the U-MCs may have R4 broadcasting away in several rooms simultaneously – some that have been unoccupied for weeks. The only acceptable alternative to R4 is Radio 3, perhaps playing quietly in a recess with a snoozing dog. And while our U-MCs shun the TV soaps (in fact shun anything on ITV), keeping up with the plot of The Archers is de rigueur.
3) Jobs: Mum doesn’t have one. This may seem old fashioned but, while the kids are school age, most mums are stay-at-home (yet still employ cleaners and nannies and the odd au pair). In this respect, qualifications – or past career highlights – are largely irrelevant (although she usually keeps her contact base up to date and the school PTA is staggeringly over-managed).
4) Animals: U-MC families tend to like them. Dogs and cats seem to co-habit in this world (perhaps both realising when they are well off and suspending their usual hostilities). Dogs tend to be Labradors or something else child friendly, and don’t be surprised if the odd horse, pig – or even flock of rare sheep – is loitering around somewhere in the background. Yet the opposite is true of plants – at least the indoor variety. Pot plants, I discovered to my embarrassment, are a distinctly lower-middle class taste.
5) Cooking: U-MC houses all smell of the most divine home cooking, usually prepared by the stay-at-home mum. Certainly, I’ve had to develop a tolerance for garlic (in both the primary and secondary sense). And while both men and women are accomplished foodies, they do occasionally follow a recipe, although the distinctly upper-crust intonation of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is preferred to the estuarial fruitiness of Jamie Oliver. Gordon Ramsay, meanwhile, is Scottish, working class and far too foul-tempered to be acceptable.
6) Kitchen: Perhaps oddly, the kitchen is the hub of the U-MC house (something French visitors find curious). In fact family life is often focused on a large kitchen table. And, like a branch of Starbucks, this table is capable of hosting several potentially-conflicting meetings or activities simultaneously.
7) TV: Not in the main living room (which U-MCs call the sitting room – never the “lounge”). While the latest model, TVs are usually small and tucked away in a “snug” – often a wood-panelled room with lots of yellowing books, soft furnishings and a real fire (again, often roaring away to itself).
8) Children: There are usually more than two. Peculiarly, the demographic curve for childbirth is very much U-shaped. So while the lower- and middle-middle classes produce one, two or – increasingly – no children, the U-MCs are breeding for England. It’s their badge of honour, especially if the aim is to privately educate the lot of them. Children to the U-MCs are like sports cars to a lottery winner: to be collected and displayed.
9) Arty kids: U-MC offspring all have a creative bent that many now pursue as a career – though rarely profitably. In fact, the entire concept of money is a weird one to the U-MCs. I’ve written about this before but the U-MCs have a strange attitude to their wealth: despite their obvious cash the acquisition of it is viewed as an evil. Indeed, most U-MC families only really know they’ve made it once the kids start spouting opinions somewhere to the left of Fidel Castro (please refer to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs for an explanation).
10) Talents. U-MCs can all play musical instruments. In fact they can all play sports to a high standard – especially tennis, skiing and rugby and anything to do with horses (golf being a bit M-MC) – speak several languages (and certainly French), understand the basics of carpentry, gardening and animal husbandry and play bridge, chess and something called fives. Skills all acquired while the rest of us were watching Scooby-doo and playing knock-down ginger.
Good luck with the integration!
Showing posts with label David Cameron. Show all posts
Showing posts with label David Cameron. Show all posts
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Monday, February 28, 2011
As a political message, social mobility beats morality every time
I went to a Conservative Party gathering last week. It was a question and answer session entitled: “Are we getting the message across?” I was a guest of my mother-in-law. Despite being charmed by a fundraiser (and despite various political flirtations throughout my life) I've no particular party loyalty and intend keeping it that way. But my haste to caveat this column with that distancing should surely be an answer to the question they set themselves: no, the Conservatives are not getting the message across.
In fact, I came away deeply concerned. This was a political movement that had lost touch with what it stood for. Even from the panellists (including Tim Montgomerie, the articulate founder of ConservativeHome.com), I found no popular message worth propagating. And I don’t mean that as a disagreement. I mean that as a PR man who spends his day delivering “key messages” to “target audiences”.
To illustrate the problem, let me first state the core Labour Party message as I see it: social justice. Ask any Labour Party activist what motivates them and it will not be long before these two words fall from their lips. It is clear, it has meaning and it is a strong positive message that’s hard to refute: to not agree with social justice is to, presumably, support social injustice – so non-believers are immediately on the defensive. That’s a powerful message.
Yet I listened in vain for equivalent clarity with the Conservatives. Going by the discussion, here’s what this unselective grassroots Conservative gathering (and their “political class” panellists) think about their messages.
1) That “Conservative values” are nothing to be ashamed of (yes, but what are they?) and should be more robustly stated.
2) That the Big Society has no meaning and is a sop to the left (which they were potentially confusing with the majority of voters).
3) That there are too many people on welfare.
That's it (and I’m being generous). The rest of the debate was about the inherent pro-state (and therefore anti-Tory) bias of the BBC (I would agree to claims of it being anti-business) and the fact the CBI (that hugely popular mass movement!) should do more for small business, or maybe not.
The one word I wrote down in the entire “debate” – because it was the only statement delivered with clarity (by Montgomerie) – was “morality”. That here was the Party of Morality, he claimed. This went down well with the audience, but the trouble is, as a message, it is fraught with danger: one person’s morality is another person’s condemnation. Morality can be viewed as a form of judgement upon others that can quickly look and sound (and act) like intolerance. And wasn’t being seen as the “Nasty Party” one of the core problems with the Conservatives’ brand (at least according to Theresa May)?
So what’s all this got to do with fear of failure? Well, apart from the fact fear of failure stopped me from standing up and berating the lot of them for their appalling lack of vision, it’s the fact that my book, What’s Stopping You? is about coping and overcoming barriers to personal progress. It is about “achievement motivation” – the opposite to fear of failure and a goal for High-FFs (those with a high fear of failure). Yet Britain as a society puts up needless and destructive barriers to personal progress. Sometimes these are through prejudicial hurdles such as class, gender and race (although in my view class is the most pernicious as it cuts across gender and racial divisions) – but sometimes through structural ones such as our lowest-common denominator education system and our overly-complicated benefits arrangements that trap people in their current, often destructive, circumstances.
So why isn’t the Tory message one of "social mobility" – encouraging people to take control of their lives and improve their circumstances, not through government handouts but through their own determination and productivity? Certainly, there are some in the Tory party that state this – and some policies that encourage it – but as a unifying message it seems to get lost. And it also seems to be diluted by the obvious air of privilege that permeates the party, as it did the gathering I attended.
As a riposte to the “social justice” message of the left “social mobility” has the same degree of clarity, and is equally hard to refute as a cause. It at least can be claimed as inclusive, which is more than can be said for “morality” as a popular message in one of the world’s most liberal countries.
Yet, despite the efforts of Iain Duncan-Smith, I cannot help concluding that the Conservatives have lost the agenda with respect to social mobility. The party of the grammar school leaders (Heath, Thatcher, Major, Hague, Duncan-Smith, Howard), is now the party of the Eton boys. No less than 15 ministers went to that one school, which led even the Sunday Times to regret the fact “David Cameron has more Etonians around him than any leader since Macmillan”. Unfortunately, my audience also reflected this: I was at a pretty posh gathering with the odd “wide boy” millionaire being tolerated (presumably because of his donation). As activists, this lot were going to have difficulties turning a message of social mobility into votes.
Indeed, most of the entrepreneurs I meet are a long way from supporting the Conservatives (or at least admitting it) because they perceive a party of big business, landed interests and privately-educated privilege – the very elements of society most of them had to overcome for their business to prosper. Small businessmen are the bulwarks of the private sector. They are the very elements producing a net benefit to the UK’s economy – as are ambitious people generally. Yet the ones I meet seem to dislike the very party that is supposed to represent them. This is a disaster for the Tories and yet I see no attempt at trying to address this with respect to their core messages.
These days, the Conservatives advocating social mobility feels like a brewery advocating temperance. And this is a calamity for the Conservative Party in terms of its electoral chances (especially if the country adopts AV). It is also pretty bad news for the country. In fact, this state-educated Essex Boy so despaired of what he was witnessing he would have walked out had he not been required to escort his mother-in-law to Charing Cross Station after the event (which ended early anyway because the panellists all had other engagements, no doubt with their chums within the Political Class).
Yet the low point was to come. Archie Norman (another panellist: the former Tory Chief Executive – now Chairman of ITV) talked of the social mobility aspects of the X-Factor. This made me boil with anger – the previously inherent social mobility of the UK has been so eroded that the best the party of "getting on" could muster was some pathetic reality-TV programme that invites desperados to make total tits of themselves in their squalid attempt to be given the same life chances as the posh kids. Given me a break! Please remember Archie, of the thousands queuing at the auditions one kid makes it into your Magic Kingdom (and is spared the life of the Newcastle council estate) – one! If that’s what counts for social mobility in the UK of today, then we really are in trouble.
In fact, I came away deeply concerned. This was a political movement that had lost touch with what it stood for. Even from the panellists (including Tim Montgomerie, the articulate founder of ConservativeHome.com), I found no popular message worth propagating. And I don’t mean that as a disagreement. I mean that as a PR man who spends his day delivering “key messages” to “target audiences”.
To illustrate the problem, let me first state the core Labour Party message as I see it: social justice. Ask any Labour Party activist what motivates them and it will not be long before these two words fall from their lips. It is clear, it has meaning and it is a strong positive message that’s hard to refute: to not agree with social justice is to, presumably, support social injustice – so non-believers are immediately on the defensive. That’s a powerful message.
Yet I listened in vain for equivalent clarity with the Conservatives. Going by the discussion, here’s what this unselective grassroots Conservative gathering (and their “political class” panellists) think about their messages.
1) That “Conservative values” are nothing to be ashamed of (yes, but what are they?) and should be more robustly stated.
2) That the Big Society has no meaning and is a sop to the left (which they were potentially confusing with the majority of voters).
3) That there are too many people on welfare.
That's it (and I’m being generous). The rest of the debate was about the inherent pro-state (and therefore anti-Tory) bias of the BBC (I would agree to claims of it being anti-business) and the fact the CBI (that hugely popular mass movement!) should do more for small business, or maybe not.
The one word I wrote down in the entire “debate” – because it was the only statement delivered with clarity (by Montgomerie) – was “morality”. That here was the Party of Morality, he claimed. This went down well with the audience, but the trouble is, as a message, it is fraught with danger: one person’s morality is another person’s condemnation. Morality can be viewed as a form of judgement upon others that can quickly look and sound (and act) like intolerance. And wasn’t being seen as the “Nasty Party” one of the core problems with the Conservatives’ brand (at least according to Theresa May)?
So what’s all this got to do with fear of failure? Well, apart from the fact fear of failure stopped me from standing up and berating the lot of them for their appalling lack of vision, it’s the fact that my book, What’s Stopping You? is about coping and overcoming barriers to personal progress. It is about “achievement motivation” – the opposite to fear of failure and a goal for High-FFs (those with a high fear of failure). Yet Britain as a society puts up needless and destructive barriers to personal progress. Sometimes these are through prejudicial hurdles such as class, gender and race (although in my view class is the most pernicious as it cuts across gender and racial divisions) – but sometimes through structural ones such as our lowest-common denominator education system and our overly-complicated benefits arrangements that trap people in their current, often destructive, circumstances.
So why isn’t the Tory message one of "social mobility" – encouraging people to take control of their lives and improve their circumstances, not through government handouts but through their own determination and productivity? Certainly, there are some in the Tory party that state this – and some policies that encourage it – but as a unifying message it seems to get lost. And it also seems to be diluted by the obvious air of privilege that permeates the party, as it did the gathering I attended.
As a riposte to the “social justice” message of the left “social mobility” has the same degree of clarity, and is equally hard to refute as a cause. It at least can be claimed as inclusive, which is more than can be said for “morality” as a popular message in one of the world’s most liberal countries.
Yet, despite the efforts of Iain Duncan-Smith, I cannot help concluding that the Conservatives have lost the agenda with respect to social mobility. The party of the grammar school leaders (Heath, Thatcher, Major, Hague, Duncan-Smith, Howard), is now the party of the Eton boys. No less than 15 ministers went to that one school, which led even the Sunday Times to regret the fact “David Cameron has more Etonians around him than any leader since Macmillan”. Unfortunately, my audience also reflected this: I was at a pretty posh gathering with the odd “wide boy” millionaire being tolerated (presumably because of his donation). As activists, this lot were going to have difficulties turning a message of social mobility into votes.
Indeed, most of the entrepreneurs I meet are a long way from supporting the Conservatives (or at least admitting it) because they perceive a party of big business, landed interests and privately-educated privilege – the very elements of society most of them had to overcome for their business to prosper. Small businessmen are the bulwarks of the private sector. They are the very elements producing a net benefit to the UK’s economy – as are ambitious people generally. Yet the ones I meet seem to dislike the very party that is supposed to represent them. This is a disaster for the Tories and yet I see no attempt at trying to address this with respect to their core messages.
These days, the Conservatives advocating social mobility feels like a brewery advocating temperance. And this is a calamity for the Conservative Party in terms of its electoral chances (especially if the country adopts AV). It is also pretty bad news for the country. In fact, this state-educated Essex Boy so despaired of what he was witnessing he would have walked out had he not been required to escort his mother-in-law to Charing Cross Station after the event (which ended early anyway because the panellists all had other engagements, no doubt with their chums within the Political Class).
Yet the low point was to come. Archie Norman (another panellist: the former Tory Chief Executive – now Chairman of ITV) talked of the social mobility aspects of the X-Factor. This made me boil with anger – the previously inherent social mobility of the UK has been so eroded that the best the party of "getting on" could muster was some pathetic reality-TV programme that invites desperados to make total tits of themselves in their squalid attempt to be given the same life chances as the posh kids. Given me a break! Please remember Archie, of the thousands queuing at the auditions one kid makes it into your Magic Kingdom (and is spared the life of the Newcastle council estate) – one! If that’s what counts for social mobility in the UK of today, then we really are in trouble.
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