Dennis Skinner calls out Dodgy Dave!!

[jimmybell]

Hah - don't drag me in to this, i can pick apart your post just as easily

EDIT: We need a forum emoticon for 'Shake hands and make up or STFU'

Clearly people are passionate, i guess that's good. Problem is people forget for 100 years money, time, research and effort has been spent on making you form the opinions you have. If you feel passionately about a political idea, party or ideology - it's probably because one of the major media outlets has spent time making you so (whether the idea is good or bad).

In the end i suspect we all want the same thing - which is probably some form of 'good s**t' for everyone, it's just media, financial and political corruption that has vested interests in us arguing against each other for their gain, rather than ours.

 

[Zeld4]

WOW (most of the above posts)

This is a serious question that no-one ever seems to be able to answer:

"Define working class".

I was born in 1972 and didn't go on an aeroplane until 1993. That defines me as working class

 

[Jasey]

I give a s**t about everyone except dodgy cunts looking for a free ride - they can f**k off and die.

If they did that the genuinely poor could get a much bigger share of our hard earnt taxes !

If that upsets left wing pricks - I can live with that :rofl:

mate...nobody..not even left wingers want to give taxpayers money to theives, scroungers,benefit cheats and general scum, there is good and bad on both sides of the left and right wing of politics..most of us stand in the middle ground and only wantbenefits to go to who are truly in need of them

I guess we're more alike than you think

Regards
Adolph

 

[mr.tourette]

I give a s**t about everyone except dodgy cunts looking for a free ride - they can f**k off and die.

If they did that the genuinely poor could get a much bigger share of our hard earnt taxes !

If that upsets left wing pricks - I can live with that :rofl:

mate...nobody..not even left wingers want to give taxpayers money to theives, scroungers,benefit cheats and general scum, there is good and bad on both sides of the left and right wing of politics..most of us stand in the middle ground and only wantbenefits to go to who are truly in need of them

I guess we're more alike than you think

Regards
Adolph

 

[TitanTim]

I don't think the younger generation 30 years less know what working class is or means. I'm 51 and just about remember my grandad who passed away in 1971. Him and and his brothers all signed up together and went off to the Somme, they lived a bloody hard life that compared to even less well off people today they could only have dreamed of back then. To me Dennis Skinner is from that working class era, people who went down the pits and did similar jobs and worked hard all their life. I truly believe we ignore the working class tradition at our peril, something the Thatcher era killed off.

Tim.

 

[dans6490]

deleted

 

[dans6490]

I don't think the younger generation 30 years less know what working class is or means. I'm 51 and just about remember my grandad who passed away in 1971. Him and and his brothers all signed up together and went off to the Somme, they lived a bloody hard life that compared to even less well off people today they could only have dreamed of back then. To me Dennis Skinner is from that working class era, people who went down the pits and did similar jobs and worked hard all their life. I truly believe we ignore the working class tradition at our peril, something the Thatcher era killed off.

Tim.

What is the working class tradition though?

My dads ancestors are all coal-miners who lived in the valleys. The men worked very hard and when they weren't at work they were in the pub.Quite Literally. I don't relate to how they lived in anyway. I've heard the stories, I've spoken to the wives.

If that's how we categorise "working class", there isn't a working class, so people with two cars and two motorbikes surely can't call themselves working class??

Who are these working class people we talk of in current times?

I still see the next generation of the coal-miners and their children. They work in shops, factories, doctors surgeries, banks etc but still consider themselves working class? With two holidays a year and a 3 year old car on the drive?

It's all a load of b@llocks if you ask me.

 

[Worcester_spoon]

What is the working class tradition though?

My dads ancestors are all coal-miners who lived in the valleys. The men worked very hard and when they weren't at work they were in the pub.Quite Literally. I don't relate to how they lived in anyway. I've heard the stories, I've spoken to the wives.

If that's how we categorise "working class", there isn't a working class, so people with two cars and two motorbikes surely can't call themselves working class??

Who are these working class people we talk of in current times?

I still see the next generation of the coal-miners and their children. They work in shops, factories, doctors surgeries, banks etc but still consider themselves working class? With two holidays a year and a 3 year old car on the drive?

It's all a load of b@llocks if you ask me.

A good point, well made.

My 2 pence so worth - on the one hand, I live in the south in a nice big home, own 3 cars, run 2 of my own businesses and can afford to spend some money on things I enjoy in life.

But on the other hand, my dad was a fireman all his life, and my mum was a secretary (so arguably 'working class jobs') and I certainly didn't get any help getting to where I am other than loving parents who cared about my education and welfare mixed with a whole heap of hard work and determination over the past 20 years.

My past is not defined by my parentage, nor is it define by my income, so what does that make me?

I often say to my (4) kids, life isn't about equality, it's about fairness. Maybe that's a good lesson for both sides of the political divide to learn?

 

[mr.tourette]

Id chip in and quote Karl Marx for a definition of working class but Id be hounded out as a communist

 

[Zeld4]

Id chip in and quote Karl Marx for a definition of working class but Id be hounded out as a communist

Good old Karl Marx, that's how we got ourselves in to this mess!

 

[dans6490]

Id chip in and quote Karl Marx for a definition of working class but Id be hounded out as a communist

But he has been dead over 100 years and this is the exact point I'm trying to make. You can't compare modern man, technology, thinking, conditions or living standards to when he was alive. There was no sick pay, working conditions, workers rights, minimum wage, housing benefit (benefit of any kind), so his theories are about as relevant as quoting Captain Cook.

There's been a few replies to my earlier question but nobody (that I've ever asked) has actually defined how you categorise someone who is "working class". The phrase is thrown around all the time with no substance to it. People claiming to be working class, like its some kind of club you can join.

Some of my friends class themselves as working class. One is a gas engineer earning over £50k per year with a detached house, two kids and a stay at home wife!!! Oh yes, but he drinks beer, smokes, swears a lot (he isn't as bad as it sounds) but this doesn't make him working class.

 

[Jasey]

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

I'm Established Middle Class. We should all post our results (whether you like them or not)

Adolf
xx

 

[SeanConnor]

Working class is a meaningless term these days and has been for a long time. Originally you were working class if you had to do any sort of work to bring in a living. If you were had independent means then you were upper class. This does not include serving in the forces or clergy. Until the middle of the nineteenth century that was it. There was no middle class. After this the definition was muddied as the former working class started to own factories and form a class of white color "bosses"- the middle class. This has since been further subdivided , mainly by idiot marketing types. So now-days the concept is bollocks. There are rich and there are poor, fortunate and unfortunate but class is a silly concept. Disappointingly it seems that only the UK and maybe India still think there is merit in this.

Only my 2d worth.

 

[markeg]

So, can we now move onto the "shoebox at end of t'lane" sketch to compare how working class we all are?

Personally, today's definition is nothing like when I grew up in the 1960's. Apart from all the material wealth you see nowadays (we did not have a family car until 1973, or holidays were a visit to the grandparents) we considered ourselves well-off, but still working class. In fact, because both my father (working class Glaswegian from a ship builder tradition) and mother (mother in service, father was a poacher/labourer) had such a challenging upbringing, they created their own success through hard work and taking opportunities when presented to them. Their work ethic is what inspires me to this day, and is what I try to pass on to my son.

But does that make me working class? Aspiring class is probably more apt, as my wife tells me i'm always aspiring to be slightly classy.... she hasn't said whether I've succeeded yet :roll:

 

[mr.tourette]

Id chip in and quote Karl Marx for a definition of working class but Id be hounded out as a communist

Good old Karl Marx, that's how we got ourselves in to this mess!

Yeah its not politicians or corrupt bankers that did it... it was all the work of Marx... think I'm done with this thread now :exitright:

 

[mattwaltersz4m]

So, can we now move onto the "shoebox at end of t'lane" sketch to compare how working class we all are?

Personally, today's definition is nothing like when I grew up in the 1960's. Apart from all the material wealth you see nowadays (we did not have a family car until 1973, or holidays were a visit to the grandparents) we considered ourselves well-off, but still working class. In fact, because both my father (working class Glaswegian from a ship builder tradition) and mother (mother in service, father was a poacher/labourer) had such a challenging upbringing, they created their own success through hard work and taking opportunities when presented to them. Their work ethic is what inspires me to this day, and is what I try to pass on to my son.

But does that make me working class? Aspiring class is probably more apt, as my wife tells me i'm always aspiring to be slightly classy.... she hasn't said whether I've succeeded yet :roll:

Probably waiting for you to sell the Aplina oke:

 

[markeg]

Hey - the Alpina is the only thing keeping me slightly classy, if that goes, I've no chance...

 

[mattwaltersz4m]

Hey - the Alpina is the only thing keeping me slightly classy, if that goes, I've no chance...

:rofl:

 

[TitanTim]

To me working class means, manual skilled labour, hard graft, miners, steel workers as opposed to white collar middle class workers/surburbia which alot of people today slot into. This is why I say ignore the loss of the working class at your peril and the associated skills which are rapidly being lost.

I don't know if anyone saw Horizon the other day on the suns solar flares and the real risk that one day soon a solar flare storm could quite literally knock this planets supposidly sophisticated infrastructure back into the dark ages. Whilst I think modern technology and the microchip world is fantastic its destroying what I consider human survival skills and what they can do with their hands. A recent survey showed most people can't even wire a plug. Says it all I reckon.

Tim.

 

[Zeld4]

Id chip in and quote Karl Marx for a definition of working class but Id be hounded out as a communist

Good old Karl Marx, that's how we got ourselves in to this mess!

Yeah its not politicians or corrupt bankers that did it... it was all the work of Marx... think I'm done with this thread now :exitright:

Well you did bring him up. Look at the countries that employed his philosophys now and where would you rather be, here or there?