White Working Class Britain

[Globalti]

Hmmmm... I se your point but I'm afraid I think most working class men would view a call centre job or a restaurant job as poxy "McJob" and a bit girly. You would see it from a modern, liberated male (I assume you're a male?) and probably "educated cyclist with quite PC attitudes" point of view; I believe the really admirable jobs were those involving large noisy machines, spectacular constructions or appreciable quantities of product as well as a fair amount of damaging discomfort borne with working class fortitude. Mining, fishing, shipbuilding and textile production would all fit into these categories.

 

[walker]

I don't think the goverrnments are at whole to blame, It is the working industry itself. In britain and most countries, cheap labour comes from abroad in the shape of immigrant's legal or not. Whereas British people have more overheads shallwe say than 'Andre Pudilovski' from Poland, who, just got off the boat, only thing he has to pay out for is his cheap rented flat in South London, so will work for less that 'Peter Smith' who has a Mortgage, a car, 2 kids, but also likes to socialize outside of his home. The employer is going to choose Andre over Peter as he is asking for less money.
If you pop into any shop in Central London, who's Rental fee's are higher that anyone else, You will come accross more staff that hardly speak any English that you will do a Brit, and I mean a proper Brit, not someone who has gained a passport through being here 3 years.

 

[Canrider]

Oh, I agree with your analysis: 'Men's work' in some quarters apparently doesn't count unless it involves something heavy.
Thing is, I doubt people who subscribe to that notion would then turn around and say that..what, Warren Buffett is girly? Donald Trump (barring the ridiculous hair-thing)? Think Glengarry Glen Ross or Pushing Tin for cultural references to what I'm trying to get at here.

 

[User482]

On a related topic: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/helen_carter/2008/03/no_longer_newsworthy.html

I've made this point before - lots of kids sadly go missing every year, but only the photogenic middle class ones tend to stay in the media coverage for any length of time.

 

[Globalti]

Canrider, you've got a PM.

Who is Warren Buffet? A Welsh catering specialist? Sorry - you lost me on some of the other cultural stuff as well!

Talking about the Welsh - I remember once sitting in a pub in North Wales and seeing a small boy sitting on his Dad's knee. The lad reached out for a rag someone had left and started mopping up some beer spilt on the table. His Dad snatched the cloth away saying "don't do that son, that's women's work". Even I was shocked!

 

[GaryA]

(before you ask, yes, I have been re-reading Pirsig)

Ah yes read it a long time ago....convoluted-serpent-eating-its-own-tail like discussions on quality and meaning...the godhead may have once have resided equally in the gear transmission of a motorcycle on the side of the road as in the cherry blossoms on the tree but not anymore...like most impliments motorcycles have been commodified, technified and chipped so only the techno-loyal high priests have access

 

[Globalti]

....despite that the book did change the way I felt about life, as predicted on the cover.

 

[Canrider]

Warren Buffet is the wealthiest man on the planet. I presume he doesn't frequently find himself operating an industrial drill press, but I also presume your average 'man's work' advocate wouldn't think him, or his job, effeminate.

Glengarry Glen Ross is a play and later movie about struggling estate agents trying to move commercial properties. Again, there is nothing effeminate about how their work is portrayed, quite the reverse in fact, more similar to the 'out for the main chance' attitudes you'd find in more recent British gangster films such as Snatch or Layer Cake.

Gary, yes, I was thinking more of the comments regarding the difference between working as a mere servant of the machines, versus using the machines to do skilful work.

 

[theclaud]

Is there an option for the same poll but without the word "white" in it? As Redcogs says, there is a working class and they are quite easily defined, although class aspiration and class mobility confuse the issue. Anyway, the working class (of all colours) was quite explicitly abandoned when New Labour ditched Clause Four (although arguably Labour didn't always represent their interests too brilliantly before that). I entirely agree that the question is worded in a way that attempts to exploit racial tension within the working class - a classic BNP strategy, shamefully employed quite often by the major parties as well. Seeing as the main parties are all very keen to represent the interests of the corporate, managerial and ruling classes, they can't possibly represent working class interests effectively, whether they have forgotten them or not. The Department for Trade and Industry has now become the Department for Business, Enterprise and Usery Reform, FFS, and Digby Jones is at its helm - what more evidence do you need?

 

[Elmer Fudd]

The white was only mentioned as its part of the bbcs white season, same as their black season. At no point did I intend any racial disharmony, it was just a phrase to use.

 

[Globalti]

Anybody see the prog about the working mens' club in Bradford last night? Desperate.

 

[Aint Skeered]

Damn right!! I called a firm to get a price to fit a Velux window in my attic. The guy quoted me £1000. It's half a days work tops. Chuffin' crooks!

Was it a reputable company?, if so that's not bad. Everyone needs to make a living. The company would have overheads etc.
I get pissed off with people bleating on about my prices,saying things like " my mate said he'll do it for £****" , well let him do it, chances are he will have no insurance, the wrong equipment, and probably do a half arsed job of it.
Quality and experiance costs.

 

[simon l& and a half]

I'm going to run this by you, and see what you think....

If we (or those of us who are old enough) were to go back thirty years and predict the future of the UK's racial politics, I doubt many of us would have predicted the present. Pre Thatcher mass unemployment there was a sort of layering of society. There was, and still is, an assertive black middle class in Brixton, and Idi Amin had gifted Leicester and parts of West London entrepeneurial Asian minorities. This isn't to generalise, but, thirty years ago we might saw the beginning of an unlayering.

All that 'fixed, fast-frozen' stuff has gone. It's true that the majority of Bengalis in East London live in comparitive poverty, but the assumptions that accompanied the layering are the preserve of the nostalgic. Poland has delivered a short sharp shock, from which 'we' will never recover. Now, this is a fantastic thing. A wonderful thing. Go back to the days when Enoch Powell was worshipped by millions, and ponder our progress. It's brilliant in the most cheesypeas kind of way.

The dilemna is encapsulated in the 'fixed, fast-frozen' thing. People have lost their points of reference. The folk in the Bradford club might be sad, but for real sadness you should see a tube train of people reading the Metro. The past is a mixed blessing. It limits you, but it also supports you. However hopeful I am about the new London, I'm damn sure that the millions who have been swept into the big diagram are saying goodbye to something precious - whether it be in Dagenham or Bucharest.

I suppose the question is this. Laying down tradition and common understanding takes a while. Will the new battalions of IT clerks emerge from their Facebook profiles with something to think about? I cling to the thought that cities are intensifiers of experience, and that experience can be shared and built on. The Metro-reading masses may yet prove me wrong.

 

[Renard]

There is nothing worse than a self-hating white working class...

 

[LordoftheTeapot]

Anybody see the prog about the working mens' club in Bradford last night? Desperate.

Didn't see it. But keep looking out for my appearance in 'White'