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While he was writing The French Lieutenant's Woman, John Fowles came up with the line "the middle class is the only true revolutionary class in English history". For most of my life, it has been anything but. Terrified by Seventies union militancy, the middle class made a bargain. They did not mind the rich getting richer, as long as they could make money too. The banking collapse has broken that deal. For the first time in a generation, the middle class is directing its fury at the rich.
For instance, a TV programme called me in recently to talk about the astonishing failure of a Labour government to stick by its best traditions and regulate the bankers. I was fired up, but nowhere near as animated as the woman next to me in make-up. "Let them have it with both barrels," she cried. The woman in question was Rachel Johnson, sister of Boris. She was so sick of hearing the wives of west London bankers boast about their new yacht/pool/moated castle that she sounded ready to direct the tumbrels to Notting Hill Gate.
Or there's the Essex boy in telecoms who tells me his whole team are ready to leave because the management has sneakily cut their commissions on sales. A friend phones to say that she and colleagues are ready to form lynching parties after hearing that managers had imposed a pay freeze on them, then awarded themselves a bonus.
Anger is at its most intense among young workers, who have never known a recession, students who will graduate with nothing but debts to look forward to, and parents who know Brown will raise their taxes to pay for this mess, refuse to institute reform, then leave them with shrivelled pensions.
Naturally, the over-rewarded managers and speculators of my acquaintance are more complacent. But the Government ought to learn that they are the few, not the many, and accept that Labour is making an election-losing mistake by putting itself on their side.
When the Met said yesterday that middle-class anger could erupt on the streets, I am sure ministers found the warning ridiculous. The middle class taking to the streets? How un-English. But the powerful should heed Fowles's warning and remember that there is no sight on earth as peculiarly terrifying as the English middle class at the end of its tether.
Reader views (11)
[there is no sight on earth as peculiarly terrifying as the English middle class at the end of its tether]
(when the laughter subsided)
Is that so?
Are we about to see marauding bourgeois lining the streets of westminster armed with a rolled-up daily mail to swat any who defy them? or perhaps the nation will be cut to the quick with ascerbic vollies as fountain pen meet basildon bond?
In very coarse parlance: They would have to grow a set first!
- Marc Morris, London, UK, 19/03/2009 05:19
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The poor middle classes.
You are now getting a taste of what the ordinary man in the street has been getting for years.
How my aching heart bleeds.
- Steve, Gloucestershire, 25/02/2009 07:57
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Hitler, who early on had the unemployed working classes supporting him, finally came to power after the embittered and broken middle classes started to back him.
Worth remembering.
- Dave Morris, Sunderland, 24/02/2009 23:11
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The middle classes are revolting?.Always have been.
- Colin, barking essex, 24/02/2009 16:44
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There are only two classes: working and not. The former subsidise the latter.
- Nobby Clark, Perth, Scotland, 24/02/2009 16:16
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The real anger will come when those who have lost much of their Pension will be taxed to pay for public sector schemes they couldn't even dream of.
- R Jones, Bristol UK, 24/02/2009 15:47
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And, of course, Rachel Johnson, to most ordinary people, is seen as being privileged and wealthy!
- Brian Taylor, Oxford UK, 24/02/2009 15:06
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I think the reason the middle-classes have so far held on their tempers & not taken to the streets is because we aren't sure if that would improve this mess in any way. Make no mistake, ordinary 'professionals' are angry and getting angrier; those of us who work very hard in our jobs, for 30k pa, and can't dream of getting 'bonuses'.. look at these greedy financiers with disbelief.
- Suzyq, Essex, 24/02/2009 14:25
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From what I've been reading in the English papers this last couple of years I'm astounded at what you put up with.
England reads like a mythical place run by mad people.
Seems to me the Bulldog breed has lost it's bark.
- Ray, Ex pom in sydney, 24/02/2009 13:35
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It seems that the 2k9 equivalent of "Us" and "Them" is going to be the "Prudent/Taxpayers" vs. the "Feckless/scroungers"
Given the demographic mix in society, this could, if inflamed by the media, turn very nasty.
- Darius Midwinter, London UK, 24/02/2009 12:59
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"Smile at us, pay us, pass us; but do not quite forget,
For we are the people of England, that never has spoken yet."
- Roy, England, 24/02/2009 09:52
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