Yes class mobility does exist, i.e. there is empirical evidence of it happening, but it presupposes that one has to have some kind of innate quality (e.g. a willingness/ability to 'get on one's bike' to paraphrase Tebbit) in order to climb the ladder to the hallowed middle classes.

It's the belief that this is actually possible for all people in a society that leads to the rejection of the notion of a welfare state, for why redistribute wealth when the working classes could pull themselves up by the boot-straps and earn a decent living? This is not my view by the way, I'm merely trying to illustrate that a belief in the power of class mobility is in direct opposition to a belief in socialism. Socialism assumes that there is a natural order to society where some will be less well off than others due simply to accidents of birth and compensates those people so that they are equal in some respect.

Your wife's mother-in-law.. that'd be your mum, wouldn't it?

</bored>

i'd say my point about the queen actually made completely the opposite point.

to flip it, if a working class family win the lottery - say £10 million, that doesn't suddenly make them middle class. just working class people with a lot of cash.

oh, and the reason working class people make a huge deal out of the class system, is because we're the ones who are oppressed by it. where have i said that hard work makes you a better person, that hard work is the preserve of the working class?

what i do say, is that if you're working class you're disadvantaged from day one. you're the kids going to the underfunded state schools, the ones being pushed towards shitty mcjobs by the education system (and i speak from bitter experience) because hey - that's all you're worth and anyway, some fucker's got to sweepthe streets. you're also the ones more likely to seek solace in the drugs that pervade so many working class areas because what the fuck else is there? just look at so many ex-mining communities now, fucking swamped with unemployment and heroin addiction.

no, that doesn't mean that all working class people are victims. that all working class people have no hope. that we can't aim higher, do better, fight for a better life. but it sure as hell is a darn sight harder than if you've been born into a middle class family with all the advantages that brings.

i could go on, but it's a friday night and there's drinking to be done. a good old fashioned w/c past time if ever there was one! ;)

Actually ignore anything i say tonight. I'm evil, a blonde tie-dyed bird in a pub said so tonight. good!

>I've not heard The Others

You lucky bastard!