The Daily Mail reading Middle Class of Middle England - The New "Enemy Within"

xpost

I'm saying that's what it is

bid -- okay, but wouldn't it be nice if we could *all* refer to our means of subsistence as 'livelihoods'. as an aspiration?

The basic concept is probably reasonable but it's inevitably going to be blown up - for media-friendly reasons - into this extremist "you know, the Taliban did have a point, wasn't it so much better when women KNEW THEIR PLACE and were MADE (physically, economically, politically, socially) TO KEEP IT?" viewpoint/crusade.

When you have a media which regards reasoned debate as "boring" and "likely to turn readers off" then this is going to be the inevitable consequence.

(cf. also the insidious racism which slowly and amiably wheedled its way into Grumpy Old Men on BBC2 last week. To which they will say: "hang on, we've got Kinnock and Bill Bryson! It's not all Righties!" - to which I would reply: "that's not really the point, though, is it?")

I hate all this shit. I'd like to think objecting to police brutality isn't just an expedient argument when it's people we like getting beaten.

Apologies if it was just a flippant comment.

Did the Speaker get to shout "order!", I wonder?

yeah, anyway. toynbee article about this was magnificent. still don't get it though. something about class and tradition and it all washes over me. maybe this is how british people feel when americans talk about born-again baptists, or, i don't know, anything.

he'd be a fool if he meant the *entire* middle classes, anyway. i hate this kind of "fight fire with fire" attitude ... mind you, it can be understood at the moment, but i just hate *hate* ... oh fuck, it's all so fucking frustrating. essentially though he's thinking of the anti-democratic elite who were at the heart of the anti-Labour plots of 30 years ago (without an understanding of which nobody can fully understand the hunting issue). not some late-twentysomething on the train from London to Southampton who listens to Keane and Katie Melua (he'd be right to dislike *them* as well, but they should be disliked for a different reason).

in reality a lot of it is motivated by the fact that their own social tribe has produced people that they see as "nigger-lovers", as *traitors* ... a sense that they're not in control of the next generation of their own people anymore. the big difference in 1974/75 was that they *were* in control of their own children to a much greater extent then, despite the viciousness of final-series Monty Python, specifically the "Appeal On Behalf Of Very Rich People" (name anyone from a public-school background who was at the top of the pop charts then - Genesis don't count); now it is actually less purely class-based and more a wider dissatisfaction aimed at the legacy of the New Right as much as anything else - they tend to be Americosceptics and Israel-sceptics, although often that's just a cover for plain hatred of Jews, who think the Tory party has betrayed them by being so pro-Bush and pro-Sharon and through letting "new money" and a Jewish leader take over (a surprising number actually oppose the Iraq war, although from a kneejerk "vulgar Americans" old-Right position rather than a rational, thought-out one; the point is that this is one of many senses in which they feel that the Tory party no longer represents them; if they did feel that it still represented them they certainly wouldn't be this desperate because they would feel that their worldview could be brought forward through the democratic process).

this is some serious shit. this shit *matters*; nothing like this has happened in my memory, certainly not with the political spectrum this way round. and the sub-Jarvis '95 hard-Left worldview, tempting though it is (i often find myself falling for it), is ultimately playing into their hands, because WE end up making the same enemies as THEM. maybe Wienerisation *is* a lesser evil. the truth is that i don't know what i fucking think. but i do think that we have a moral duty to like "See It In A Boy's Eyes" from now on, because the thought of one of their own (and they do get VERY fucking precious about Sherborne School; OK NuLab don't but NEITHER DID THE WORKING-CLASS BOY MADE GOOD TORY MP WHERE I GREW UP IN THE THATCHER ERA, and THAT is where the anger started on their part, covertly, underneath) collaborating with a "nigger" (and they DO still say that, unequivocally in the old sense) related to "violent" "criminals" motivates them as much as anything else. it is all part of the wider battle that they see themselves as fighting. they know that in practice they've been usurped. but as always the formalities of the British state have lagged behind the actual practical workings of British life, which gives them theoretical powers. i doubt very much whether anyone affiliated to the NUM twenty years ago would have got this far (papers as diverse as the Independent and the Mail lead their front pages yesterday with the news that five out of the eight protestors have links to the Royal Family ... now who is the only person who can legally sack the government? ... again, 1974 IS CRUCIAL HERE).

i do wish we could get beyond Class War. i really do. i just wish we could put this hate aside. it ill befits humanity to be reduced to this level of tribalism. but at the same time i can quite see why it exists, though it is an indictment of this entire country that it does. the fact that Alun Michael has been intimidated out of attending events this weekend to celebrate the extension of the Right to Roam - the BIG thing that really does frighten the landed elite about NuLab, because it symbolises so much else, basically the whole idea of freedom, democracy and equality, that they oppose - shows how serious this shit is.

i'm still stunned, to be honest. but i've been predicting this sort of intense, quasi-military anti-government organisation and something close to civil war over hunting for years. it gives me no pleasure to say i was right, but i will say to those who doubted me, to paraphrase Mike Doyle after Man City beat United in the 1970 League Cup semi-final, "perhaps now you'll bloody well believe me".

(come to think of it, there is occassionally some fox hunting in the area where my dad grew up, and the only ppl i ever met who gave a shit were an English m-c couple)

reading some of dadaismus' post re: "the middle class" you'd think that doctors, lawyers and teachers spend their dinner parties planning how many council estate kids they can kill this week

Classic Carmody!

It's good to see Robin C posting, at length. Hello, Robin C - it is good to see you, posting at length.

I don't think 'class war' is a powerful emotional force in current British politics. I suppose that I think bigotry is. I expect that bigotry means 'violent prejudices that are different from my own', or something.

But what does 'something close to civil war' mean? - there was talk of people who want to hunt to carry on doing so after the ban begins and to take whatever punishment for breaking the law.

Tracer - I think many brits might not understand why guns are legal in america - i know analogies were drawn to gun control when I had a brief look at ohter foxhunting threads in the archives.

(Hmm. I seem a bit too marxist there: I'm left-wing, but probably not *that* left wing. I'll let it stand though.)

Middle England tells you all you need to know about these fuckers; anyone using such a godawful description can't be much good.

Isn't this our version of the culutre wars? ie, when politics becomes decoupled from economics, the battleground of politics becomes cultural, about a way of life, about 'standards'. The new 'classes' look like many of the older ecomomic classes because even though politics tries to depoliticise economics, economics are still there. This is the latest variant in a class war that's been rumbling for several hundred years, though in true British fashion, we've always thought that using such terms as class war was a bit intellectual. I think the crucial year isn't 1974 but 1689.

No, they spend their dinner parties planning how they can make sure their kids end up as doctors and lawyers and council estate kids end up on the scrapheap

Prison riot costs YOU £60m while THEY get McDonald's under 'human rights'

Matthew Elliott of the TaxPayers' Alliance said: 'Many taxpayers cannot afford to eat out at McDonald's because tax bills have risen so fast, so it is an insult to them that the rioters were essentially rewarded for their bad behaviour by being given Happy Meals at our expense.'

Many taxpayers cannot afford to eat out at McDonald's because tax bills have risen so fast

Is this from to-day's Daily Mail? This man is a complete idiot. People should be pointing and laughing at him.

Dear Matthew Elliott, please to record some new Third Eye Foundation records and stop wasting everyone's time with this "I don't pay my taxes so that poor people can go to hospital or be prevented from starving to death" nonsense. (What? Oh.)

Excuse me while I miss the point here, but who are these Taxpayers' Alliance goons? I saw them ranting about how Gordon Brown had written something silly and leftwing thirty years ago and therefore couldn't be trusted with the nation's hard-earned whatever. I pay taxes and I don't remember being asked what ridiculous opinions I wanted any Alliance to spout...

The TaxPayers' Alliance - About: Who we are
Good grief, they're all younger than me. Aren't you meant to get a bit older before you become so grumpily Tory? Early-20-somethings angry at lifetime (er, two years) of income tax burden!

Creak.

Happy Meals are an effective deterrent.

except in Hamburglar's case.

Good grief, they're all younger than me. Aren't you meant to get a bit older before you become so grumpily Tory?

Haha not any more! There's a new party that's sweeping the nation and it's called the Tories.

they are everywhere

Group Info Name: I don't care what you think, I love the Daily mail
Type: Organizations - General
Description: For years I've been bashed as a Daily Mail reader, but I don't care, because I can say that I read the Daily Mail and am proud to do so. Standing up for right wing middle England, it dares to say what no one else would. With the best sports pages and the best stories, headlines and editorials, is it any surprise it's one of the best selling papers in the land?

Come on, I know you're out there readers, stand up and be proud of the fact that you love the Mail, the paper for Great Britain. Let's stop this Mail- bashing and stand up for one of this nation's great institutions.

I strongly resent the implication that most Daily Mail readers have a lower IQ than those who read the Guardian, or other such broadsheets. Although it is true that many of the Mail's readers would be just at home reading the Sun, likewise many would be just at home reading the Telegraph. I fall into the second category.

The Mail's strength lies in its combination of celebrity-related and female-oriented magazine-type coverage and serious political coverage and comment. Much of its political comment is of the same intellectual level as you would find in any broadsheet: just take Melanie Phillips' column as an example. Before working for the Mail, Melanie Phillips wrote her column for the Sunday Times, and, before that, none other than the Guardian. She was recently voted one of the country's top intellectuals, and appears on Radio 4's most intellectual discussion programme, The Moral Maze.

The Daily Mail is a hybrid. Stop insulting those of us who read its intelligent sections.

It really is time white middle class home-owners started standing up for their rights, isn't it.

LOL @ the victim culture of modern reactionary conservatism.

Well, yes!

She was recently voted one of the country's top intellectuals

Oh, okay. I guess my vote spoiled.

"So! For once the rich white man comes out on top!" (C.M. Burns, 2007)

I really do not like those Taxpayer Alliance guys' faces at all

From on of the dude's articles:

A New York State of Mind, Whitehall & Westminster World, April 2006

You think that's a Nas reference?

I really do not like those Taxpayer Alliance guys' faces at all

agreed. i'm a taxpayer too, yo, and these people don't speak for me. i wish i could legally challenge their name.

xp more likely a Billy Joel reference.

that TPA website has someone's mobile number on for "press enquiries"...

we should set up CONTINUITY TAX PAYERS, for those who think taxes should be higher and not spent on trident...

Rich Liberals R Us

that one at the bottom was born in 85 FFS!!! he looks like a foetus.

elephant word in room: LIBERTARIAN

Rich Liberals R Us

not remotely rich, but thank you

http://tpa.typepad.com/about/images/2007/07/08/blairgibbs.jpg
In his spare time he enjoys swimming, reading and visiting gun ranges in the United States.

What did Oscar Wilde say about first impressions?

billy joel