Soaring crime, mass immigration...why the white working class is fearful for the future

The white working class are far more pessimistic about Britain's future than their middle-class counterparts, a survey reveals today.

More than half said no one represented their views and that their quality of life had got worse over the past decade.

Some 71 per cent of those polled also said they thought crime rates had gone up in the past ten years, compared with 66 per cent of the middle class.

The survey was carried out by Newsnight as part of the BBC Two's White season, which examines what it means to be white and working class today.

Special programmes include Rivers Of Blood, which looks at the legacy of Enoch Powell's controversial speech, and The Poles Are Coming, which is billed as an "entertaining" look at the impact of Eastern European immigration.

Roly Keating, BBC Two's controller, said: "This is a timely look at how life has changed for the white working class in Britain.

"It will enable the audience to consider the views and circumstances of people who have a strong point of view."

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The Newsnight survey was commissioned to discover how the white working class - once viewed as the backbone of the country - feel about life in modern Britain.

In most areas, they were more pessimistic about the future and more negative about the last ten years than the white middle class, the BBC said.

Some 68 per cent of the middle class said they could no longer afford to buy homes in the area they lived, but 80 per cent of the white working classes said the same.

And 62 per cent of the white working class believe life in Britain has generally deteriorated over the last decade, compared with 51 per cent of the middle class.

The poll also suggested that opinion is divided about immigration, with 52 per cent of the white working class believing it is "a bad thing for the country", compared with just 33 per cent of the white middle class.

Asked whether they thought new immigrants had put British jobs at risk, more than twice as many of the working class thought it had.

The BBC has launched the White season on the back of concern about the role of the white working class in modern society.

In the documentary Last Orders, members of Wibsey Working Men's Club, just outside Bradford, even refer to themselves as "the forgotten people".

Commissioning editor Richard Klein told the Mail: "The voice of the white working-class is barely allowed to intrude into British politics or culture.

"In metropolitan circles, where sneering at any minority ethnic group would be regarded as an outrage, this white working-class opinion is all too often treated with suspicion or contempt."

He also attacked the pejorative use of the word chav.

"Any similarly abusive description of ethnic minorities would lead to police inquiries," he said.

The Newsnight survey was carried out on a random sample of 1,012 white British adults aged over 18. It will form part of a special edition of the programme at 10.30pm tomorrow.