0:00

is The Guardian. Today,

0:10

a personal journey through the British class

0:12

system. Ryan

0:20

Ryan Reynolds here for Mint

0:22

Mobile. I don't know if

0:24

you knew this, but anyone

0:27

can get the same premium

0:29

wireless for $15 a month

0:31

plan that I've been enjoying.

0:33

It's not just for celebrities,

0:36

so do like I did,

0:38

and have one of your

0:40

assistance assistance to switch you

0:43

to Mint Mobile today. I'm

0:45

told it's super easy to

0:48

do at Mint mobile.com. Okay,

0:57

so I am in sunny

0:59

Reuten in Oldham in Greater

1:01

Manchester and I'm about to

1:03

call in on Guardian writer

1:05

Danny LaValle. He's

1:13

staying with his brother at the moment. Blinds

1:15

are drawn but I hope he's remembered

1:17

I'm coming. You have remembered I was just

1:19

worried that the blinds were short. Hello,

1:21

hi. Danny is 38 years old. He's a

1:23

published author and an award -winning freelance writer.

1:26

but he still can't afford his own

1:28

place, and is currently bouncing between his

1:30

brother's council house and his mum's home. There

1:33

are a lot of contradictions in Danny's life.

1:35

He's hard to pigeonhole, especially when it comes

1:37

to class, a topic he's been obsessed with

1:39

and confused by for as long as he

1:41

can remember. So, you know, my

1:44

early years would have made

1:46

me quite bourgeois and then,

1:48

you know, my later life

1:50

would have made me a

1:52

proletarian, I suppose. And

1:54

now, obviously, I write books and

1:56

I write for the Guardian, which is

1:59

bougie in it? I felt

2:01

like I was in class limbo, just

2:03

not quite fitting in with any particular

2:05

class. Danny

2:08

has been on a voyage of discovery to try

2:10

to work out what class he is. It

2:12

had always confused me. I always felt

2:14

like I was in this neverland between working

2:16

and middle class. So yeah, I was

2:18

just I was just I've just confused by

2:21

that really. So I wanted to make

2:23

sense of it all. In

2:28

a country still consumed by the class

2:30

question, he wants a straight answer. But

2:33

it's not an easy task. After all,

2:35

what is class anyway? Is

2:39

it the money you make, the car you drive,

2:41

the way you talk, or what your parents

2:43

did for a living? Or is it

2:45

something else entirely? From

2:50

The Guardian, I'm Helen Pid. Today

2:52

in Focus. What it really means

2:54

to be working class in Britain in

2:56

2025. Danny

3:04

Lavelle, welcome back to Today in Focus.

3:06

Thanks very much for inviting me here

3:08

today. So we're sitting in the living

3:10

room of your brother's house in Reuten.

3:13

in Oldham in Greater Manchester. And

3:15

we're having this conversation today because you wrote

3:17

a really interesting piece for the Guardian about

3:19

trying to work out what social class you

3:21

are. And class is a huge

3:23

topic of conversation still in the UK today, particularly

3:25

in England. George Orwell wrote, England

3:27

is the most class -ridden country under

3:29

the sun. It's a land of snobbery

3:31

and privilege ruled largely by the old

3:33

and the silly. Just can you

3:35

start by telling me why have you always been obsessed

3:37

with class? I think it's

3:39

because my background was so

3:42

muddled so I grew up

3:44

in like a two

3:46

up two down terrace house

3:48

raised by a single

3:50

mum but then she married

3:52

a solicitor so we

3:54

experienced rapid social mobility moved

3:57

to a bigger house

3:59

and then things broke down at

4:01

home so I went into the care

4:03

system lived on council estates, foster placements

4:05

all over Manchester, some

4:07

of the roughest neighbourhoods in

4:09

Manchester. Then I got

4:11

expelled from school, started

4:13

working at the age of

4:16

16, 17, and it was

4:18

a converted cotton mill in

4:20

Oldham. They didn't make cotton. It

4:22

was like... It sounds like Victorian times, Danny.

4:24

No, it wasn't quite Victorian. We

4:27

weren't on a spin in Jenny

4:29

or whatever, but just loading and

4:31

unloading containers. Then

4:33

from there I did like night

4:35

classes, got to university, but then

4:37

as I graduated I was sleeping

4:39

rough. We made an episode about

4:41

that period in Danny's life a few years ago.

4:44

We'll link to it in the show notes on the

4:46

Guardian website. But to cut a

4:48

long story short, Danny ended up on the

4:50

streets after racking up rent arrears during a

4:52

period of poor mental health and heavy drinking.

4:55

Never able to build any kind of safety

4:57

net for himself thanks to a succession of

4:59

precarious jobs. When he

5:01

was living rough, he blamed himself. But

5:03

now he sees his homelessness as a consequence

5:05

of repeated failures when he was at his

5:07

most vulnerable, from school to his care home,

5:10

as well as by the police and social

5:12

services. He writes about it

5:14

really beautifully in his book, Down and Out,

5:16

Surviving the Homelessness Crisis. But

5:18

you can see how this background has made him

5:20

confused about class. One of

5:22

the ways that people distinguish what class

5:24

they are is according to what their

5:26

parents, what their grandparents did. Tell me

5:28

about your parents and grandparents, what they

5:30

did. So my grandparents

5:32

were raised in Liverpool,

5:35

in Walton, come from what would

5:37

be considered a working -class household,

5:40

a council estate. But they

5:42

got scholarships to university and

5:44

became teachers. My grandmother was

5:46

a geography teacher. I think

5:48

my granddad eventually became a

5:51

head teacher. And obviously

5:53

my mum grew up with

5:55

them. she would have

5:57

been seen as quite middle class

5:59

but then obviously when she

6:01

had me she had to raise

6:03

me on her own and

6:05

we moved to a terrace house

6:07

just a simple terrace house

6:09

until she married my stepfather and

6:11

then we experienced I guess

6:13

social mobility in a way so

6:16

like from the outside looking

6:18

in that I'm proper middle class

6:20

right but also I don't

6:22

when I worked at Sainsbury's and

6:24

at the mill I didn't fit in there either,

6:26

I got the piss taken out of me constantly. For

6:28

what? Not

6:31

for being like, well yeah, when I grow

6:33

up, when I grow up and older, if

6:35

you say actually, that's enough to get you

6:37

a kick in, you know what I mean?

6:39

They think you're a snob. Actually?

6:41

Yeah, they even say in the word actually. What

6:44

should you say instead of actually? I don't

6:46

know, but that's what I mean. So

6:49

yeah, I've never quite fitted

6:51

in anywhere. That's where

6:54

the confusion arose because like how can

6:56

I be middle class if I'm

6:58

at the age 17 I'm working in

7:00

Cottonville living on the council estate

7:02

So what class am I like? There's

7:05

another kind of class classic marker that people

7:07

use when they're talking about class Which is they

7:09

might ask what kind of school you went

7:11

to if you went to private school Most people

7:13

would probably say you can't be working class

7:15

although you could argue about that because you go

7:17

on a scholarship Can you just tell me

7:19

a little bit about your schooling? Well,

7:22

my schooling is fairly non -existent. I think

7:24

I got expelled from every school I went

7:26

to. I even got expelled from a special

7:28

school. So

7:30

yeah, my schooling ended when I was

7:32

15. I left school, 14 or 15

7:34

left school, and then I

7:36

was on the doll from age 16 until

7:38

I got a job. And

7:41

so you left school with no

7:43

qualifications, sounds like? No, no. nothing.

7:45

And then, but you did manage

7:47

to end up at university and

7:49

how did you go from leaving

7:51

school with nothing to getting not

7:53

one but two degrees? Well,

7:56

so like I said,

7:58

I worked in the mill

8:00

and then I did

8:03

shelf stacking jobs with Light

8:05

Sainsbury's. And I also

8:07

worked as a gardener for Oldham Council.

8:09

So when I was working as a

8:11

gardener for Oldham Council, I was doing

8:13

night classes at Tameside College. I did

8:15

an Access to Humanities course. So

8:17

I did that in the evenings

8:20

and then I got accepted at

8:22

Manchester Met Uni. I did

8:24

history. But obviously my

8:26

life broke down at that point

8:28

for various reasons. I think

8:30

at my graduation ceremony I was living in a

8:32

homeless hostel and before that I'd spent a

8:34

bit of time on the street. So,

8:38

when I was living in the

8:40

hostel I got accepted at Goldsmiths

8:42

and I did an MA in

8:44

Journalism. In London. In London. Moves

8:46

to London. I won

8:48

a writing prize with the Guardian, so that's

8:50

how I got my foot in the

8:52

door at the Guardian. I did work experience

8:54

with you. I was going to ask

8:56

if you remembered that because I remember it

8:58

very vividly. It was probably at least

9:00

10 years ago, I think. I was the

9:02

Guardian's North of England editor a job

9:04

I did for a long time until I

9:06

became today's focus presenter. I really remember

9:08

you turning up on the first day and

9:10

I took you to some harrowing trial

9:12

at the Manchester Crown Court. I

9:16

hope I don't offend you when I say this,

9:18

but you seemed a bit like a fish out

9:20

of water. And as I always said to work

9:22

experience people I was taking to court, I was

9:24

like dress smartly, you need to wear proper shirt,

9:26

proper shoes. Don't worry about a tie,

9:28

but maybe a jacket. And you were just like, well, I

9:30

don't, I don't have any of that. And you

9:32

turned up in your trainers and a polo shirt.

9:35

Do you remember that? Yeah, I

9:38

do, yeah. And at that point,

9:40

were you still consumed by the idea

9:42

of class? And were you comparing

9:44

yourself to people at the

9:46

Guardian, people you were seeing in court.

9:48

Yeah, I had what I think

9:50

people describe as imposter syndrome. So when

9:53

I was at the Guardian, you

9:55

know, there's a lot of people

9:57

who, I don't know, sound

9:59

like an inverted snob,

10:01

but have Oxbridge education, speaking

10:04

RP, you

10:06

know, but you know, they're all lovely people. Don't

10:09

get me wrong. Yeah, a bit of like

10:11

a fish out of water. It's just completely alien

10:13

to me. Can

10:24

you just tell me about your

10:26

life kind of right now in

10:28

terms of your housing accommodation, income,

10:31

how secure you feel, savings, things

10:33

like that? Right, so

10:35

yeah, I've got, I'm on a casual

10:37

contract with The Guardian doing news

10:39

reports, but then that's quite precarious because

10:41

some months I've, you know, I

10:43

might have 12 to 15 shifts, like

10:45

this month I've only got three. And

10:48

then the rest of it depends on

10:51

my pitches for features being successful. Happily

10:53

this one in class was commissioned. So

10:55

that, me if you could. And

10:58

also I write books, but there's

11:00

not much money in books unless

11:02

you're Richard Osman. Right?

11:07

So yeah, my income is quite precarious.

11:10

I live at home. I've moved

11:12

back in with my mum. And

11:14

I live also here with my

11:16

brother. So you're balancing between the

11:18

two places? Yeah, yeah, so I don't

11:20

have like, I do have a home,

11:22

let's be clear, but not living it

11:24

up, you know I mean? And

11:27

is it a sort of conscious choice

11:29

to not have your own place? No,

11:31

I kind of thought, I mean, I did,

11:33

I rented in London for ages, but all

11:36

I could afford were box rooms. I

11:38

remember one flight I had, I could touch both sides

11:40

of the wall if I stretched my arms out to

11:42

the sides. So I'd rather

11:44

move home and maybe save some money and

11:46

then maybe I can put down a

11:48

deposit. That's in the back of my mind,

11:50

but I think that's a pipe dream

11:52

at the moment unless things get better. I

11:54

don't want to spin you a sob

11:56

story, but you asked. Yeah, but

11:58

doesn't that tell us something about

12:00

Britain today that somebody ate well

12:03

into their 30s? Yeah,

12:05

30s, yeah. And you don't even live

12:07

in London anymore? No. Living in Greater

12:09

Manchester? and getting your own place is

12:11

just out of reach. Well yeah because

12:13

I think years ago someone like me

12:15

doing this job probably would be okay

12:17

by now probably would have my own

12:19

place and a car and all the

12:21

rest of it. Yeah.

12:24

But not anymore. For

12:35

this article that you wrote recently for

12:37

the Guardian, you kind of went on this

12:39

voyage of discovery to try and figure

12:41

out once and for all where you fit

12:43

on the class kind of spectrum. And

12:45

when you started out, did you have an

12:47

idea of what class you would like to

12:49

be? That's a

12:51

good question, Alan. Yeah,

12:54

because I think... working class has a

12:56

romantic quality to it. It's cooler,

12:58

isn't it? It is cooler, yeah. The

13:00

working class hero and all that,

13:03

what John Lennon sang about. So

13:05

yeah, I was hoping that someone would

13:07

give me a class diagnosis and that

13:09

diagnosis would be pro, proffered,

13:11

died in the world. That's

13:13

what I hoped, yeah. And, you

13:15

know, people have written many, many

13:18

books about class and there are so

13:20

many contested ways in which you

13:22

can determine a person's class and there's

13:24

no hard and

13:26

fast accepted way to work

13:28

it out. But what was

13:30

your starting point? When you

13:32

started on this voyage of discovery, were there

13:34

certain things that you'd be like, if you

13:36

do this, eat this, wear this,

13:38

think this, you're working class. If you

13:41

do this, you're middle class. And if you

13:43

do this, you're upper class. Yeah,

13:45

sure. There are superficial markers, aren't there

13:47

for class? So as soon as you hear

13:49

someone speak, If they have a regional

13:51

accent, I think you would assume that they're

13:53

probably working class, or at the very

13:55

least lower middle class. Clothes

13:59

that one wears, you

14:01

know, what I'm wearing now, trackies, trainers, hoodie,

14:04

that's just how I've grown up. So I

14:06

think people would just, you know, make judgments

14:08

based on that. So yeah, there

14:10

are all these superficial markers. That

14:13

that people use to identify class, but

14:15

I don't think it necessarily follows just

14:17

because you were sports gear you taught

14:19

the regional accent that you are working

14:21

class or middle class or whatever and

14:23

I guess that there are broadly Arguably

14:25

three different ways that you can approach

14:27

social class So I mentioned George Orwell

14:29

at the start. There's his approach which

14:31

looks at it kind of from a

14:33

socio -cultural point of view

14:35

and there's certain signifiers that can point

14:37

to what class you are. And then there's

14:39

the sociologist approach which puts people into

14:41

demographics. So these categories, A, B,

14:43

C1, A, B's are the professional, then

14:45

you get down to C2, D's and

14:48

so forth, which are kind of people

14:50

who do manual jobs. And then there's

14:52

the Marxist approach, which I know we're

14:54

going to talk about, which looks primarily

14:56

on asset ownership and who is making

14:58

money off other people's labor. And

15:01

so when you set off

15:03

on your voyage of class, discovery.

15:05

What did you learn about

15:07

how people have tried over time

15:09

to define different social classes

15:11

in the UK? Well,

15:14

I started off with Marx

15:16

because I think he's the

15:18

most prominent voice on class

15:20

issues. So I tried to make

15:22

sense of his work. And

15:24

I honestly think his writing is a bit

15:26

like Shakespeare in the sense that it needs

15:28

translations and the margins. So

15:31

I didn't It's

15:33

really difficult to read, so that's why I got

15:35

in touch with Ken Loach. Because

15:38

his entire career has been

15:40

focused on class warfare and

15:42

things like that. Very successful

15:45

British film director. Class

15:47

has been at the heart of many

15:49

of his films. I am Daniel Blake,

15:51

which looked at what happened when a

15:53

worker lost his job, was sick, but

15:55

crucially not quite sick enough for the

15:57

benefits. Yeah, he distilled it for me

16:00

in Marxist terms. The

16:02

excellent thing is that those who

16:04

sell their labour are the working class

16:06

and the those who profit from

16:08

it are the ruling class. The class

16:10

system is a simple binary. You're

16:12

either a working class or

16:14

capitalist ruling class. So you either

16:16

work for a wage or

16:18

you pay someone a wage. So

16:21

you're ever making money from

16:23

your own work or you're making

16:25

it from someone else's. Do

16:27

you think like the

16:29

traditional Marxist... The class still

16:31

hold up today. I

16:34

think they hold up today

16:36

more than ever before really. Initially

16:39

when I grappled with that it

16:41

didn't really make sense to me

16:43

because under that very reductionist definition

16:45

a Premier League footballer is in

16:47

the same class as a zero

16:49

hours cleaner. yeah because they're getting

16:51

paid by the club albeit millions

16:53

a week maybe yeah so that

16:56

didn't make sense to me because

16:58

their lifestyles are so different one

17:00

is living a precarious life where

17:02

the rug could be pulled out

17:04

um underneath them at any minute

17:06

i knew the ones living a

17:08

life of Riley so that's why

17:11

i broadened my research and i

17:13

spoke to a sociologist called Dan

17:15

Evans from University of Swansea Dan

17:20

had a similar background to

17:22

me where he experienced a class

17:24

limbo of sorts. His

17:26

mother's side, as the family described,

17:29

was solidly middle class, where

17:31

his father's side was quite working

17:33

class. I think his dad worked

17:35

in the steel industry. And

17:38

he wrote A Nation of

17:40

Shopkeepers, which talks about cultural

17:43

variations within the

17:45

same class. And he

17:47

touched on the petty

17:49

bourgeoisie, so shopkeepers, plumbers, lecturers

17:51

and people not being

17:53

paid a wage but, you

17:56

know, they're self -employed, right?

18:00

In his book... Evans

18:09

argues that because working class means anyone

18:12

who eats chips and has an accent,

18:14

which of course can be anyone, middle

18:17

class has similarly become an almost

18:19

totally useless term to describe

18:21

a set of nebulous behaviors and

18:23

posh consumption practices, which could

18:25

include anyone from the petty bourgeoisie

18:27

to comfortable professionals right the way

18:29

up to the actual royal family.

18:32

When you have this conversation with Don Evans,

18:34

did you find it helpful in kind of

18:36

clarifying your thinking? When I thought

18:38

about it some more it didn't make

18:40

sense because what it seems to

18:42

me is that Evans is talking about

18:44

social distinction, he's talking

18:47

about lifestyle or quality of

18:49

life rather than class. So

18:51

I did more research and

18:53

I stumbled upon Mike Savage's

18:55

research, he's a sociologist with

18:57

the London School of Economics

18:59

and he helped put together

19:01

the Great British Class Survey

19:03

by the BBC. So

19:05

those seven classes, the elite,

19:07

the established middle class, the technical

19:10

middle class, new affluent

19:12

workers, the traditional working class, emergent

19:14

service workers and the precariat. And

19:17

online, they have a class calculator

19:19

where you're feeding your personal details, your

19:22

job history, your education, your

19:24

living situation. And

19:26

that spat out precariat for me. So

19:28

I went back and did it

19:30

again. And I had to fess up

19:32

to, yeah, I suppose I do

19:34

like classical music and I suppose I

19:36

do like the theatre. I've been

19:38

down again, as well as liking games,

19:40

video games and football. And

19:43

then it spat out emergent

19:45

service worker. So I'd experienced rapid

19:47

social mobility just because I'd

19:49

changed my hobbies slightly. So

19:51

I've got it up now. Emergent service

19:53

workers. This class group is financially insecure,

19:55

scoring low for savings and house

19:58

value, but high for social and cultural

20:00

factors. According to this great

20:02

British class survey results, lots who in this

20:04

group are young, enjoy a cultured social

20:06

life and rent their home almost 90%. And

20:08

so you said that when you filled

20:10

in the survey, this is what you came

20:12

out as. Yeah. Does that ring true

20:14

to you? Young, cultured social life, rent their

20:17

home. It does. Because it

20:19

rings true, I'm not quibbling with the

20:21

veracity of it. What

20:23

I'm saying is it's not

20:25

describing class, it's describing lifestyle

20:27

and... quality of life, which

20:29

is fine. Quality of life and

20:31

lifestyle are probably more important than class.

20:34

I think class is just a simple,

20:37

it describes a simple economic relationship. Whereas

20:40

your lifestyle and your quality of

20:42

life is really, they're more important groups,

20:44

this is our society, I think. Coming

20:49

up, can the Gallagher

20:51

brothers still call themselves working class? Ryan

21:05

Reynolds here for Mint Mobile.

21:07

The message for everyone paying

21:09

big wireless way too much.

21:11

Please for the love of

21:13

everything good in this world,

21:16

stop. With Mint you can

21:18

get premium wireless for just

21:20

$15 a month. Of course if

21:22

you enjoy overpaying, no judgments,

21:24

but that's joy overpaying.

21:27

No judgments, but that's

21:29

weird. Okay, one judgment.

21:31

Anyway, give it a

21:33

try at mintmobile.com, Under what

21:35

your lashes are destined for? The

21:37

cards have spoken. Mabeli New York

21:39

mascara does it all. Whether you

21:41

crave fully fan lashes with lash

21:44

sensational, big bold volume from the

21:46

colossal, a dramatic lift with falsies

21:48

lash lift, or natural looking volume

21:50

from great lash, your perfect lash

21:52

future awaits. Manifest your best mascara

21:54

today. Shop Mabeli New York and

21:56

discover your lash destiny. Shop now

21:58

at Walmart. We

22:04

talked about this at the

22:07

start about why we're so

22:09

obsessed with class in the

22:11

UK. And I wonder if

22:13

you think that how we view

22:15

classes changed over time, that previously people

22:17

might be trying to keep up

22:19

appearances to try and make themselves seem

22:21

more well to do than they

22:23

are, whereas now maybe people go in

22:25

the other direction to kind of

22:28

cosplay being working class. Do you know

22:30

what I mean? Yeah, I

22:32

do know what you mean.

22:34

Yeah, so... So you just walk

22:36

around Shoreditch and it's just

22:38

it's it's it's cosplay working class

22:40

Shoreditch is a hip area

22:42

in London Where you can pay

22:44

12 quid for a sandwich

22:46

Because it's artisan it was it's

22:49

artisan right there's a shop

22:51

in East London called labor and

22:53

weight which sells like Wooden

22:55

just pans and brushes and brooms

22:57

Yeah and second hand clothes

22:59

and also second hand over that

23:01

the vintage hell and the

23:03

vintage clothes which means you've got

23:05

to pay more and so

23:08

yeah it's kind of cosplaying and

23:10

working classes you see him

23:12

now like a lot of people

23:14

going to these you know

23:16

the oasis concerts that are coming

23:18

up that would be dripping

23:20

in booze you know stuff you

23:22

know people wearing parkas and

23:24

bucket hats like they grew up

23:26

in that 90s era and

23:29

they probably paid hundreds and hundreds

23:31

of pounds for them. And

23:33

the tickets themselves are close to

23:35

a grand aren't they? And

23:37

Oasis is a working class band

23:39

from where I used to

23:41

live in their long sight, but

23:43

it's not enjoyed by people

23:45

on lower incomes now, can't be.

23:48

And since you've just mentioned Oasis, that would

23:50

probably be a classic example of, I'm

23:52

pretty sure that Noel and Liam Gallagher would

23:54

claim that their working class grew up

23:56

to more or less single parent family in

23:58

Burnidge, a kind of working

24:00

class area of Manchester. But

24:02

now they are multi, multi

24:05

millionaires. If you climb

24:07

up the ladder like that and you

24:09

earn so much money, can you still

24:11

be working class? Again, for

24:13

me, based on my understanding of

24:15

class and my definition of

24:17

it, yes. But

24:19

then so what? If they don't

24:21

have any staff, they're not making money

24:23

out of anyone. They're just

24:26

making money from their own labor.

24:28

Then yeah, they're working class. But again,

24:31

I don't think classes, this is

24:33

what I've come to realize.

24:36

It's not this important concept. So

24:38

in terms of their social distinction,

24:41

they're rich. Yeah,

24:43

that's the important thing, they're really

24:45

rich, so no, they can't claim to

24:48

be like, you know, having a

24:50

hard life. Yeah, and do

24:52

you think in British

24:54

society now, people are clinging

24:56

on to the idea of being working class?

24:58

Because it's more romantic, as you said, it's

25:00

kind of cooler to be working class in

25:02

spite of the sort of evidence of what

25:04

they're doing now in their lives. Well,

25:07

yeah, and the example I used

25:09

is Lord Alan Sugar. he's

25:11

a billionaire but he's very quick

25:13

to make the point that

25:15

he grew up as a working

25:17

-class kid in London who had

25:19

to hustle on market stalls

25:21

to make money and you know

25:23

fair enough but you're not

25:26

working -class now by any definition

25:28

you're you're part of the capitalist

25:30

elite so you're you know

25:32

you're upper -class capitalist class whatever

25:34

you want to call it you're

25:36

not working -class Alan.

25:39

Sure he'll be gutted when he listens

25:41

this. But you know his attitudes and

25:43

interest might have been formed very young

25:46

and they might remain with him but

25:48

again those are those superficial marks I'm

25:50

talking about. How does being

25:52

interested in the opera or classical music

25:54

put you in a different class

25:56

than someone who's interested in football and

25:58

action films? Do you know I

26:00

mean? It's just it's nonsense. But

26:03

do you think there's a situation where you

26:05

can Be firmly part

26:07

of the bourgeoisie the middle class,

26:09

but you retain kind of working

26:11

class habits or views I don't

26:13

know because you're on dangerous ground

26:15

when we're talking about like the

26:17

views of the working class because

26:19

that what's that because I just

26:21

think people are individuals. Yeah This

26:24

is where it gets all muddled

26:26

for me This is why I

26:28

think what's happened is that people

26:30

are confused in class with social

26:32

distinctions. So Angela

26:34

Rainer, the deputy prime minister, she

26:36

was, I don't want to say caught

26:38

because it's not like she was doing

26:40

anything wrong, but she was filmed dancing

26:43

in a beaver when a DJ was

26:45

playing the house music set, I guess.

26:47

And she got criticised for that. I

26:49

don't know why, but she did. And

26:51

then she says, I'll do, you know, I'm

26:53

working class, I like a dance. And I just

26:56

thought, well, Doesn't

26:58

don't the upper classes like dancing as

27:00

well. Yeah And and do you

27:02

think I'm not sure if you're kind

27:04

of agreeing about people be able

27:06

to change class but say like the

27:08

Oasis example we gave I mean,

27:10

they certainly got richer whether they change

27:13

classes It sounds like you think

27:15

that they didn't but do you think

27:17

you can go in the other

27:19

direction? Is that what you think you've

27:21

done? Yeah, let me try to

27:23

still that's the that's the prejudice ad

27:25

because I saw class through to

27:28

this lens that you're talking about where

27:30

it's social distinctions like I'm defined

27:32

by markets such as education your employment

27:34

your salary all those things but

27:36

what I've come to realize is those

27:38

things are not they don't describe

27:40

class so of course if you if

27:43

you're a shopkeeper and you employ

27:45

some assistance and then you go bust

27:47

and then you end up having

27:49

to to get a job then yeah

27:51

you've gone from being bourgeois part

27:53

of the capitalist class to being working

27:55

class so it's that simple to

27:57

me i think class ultimately does come

28:00

down to a simple binary and

28:02

that's why it's it's not that deep

28:04

of a concept it is just

28:06

describing are you making money from your

28:08

own labor be it through wages

28:10

or making you know being self -employed

28:12

or are you making money off someone

28:15

else's labor That's what class

28:17

is. There's two classes and that's it. It's that

28:19

simple But is it helpful at all when

28:21

as you said, you know, you'd be a high

28:23

court judge be a high court

28:25

judge and you're paid by the

28:27

Ministry of Justice. I eat the taxpayers

28:29

and you're working class Yeah, well,

28:31

that's why people shouldn't look at it

28:33

like that. It's just this it

28:35

describes this very simple relationship people have

28:38

with the economy Okay, so yeah,

28:40

it's it's not that useful at all

28:42

Really your shopkeeper, you know employing

28:44

a few staff. Okay. They're part of

28:46

the same class as Elon Musk

28:48

technically But in real terms it's not

28:50

not at all But that's where

28:52

that's where it becomes relevant to us

28:54

You've got that in our society

28:56

especially you've got very few people at

28:58

the top of society who command

29:00

most of the wealth and then you've

29:02

got then in our society you've

29:04

got people he was struggling

29:06

to put food on the table

29:09

and and and heat the households

29:11

and you got that people like

29:13

Elon Musk he he's he doesn't

29:15

make money from his own work

29:17

he makes it from everyone else's

29:19

including taxpayers yes and all these

29:21

massive companies are paid for by

29:23

us subsidies not only other people's

29:25

work but they're the taxes on

29:27

top of that But

29:29

that's where it becomes relevant to

29:31

us. In our society,

29:33

especially, you've got very few

29:35

people at the top of society

29:37

who command most of the

29:40

wealth. And then in

29:42

our society, you've got people who

29:44

are struggling to put food

29:46

on the table and heat their

29:48

households. So

29:50

the metaphor I use for classes,

29:52

it's like, a commuter train.

29:55

So you've got first class at the front

29:57

and it's really roomy. Everyone's chilling, throwing salami

29:59

about, you know what I mean? And then

30:01

you've got everyone else in the carriage. throwing

30:03

salami about. I don't know. I just saw

30:05

cartoons of rich people. There's always salami

30:07

being chucked about on that. And

30:09

then she got the carriages

30:11

behind and everyone's, you know, some

30:14

people are fortunate to get

30:16

seats. So those, those would be,

30:18

you know, lawyers and that

30:20

in going back to the real

30:22

terms. But most people

30:24

are stood up and crammed together, you

30:26

know, staring into their phones, wondering why they

30:28

do this every day. And

30:31

every year it seems the first

30:34

class carriages have fewer people in

30:36

them and there's more and more room

30:38

and everything is more crammed and

30:40

the carriages are behind them. So

30:42

how long are we going to put up with this

30:45

before we just decide, well, we're going to take the other

30:47

carriages because ridiculous. What's

30:49

your conclusion about your own status? What

30:52

class are you? I'm working class

30:54

in terms of that simple Marxist definition,

30:56

but if you want to get

30:58

into social distinctions, I mean, that's up

31:00

to other people. I suppose I'm

31:03

fairly middle class, but it's interesting. I

31:05

don't believe the middle class exists.

31:07

It's not a thing. How do you

31:09

define middle class? It's based on

31:11

all these artificial, superficial markers, like I

31:13

said, accent, your job, your

31:16

address, all those things.

31:18

So that's for other people. If people want

31:21

to see me as middle class, that's

31:23

fine. But in strict Marxist economic terms, which

31:25

are the only terms that make sense

31:27

to me, I'm working class. And so I.

31:29

So there. Danny,

31:31

thank you very much. Oh, thank you for

31:33

having me. That

31:36

was Danny Lovell. Thanks so much to

31:39

him. I'd really recommend his book. It's

31:41

called Down and Out, Surviving the Homelessness

31:43

Crisis and it's out now. I

31:45

also really recommend the article that

31:47

inspired this episode. The headline is

31:49

My Life in Class Limbo. Am

31:51

I working class or insufferably bourgeois?

31:53

And you can read that at

31:55

TheGuardian.com. Danny first started working

31:57

for us at The Guardian through

31:59

our Emerging Voices Award. It's open

32:01

to people between the ages of

32:04

16 and 25 who have a

32:06

state school background backgrounds, particularly those

32:08

with low associate economic background, black,

32:10

Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, those

32:12

who are LGBTQ plus and those

32:14

with a disability. and also

32:16

the Guardian runs something called the

32:18

Scott Trust Bursary. It helps students

32:20

who face financial difficulty gain the

32:22

qualifications to pursue a career in

32:24

journalism. And finally, there is

32:27

also the Guardian's positive action scheme,

32:29

which offers paid work experience each

32:31

summer to people with disabilities, people

32:33

from Black Asian minority ethnic backgrounds, and

32:35

for the first time this year for

32:37

people from working class background. Now,

32:40

I'm afraid that you have missed the

32:42

boat to apply for both of those

32:44

last schemes this year, but you can

32:46

find out details of how to apply

32:48

next year at The Guardian Foundation .org

32:50

slash programs. And that's all

32:52

for today. Today's episode was produced by

32:54

Alex Atak and presented by me, Helen

32:56

Pid. Sound design was by Rudy Zagadlo

32:58

and the executive producer was Elizabeth Cassin.

33:01

We'll be back tomorrow. This

33:10

is The Guardian. Under

33:22

what your lashes are destined for?

33:24

The cards have spoken. Mabeli New

33:26

York mascara does it all. Whether

33:28

you crave fully fan lashes with

33:30

lash sensational, big bold volume from

33:33

the colossal, a dramatic lift with

33:35

falsies lash lift, or natural looking

33:37

volume from great lash, your perfect

33:39

lash future awaits. Manifest your best

33:41

mascara today. Shop Mabeli New York

33:43

and discover your lash destiny. Shop

33:45

now at Walmart. is brought to

33:47

you by aura. Imagine waking up to

33:50

find your bank account drained, bills for

33:52

loans you never took out, a warrant

33:54

for your arrest, all because someone stole

33:56

your identity. Hackers aren't waiting. Why are

33:59

you? That's why we're thrilled to partner

34:01

with aura. Your personal data is a

34:03

goldmine for hackers, and aura helps lock

34:05

it down. aura monitors Your personal data is a goldmine for hackers, and aura helps lock it down. aura monitors the dark the dark

34:08

web, blocks data brokers from

34:10

selling your information, includes a web, blocks data brokers from selling your information, includes a VPN for private

34:12

browsing, and a password manager to

34:14

secure your accounts before criminals break

34:16

in. blocks data brokers from selling your information, includes a VPN for private browsing, and a password manager to secure your accounts before criminals break in.

34:18

For a limited time, ORA is

34:20

offering our listeners a 14-day free

34:23

trial plus a dark web scan

34:25

to check if your personal information

34:27

has been leaked, all for free

34:30

at ora.com/safety. To sign up and

34:32

start protecting yourself and your loved

34:35

ones. That's a-u-r-a.com/safety. Terms apply, check

34:37

the details. site for details.