Thursday, 28 June 2018

Are the working-class alive and well and being shafted in Britain?



The government study commissioned by former education secretary Justine Greening that found that half of British’ workers, believed that they faced a ‘class-ceiling’ in this country, is entirely consistent with the findings of British social attitude surveys going back decades.

A 2015 British Social Attitudes Survey carried out by NatCen Social Research, found that respondents considered: Britain to be increasingly divided along class lines, with a plummeting belief in the possibility of social mobility.”

The authors of the study, Geoffrey Evans and Jonathan Mellon of the University of Oxford, also said that a majority of Britons (60%) considered they were working-class and adhered to working-class values in spite of having moved up the income scale and holding “stereotypically middle-class jobs.”

Although British political leaders of all parties, have in recent years declared an aim of ridding Britain of its old class identities – just recall John Major’s ‘classless society’, Tony Blair’s ‘Big Tent’, “we’re all middle-class now”, and David Cameron’s, ‘Big Society’, “what counts is not where you come from, it is where you’re going” – the figure of 60% hasn’t changed since 1983. The study also found that nearly half of people in managerial amd professional occupations also identified as working-class.

While social-class can be a subjective thing, based on who we think we are, statisticians use an objective measurement based largely around occupation. Ipsos Mori, use a broader definition of working-class known as C2DE and say that 45.8% of household heads fall into the manual worker or lower-paid category of C2DE. Despite the 60% figure, the Office for National Statistics (ONS), say that just 25% of people now work in routine manual occupations.

The report authors point out that though family background is an important indicator of working-class identity - having parents who worked in manual occupations - some objectively middle-class people identify as working-class because they see themselves as disadvantaged in a society dominated by a small wealthy elite.

Yet the survey shows that a majority of Britons have held to working-class values despite changes in the labour market and rising incomes, a phenomenon described as a “working-class of the mind.” According to the report, those who identify as working-class are likely to be anti-immigration and conservative on a range of social issues including the death penalty, homosexuality and morality.

Though half of those British’ workers, who responded to the government survey, did feel intuitively that they faced a ‘class ceiling’ in Britain and that a regional accent and a working-class background, were barriers to success in their workplace, to what extent is this borne out by the evidence and to what extent is British society, rigged in favour of the middle and upper-classes?

The Guardian journalist Polly Toynbee clearly believes that British society is rigged in favour of the middle-classes. She has said on numerous occasions that British children’s achievement is more closely linked to parental status than in most developed countries. Her own entrée into the world of journalism was made easier she says, by being called Toynbee. Her father Theodore Philip Toynbee was a famous writer and communist and her grandfather, Arnold J. Toynbee, was an even more famous historian and social reformer. In August 2011, she wrote in her column that social mobility was a zero-sum game that worked both ways:

If poor children rise up, some from the higher classes must fall. Room at the top is limited… As graduates know, good jobs don’t multiply to greet more qualified applicants. The vast majority of those in the professions and good jobs were born to them. Follow the money and income matches’ class pretty accurately.”

In 2016, ‘The Prince’s Trust’ published a report saying that social mobility in the UK didn’t exist and that inequality was an accident of birth. They concluded – The evidence is irrefutable, your family background is in fact most people’s destiny. Martina Milburn, the Chief Executive of the Prince’s Trust, explained:

There is a social bank of mum and dad which opens as many doors as the financial bank of mum and dad. Sadly not all young people have the access to it, and all too often young people are locked out of jobs and other opportunities simply because of where they started in life.”

It is well acknowledged that only 7% of the UK population are educated at private schools. Yet those children go on to make up 71% of senior judges, 50% of members of the House of Lords and 43% of newspaper columnists. They also account for 20% of all university entrants in the UK and 50% of all entrants to Oxbridge. Today, only 6 or 7 percent of MPs in the Labour Party have undertaken working-class jobs. Yet in 1979, 40% of the Parliamentary Labour Party had done working-class jobs.

In the novels of D.H. Lawrence, the quest for upward social mobility is very much on the mind of many of his fictional characters. But Lawrence was certainly aware that the options for many working-class people of his time were severely constrained by their circumstances. As he says:The world is supposed to be full of possibilities, but they narrow down to pretty few, in most personal experience…” (Lady Chatterley’s Lover). And so it is today. As education and good jobs have become more expensive, opportunities to join the grabbers club have diminished for many people.

We do know that since the 1970s there has been a significant increase in income inequality and a resurgence of inequality after 1980, following the election of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Regan who pursued pro-rich policies. At the end at of the last war, there was greater upward social mobility for many people due to greater demand for labour during a booming economy, as well as a massive increase in state provision in government, education and health. All these services needed administrative workers and as the middle-classes were not producing enough children to fill these jobs, it opened up opportunities for the working-classes.

When we look at inequalities in income and wealth, we should always be wary of explanations that stress economic determinism. Economics is a political argument and not a science. The history of the distribution of wealth has always been deeply political and cannot be reduced to purely economic mechanisms. The problem for all governments is who gets what, when, and how?” But as Michael Young says in his book ‘The Rise of the Meritocracy’, We have to recognise that nearly all parents are going to try to gain an unfair advantage for their offspring. And this is precisely what he did, when his own not particularly bright son, Toby Young, failed to get into Brasenose College, Oxford. He picked up the phone and pulled some strings.

Although half the people in the government survey said they faced a ‘class ceiling’ in Britain, the issue of social class has been relegated in importance over the years. Of the nine protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010, that include exotica such as ‘gender reassignment’, ‘sexual orientation’, ‘religion or belief’, nowhere does class discrimination get a look-in. No doubt, this is because social class is linked to fundamental economic inequality. What many people should ask is why a country that professes to be about the many and not the few, props up rigid social divisions and inequalities every generation, in spite of delivering universal health and free education and having a liberal political democratic system, where most adult people have a vote. As someone once said: “Each decade we shiftily declare we have buried class, and each decade the coffin stays empty.” 

Wednesday, 27 June 2018

Victoria Derbyshire LIVE - Special Branch collusion in blacklisting

Massive ‘thank you’ to everyone at the BBC Victoria Derbyshire Live programme, especially investigative journalist Simon Cox for the coverage of police involvement with blacklisting this Monday. Steve Acheson, Roy Bentham, Justin Bowden, Peter Francis, Dave Smith & Rebecca Long Bailey all featured. Even Julia Mulligan the Tory Police and Crime Commissioner  (PCC) for North Yorkshire called the Met's approach 'a cover up'

Watch the videos and if you're angry, circulate to your contacts as well as your MP and PCC and ask them what they are doing about this national scandal? 
Use the hashtags #VictoriaLive #SpyCops #Blacklisting on social media 

FULL DISCLOSURE OF EVIDENCE 
STAND ALONE BLACKLISTING PUBLIC INQUIRY 
PUT AN END TO POLITICAL POLICING 

Blacklist Support Group

'Gambia Day' raises £2,500 for charity.

Beech Hill head teacher, Chris Davidson,
 participating in a drumming workshop

Beech Hill school in Luton made a friendship agreement with the Lower Basic school in Sohm earlier this year, and has pledged to try and raise money for their Gambian friends over the next three years.


The school dedicated the money it raised from World Book Day, in March, to helping the school - and raised £1,000, to help restore broken the classrooms we mentioned in the last newsletter.

The school held a "Gambia Day" on 6 June and invited Sandra and John from SSS to participate.

It was declared a "non-uniform" day, and pupils were encouraged to go to school in the colours of the Gambian flag - and make a donation of £1 for not having to wear their uniforms.



Sandra and John took two assemblies for the 900 Beech Hill pupils, and took them through the school day of a Sohm youngster.

The rest of the day was devoted to The Gambia in the school, and Sandra and John were delighted to visit all the classes and see they pupils hard at work.

There were geography, craft, singing, story-telling and art classes.  Drumming workshops were held in the school and at the end of the day, surplus library books were sold off to pupils and parents - with the proceeds going to SSS.




A major highlight was provided by many of the mums in the school.  Parents had asked from food donations from local traders and the mums cooked a large amount of delicious food - curries, rice, samosas etc - for sale to parents picking up their children.

The fantastic efforts from the donating local traders, superb mother-cooks, and generous parents raised £1,500. A "bucket collection" was also held outside the school gates as parents picked up their children from the school gates. That sum, together with the money raised on World Book Day has enabled us to sign a contract with a Gambian building-for-not-for-profit organisations for the school.


This is truly fantastic.  far more than we could ever have wished for.

It means the lives of 300 African school children will be immeasurably improved as a result of the generosity of the Luton school.

The local Luton newspaper - Luton Today recognised the efforts too - as the extract, below, from last week's edition shows.


They made an even larger splash on their website, and you can follow the link here.

The website is a little temperamental, so we've pieced together the article, from screen grabs below.



John Walker 07954 153 305 Gambia stuff: www.SohmSchoolsSupport.org.uk @GambiaSchools Forest Gate stuff: www.E7-NowAndThen.org, @E7_NowAndThen 







Wednesday, 20 June 2018

Study finds half of British workers believe society rigged in favour of the middle-classes!

Half of workers think UK has a ‘class ceiling’, says survey

Half of British workers believe a regional accent and a working-class background are barriers to success in their workplaces, according to a study that also found only 17% of business leaders from are blue-collar backgrounds in some UK regions.

The study was commissioned by the former education secretary Justine Greening, who said working-class people still believed they encountered a “class ceiling”, with too much emphasis placed on personal connections that middle-class candidates were more likely to have. About 50% of the 2,000 people surveyed said those without strong regional accents found it easier to progress in their industries.

A quarter said having a regional accent had held them back at work, rising to almost half of people surveyed in London.

Only a third said their boss had a working-class background, which dropped to a fifth in the health and social work sector, compared with half in manufacturing.

In Wales, fewer than 20% of those surveyed said they had a working-class person in a senior leadership role. Greening, the first education secretary to have had a comprehensive education, said the study revealed social mobility is stagnating. Less than half of those polled said they were earning more in relative terms than their highest-paid parent did at their age.

“When it comes to opportunity and how far you can go in Britain, far too much is still determined by what’s in the rear-view mirror,” she said.

“There is still a class ceiling, and it’s clear from our grassroots research that people see it and experience it every day. I think this frustration with established orders and elites is exactly what we are seeing a rebellion against.”

Greening, who left the cabinet earlier this year, has frequently been linked with a run for London mayor.

She has since set up a social mobility pledge to encourage employers to sign a promise to adopt open recruitment policies such as name-blind or “contextual” hiring, as well as offering more apprenticeships.

“Levelling up Britain in this way means talent is what determines how far you go,” Greening said.

Tuesday, 19 June 2018

Exhibition of Spanish writer Arturo Barea


EXHIBITION Arturo Barea. The English window. Instituto Cervantes Manchester presents an exhibition of literary works on the 60th anniversary of the writer’s death One of the most translated and read authors of his generation, Arturo Barea (1897- 1957) is regarded as one of England’s greatest champions of Spanish literature.

For three months, Instituto Cervantes Manchester, in collaboration with the literary archive dedicated to the writer, brings together the first comprehensive exhibition of the life and works of Arturo Barea.

The collection focuses on the writer’s 18 years of exile in England; having witnessed so much suffering and horror during the Spanish Civil War, Barea found the peace here that he needed to write and he became the first Spanish correspondent for the BBC.

This exhibition features several editions of Barea’s works, in particular La forja de un Rebelde (The Forging of a Rebel), as well as documents, unpublished letters, his typewriter and the only recording of him that exists. The collection will be launched by the curator of the exhibition William Chislett: writer and journalist, former correspondent for The Times in Madrid, and an Associate Analyst at the Spanish think tank Real Instituto Elcano (Elcano Royal Institute) since 2002.

For the event, a catalogue has been published and, as well as an extensive bibliography of Arturo Barea’s works, it features all of the exhibited items and further essays written by Antonio Muñoz Molina and Chislett.

Available at the exhibition, the catalogue publishes, for the first time, several important documents about the life of one of the most important and most read exiled writers from the Spanish Republic. Members of the public are invited to attend the opening night, which takes place in the exhibition space at Instituto Cervantes Manchester on 27 June 2018 at 6pm. The collection will remain on show until 17 September 2018.

Saturday, 16 June 2018

What are the facts and myths about racism? Open meeting.

BOLD
Open Meeting and debate on Diversity, Integration and Racism.
Time: from 7.30pm, on Monday, 25th. June 2018.
Venue: Woolworth Sports and Social Club, Gypsy Lane, Castleton, OL11 3HA
What are the facts? What are the myths? Institutional Racism. Our young.
The way forward to a truly “United Kingdom”.
Featuring a number of speakers including the Chair of BAPA (Black & Asian Police Association)
Time for questions, debate and search for solutions.

Note: The emphasis is on informed debate not just rhetoric and the purpose is to explore ways to improve integration in our communities. There is 'fake news' on this subject, which does not help.

The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses. Malcolm X

BOLD (Building Our Local Democracy) are a group believing in open democracy, so everyone is welcome provided they respect others and their views. Further information: Phone 07794835959 or e-mail j.wilkins248@yahoo.com