We’re sold a story about how to do well in life. If you get a good degree from one of the best universities, you can make it to the top. Turns out that’s a bit of a lie. New research is revealing the subtle ways young people from poorer background are excluded from Britain’s top professions. You need something else to break into the elite, something they don’t teach you about in school. So what are the rules of the game? How to Break into the Elite, Amol Rajan reporting, BBC 2019
Just how easy is it for today’s kids to make the journey I did? [Oxbridge] ibid.
10% of working class people will make it into elite occupations. ibid.
‘When we look at those who went to Russell Group universities, those from a privileged background who get 2:2 degrees, second class degrees, are still more likely to go into a top occupation than those from working class backgrounds who got to the same universities and got a first.’ ibid. researcher
The dashed hopes of an entire generation. ibid.
‘If you have a parent who works in film or television, you are twelve times more likely to go into film or television.’ ibid. researcher
‘I don’t think the elite will ever give way.’ ibid. Matthew Wright
In a lot of elite professions, prejudice about class goes completely unchallenged. ibid.
People wrote to me from all over the country telling me about the class barriers they had faced and asking me what they should do about it. How to Crack the Class Ceiling, Amol Rajan reporting, BBC 2022
‘Knowing the rules of the game can definitely be an asset in playing by them.’ ibid. Professor Lauren Rivera, author Pedigree, How Elite Students Get Elite Jobs
Britain has a class problem. And working class young people trying to get top jobs can feel it. How to Crack the Class Ceiling II, Amol Rajan reporting
Neoliberalism, deindustrialization, the destruction of labor unions, slashing and even eliminating the taxes of the rich and corporations, free trade, globalization, the surveillance state, endless war and austerity — the ideologies or tools used by the oligarchs to further their own interests — are presented to the public as natural law, the mechanisms for social and economic progress, even as the oligarchs dynamite the foundations of a liberal democracy and exacerbate a climate crisis that threatens to extinguish human life. Chris Hedges, ‘Class: The Little Word the Elites Want You to Forget’, Truthdig March 2020
The oligarchs are happy to talk about race. They are happy to talk about sexual identity and gender. They are happy to talk about patriotism. They are happy to talk about religion. They are happy to talk about immigration. They are happy to talk about abortion. They are happy to talk about gun control. They are happy to talk about cultural degeneracy or cultural freedom. They are not happy to talk about class. Race, gender, religion, abortion, immigration, gun control, culture and patriotism are issues used to divide the public, to turn neighbor against neighbor, to fuel virulent hatreds and antagonisms. The culture wars give the oligarchs, both Democrats and Republicans, the cover to continue the pillage. There are few substantial differences between the two ruling political parties in the United States. This is why oligarchs like Donald Trump and Michael Bloomberg can switch effortlessly from one party to the other. Once oligarchs seize power, Aristotle wrote, a society must either accept tyranny or choose revolution. ibid.
I know from experience that even mentioning income distribution leads to angry accusations of class warfare ... Why has the response to rising inequality been a drive to reduce taxes on the rich? Paul Krugman
I’d like to see a much more open Monarchy, myself. I used to think they were completely useless and we should get rid of them. I don’t necessarily feel that way any more. I’m still ambivalent. I still loathe the British class system, and the Royal family are the apex of the British class system. Helen Mirren
The peasantry had had enough: they rose up in the largest mass rebellion in English history and marched on London. This was a class war. Dr Janina Ramirez, Chivalry and Betrayal: The Hundred Years War II: Breaking the Bonds 1360-1415, BBC 2013
The ringleaders of the uprising were hunted down and hanged. ibid.
From London revolt spreads to towns and villages across the country. The British II: People Power, Sky Atlantic 2012
The Peasants’ Revolt – the greatest uprising in the history of medieval England. Professor Robert Bartlett, The Plantagenets III, BBC 2014
Wymondham: 460-odd years ago a little local trouble here sparked a huge rebellion that resulted in the death of thousands. It’s called Kett’s Rebellion, and it’s one of the most fascinating and violent struggles for justice this country has ever seen. Rob Bell, Britain’s Lost Battlefields s1e6: Class War in Tudor England
What started out as a minor disagreement about sheep between a farmer and the local townsfolk developed into an extraordinary uprising against the establishment. A class war in which hundreds lost their lives for what they believed was a just cause.
The movement attracted 16,000 supporters from all over Norfolk … But when the marched on Norwich they were branded as traitors and fired on by the city’s guns. ibid.
In the middle of the 19th century the new Palace of Westminster, home to parliament, was approaching completion. The new buildings had been decorated with the ancient symbols of the four nations that made up a state that was then only half a century old. Union with David Olusoga III: The Two Nations
The United Kingdom was the world’s first and pre-eminent industrial nation. It was at the same time the world’s greatest trading nation … The largest empire the world had ever seen. ibid.
The Old Corruption, the alliance of landowners and the big merchants, used their political power not just to further their economic interests. In the years after Waterloo, they also used the law to repress opposition from working people campaigning for their rights. ibid.
In 1838, 6 years after what many saw as the betrayal of the Reform Act, working-class reformers launched a new movement to fight for the vote and political rights. That movement, Chartism, was the first to spread across the nations, and the first in which people defined themselves not by their nationality or their religion but by their social class. ibid.
It’s just Etonians and public schoolboys passing around rewards between each other, creating a ruling class that’s even more sharply defined probably than it’s ever been in recent times. Mick Lynch