The Labour shadow education secretary Angela Rayner is being social media bullied by right-winger over her regional accent again, which is highly indicative of the snoobish and elitist attitudes that still prevail in England today.
Elitism
English society is divided between the privately educated establishment class (about 7% of us) and the rest.
The elitist establishment class are massively over-represented in all of the top jobs including politics, the media, corporate directorships, and the justice system.
In fact social mobility is so bad in Britain that the percentage of privately educated elites working as barristers and solicitors is almost the same as 30 years ago (70%+) and the percentage of working in the mainstream media has actually increased from 49% to 51% over the same period!
Those of us from the lower orders who do manage to defy the odds and break through into the top jobs are still facing intense discrimination.
When plebs like us get the good jobs we're hit with what is basically a regional accent tax. A Social Mobility Commission study found that people from disadvantaged backgrounds are paid an average 7% less than their peers from the establishment class for doing exactly the same jobs.
Then the Tories imposed the highest public university tuition fees in the entire world for English students and then scrapped maintenance grants for low income students as deliberate social mobility barriers.
English society is divided between the privately educated establishment class (about 7% of us) and the rest.
The elitist establishment class are massively over-represented in all of the top jobs including politics, the media, corporate directorships, and the justice system.
In fact social mobility is so bad in Britain that the percentage of privately educated elites working as barristers and solicitors is almost the same as 30 years ago (70%+) and the percentage of working in the mainstream media has actually increased from 49% to 51% over the same period!
Those of us from the lower orders who do manage to defy the odds and break through into the top jobs are still facing intense discrimination.
When plebs like us get the good jobs we're hit with what is basically a regional accent tax. A Social Mobility Commission study found that people from disadvantaged backgrounds are paid an average 7% less than their peers from the establishment class for doing exactly the same jobs.
Then the Tories imposed the highest public university tuition fees in the entire world for English students and then scrapped maintenance grants for low income students as deliberate social mobility barriers.
If people from the lower orders are going to break through and steal the jobs that the Tories believe rightfully belong to the elitist establishment class, then they are intent on lumbering us with a 9% aspiration tax out of our disposable incomes for our entire working lives for the cheek of not knowing our God-damned places.
So not only do people from ordinary backgrounds earn 7% less than workers from the elitist class for doing the exact same jobs, we also have to pay a 9% aspiration tax on our earnings for daring to attend university.
Servility
The really shocking thing about all of this is not that powerful establishment elitists rig society to benefit their own class (that's always been the way they operate), it's that so many people from outside the establishment class are such craven subservient forelock-tuggers that they actually like things being rigged in this way.
Even though they're not members of this privileged elite, loads of people are so servile they seem to think that it's absolutely right that elitists get a hugely disproportionate share of the best jobs, and that a politician who speaks in anything but a cut glass establishment accent is some kind of abomination who needs to be ridiculed and abused on Twitter.
This class-based self-loathing only really exists in England.
Only the most outlandishly out-of-touch toffs in Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales would consider abusing politicians for their strong national accents, but in England the minority of politicians with strong regional accents are regularly abused and ridiculed on social media.
Step outside the United Kingdom altogether and you find that virtually nobody gives the remotest damn about the regional accent you speak with, or what your class background is.
This fixation with class and the savage determination to tear down people (especially women) from ordinary backgrounds who achieved top jobs is a peculiarly English thing.
A peculiarly English attitude
What is it about the English that makes them so subservient that they will not only accept the way society is continually rigged in favour of the privileged establishment class, but actually attack the hard-working few from ordinary backgrounds who manage to overcome all of the social mobility obstacles to attain the top jobs, despite their unprivileged upbringings and their non-elitist accents?
How are we so easily manipulated and divided by the establishment class that we can be trained to hate our own classes for their rare successes in the rigged game, rather than hating the elitist class for continually rigging the game in their own favour?
Why is it that so many of the English are so easily manipulated that they can be trained by the right-wing media to actually support the erection of social mobility barriers to damage the life opportunities of people from their own class?
"Fuck them" they say. "Fuck the students. Lumber them with literally unpayable debts for betraying their class. They should stay where they belong and leave all the best jobs to our Eton educated lords and masters like David Cameron, Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Zac Goldsmith".
Step outside the United Kingdom altogether and you find that virtually nobody gives the remotest damn about the regional accent you speak with, or what your class background is.
This fixation with class and the savage determination to tear down people (especially women) from ordinary backgrounds who achieved top jobs is a peculiarly English thing.
A peculiarly English attitude
What is it about the English that makes them so subservient that they will not only accept the way society is continually rigged in favour of the privileged establishment class, but actually attack the hard-working few from ordinary backgrounds who manage to overcome all of the social mobility obstacles to attain the top jobs, despite their unprivileged upbringings and their non-elitist accents?
How are we so easily manipulated and divided by the establishment class that we can be trained to hate our own classes for their rare successes in the rigged game, rather than hating the elitist class for continually rigging the game in their own favour?
Why is it that so many of the English are so easily manipulated that they can be trained by the right-wing media to actually support the erection of social mobility barriers to damage the life opportunities of people from their own class?
"Fuck them" they say. "Fuck the students. Lumber them with literally unpayable debts for betraying their class. They should stay where they belong and leave all the best jobs to our Eton educated lords and masters like David Cameron, Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Zac Goldsmith".
This isn't some caricature, it's the vindictive mentality of huge numbers of people who refuse to see education as a social benefit, and oppose Labour's policy of providing free education to all at the point of need, rather than commodifying it and selling it at such extreme prices that students from non-elitist backgrounds end up lumbered with literally unpayable debts.
Class traitors
It's not the people who work hard and climb out of the social classes they were born into who are the class traitors, it's the people who celebrate every right-wing social mobility barrier erected to keep the uppity lower orders in their places, and who ridicule and abuse politicians who dare to speak with regional accents.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with being proud of where you come from (I'm proud of my working class background and my regional accent), but if that pride manifests as wanting everyone else who comes from similar ordinary background to be economically punished by the establishment elitists, and ridiculing the regional accents of the few who people from ordinary backgrounds who somehow defied the odds and landed one of the top jobs, then you're clearly your own class enemy and you should absolutely ashamed of yourself.
It's not the people who work hard and climb out of the social classes they were born into who are the class traitors, it's the people who celebrate every right-wing social mobility barrier erected to keep the uppity lower orders in their places, and who ridicule and abuse politicians who dare to speak with regional accents.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with being proud of where you come from (I'm proud of my working class background and my regional accent), but if that pride manifests as wanting everyone else who comes from similar ordinary background to be economically punished by the establishment elitists, and ridiculing the regional accents of the few who people from ordinary backgrounds who somehow defied the odds and landed one of the top jobs, then you're clearly your own class enemy and you should absolutely ashamed of yourself.
Another Angry Voice is a "Pay As You Feel" website. You can have access to all of my work for free, or you can choose to make a small donation to help me keep writing. The choice is entirely yours.
