The Class War is Over?
There seems to be a lot of chat amongst the political class about class. Something to the effect that the class war is over. I’m not so sure it ever started. If it did I haven’t noticed it. People are generally quite selfish and unpleasant when it comes to philanthropy. But the Telegraph newspaper consider it to be hugely relevant that the Labour party are going on about it. The Tories predictably rabbit on about the “politics of envy”; the Labour Party then go on about “the rich” or “the very rich”. I think this may be a distinction without a difference but more likely a way of avoiding the problem most Labour MPs have when it comes to class as they see it. Most “working class” people, and a definition would be helpful, would view an income of £300,000 and above as being rich. So most labour MPs are rich, by their definition they are possibly “upper class”. So if there is a class war it’s that lot that the workers need to be fighting against. But do you have to work to be working class or does it make a non-worker classless. Probably unless they claim benefit when they become “under class”.
I think to say the class war is over is to misunderstand two hundred years and more of political history and philosophical analysis. It’s an issue of class to say something as crass, and wrong-headed quite frankly. Envy is a loaded word. In the context of the smug “I’m okay, it’s your fault you’re not” attitude it may make some sense. But it’s unintelligent to put it forward as a rational comment. Define “class”, define “envy”. Get real.
Of course birth is everything. To say otherwise is to fly in the face of, as the not very funny Pyhton smugsters may have allegedly plagiarised, “the bleedin’ obvious.”