A Matter of Class?

Now that the Election campaigning is in full swing,all manner of subjects have been brought to our attention by the media.Sure,we know the standings of the various candidates,but one thing really stands out by it's very absence.

The matter is class.

Oh,I know that to all accounts Britain is now a classless society,but did you know that two-thirds of land in Britain is owned by 189,000 families? How about the fact that half our company directors went to public school? In 2007 15 members of the shadow Cabinet had been to Eton.Maybe I'm being cynical,but perhaps it was coincidence.They must have sat around the table on the first day that the shadow cabinet was formed saying " Oh my god,and YOU went to Eton as well? How extraordinary"

But it doesn't end there.77% of high court judges went to Oxbridge,as did 81% of permanent secretaries and 83% of senior ambassadors.People say that the background of Oxbridge students has changed over the last 40 years.It has indeed.In 1969 38% of them came from public schools-now it's 45%...

If you really think that class has vanished ,take a look through a London A-Z.There are loads of roads in Mayfair with Grosvenor in the title.Do you know why? Because they are part of the 100 acre Grosvenor estate that is worth £10 billion (give or take a quid or so).The current Duke of Grosvenor aquired this by being born into the family that has owned the estate since 1622.Or take Portman square which is owned by the Portman Estate since the times of Henry VII,but they must be on hard times as it's only worth £1 billion.

All of this doesn't really mean much,because if like me and the vast majority that doesn't come from this background you KNOW breeding still carries huge privilege.Take the Army for example.How likely is it,that when there's an interview on the news with a soldier in Afghanistan,they'll speak in an Etonian accent? Or when they interview the Chief of Staff in the studio,they'll answer in Glaswegian,Scouse or Geordie?

There is a layer society that is brought up to beleive that it will rule.At their schools when asked to do subjects like WW1,instead of writing about what it must have been like to be in a trench,they're asked to construct a battle plan for capturing Verdun.Instead of being brought up to respect authority,they're taught to be authority.If these people found a tramp on the streets at Christmas,maybe they would welcome them in and ask what he wanted to drink saying "I'm afraid we don't have any Kestrel super strength-will Remy Martin 5 star be ok?" Their points of reference,their outlook and their standpoint on how they see society is shaped by the fact that they are from a different class.They know businessmen and people who have had inquiries named oafter them,people who if they were walking down the street and saw Bill Cinton,wouldn't think " Bugger me that's Bill Clinton!!"These are the people who ask if you've seen the latest production of La Boheme and really,seriously think there is a chance that you have.

I'd like to hope that the victors of the forthcoming election would not choose a person to be a member of the cabinet on the basis of what school they went to,but i'll not be surprised if they do.

Money,Money Money (or the lack of it)

Like most working people in the UK at present,I've recently been told that the pot is empty and as such there will be no salary increase for me this year.Yet again.

But I wonder if the many directors of the multitude of companies received the same news?
Did you know that in 2005,the average pay for directors of companies in the Financial Times index was £2.5 million? The average pay for company executives actually doubled between 2000 and 2004...This is 113 times the average wage...

Have you heard of a company called GlaxoSmithKline? Well their chief executive was hired for a salary of £3.6 million a year which in anyones standards is pretty good,but to really make your own salary seem worthless,he also insisted on a clause that meant if he was sacked he would receive £22 million.

Have you picked yourself up from the floor yet? Yep,I did write £22 MILLION.
imagine yourself as a fly on the wall at his interview when they only offered £18 million for dismissal:
"£18 million? is that all? You can't possibly expect me to take the job on those conditions?"

I bet that since he took the job,he's been turning up drunk,looking at porn on the internet at work in the hope that he'll get the boot,while the board say to themselves "we didn't really think this out did we?"

Sometimes people claim that they're worth the amount they are paid due to their ability to make companies succeed.Maybe this is why that in 2005 £807,000 worth of bonuses were paid to Jarvis execs for causing the share price to plummet from 566 pence to 9.5 pence.They also managed to being the ones to blame for the Hatfield fatal train crash...

Phillip Green,whose group owns Top Shop,Burtons and Dorothy Perkins, pays himself £3 million a day..He spent £4 million on his sons bar mitzvah,but hey we all like to spoil our children don't we? The only difference is that when I spoil my son,it's generally a trip to McDonalds.Phillip Green hires Beyonce.It would serve him right if.just before she was about to start,the boy said, "I've changed my mind,I want Britney Spears"

You're probably thinking tht I'm bitter and jealous.Nothing could be further from the truth.What really bothers me is that these super rich don't pay their way as you and I do.For example,Phillip Green's group declared a dividend of £1.299 billion.But £1.2 billion of this he gave to his wife.Who was a resident of Monaco and didn't have to pay UK tax.Maybe I'm being cynical,but maybe she was living there anyway and it's handy for the shops.This move saves the Greens £300 million,but that would still leave £1 billion.Surely they can get by on that? Or would Mrs Green scream "What am I supposed to tell the kids now? I won't be able to buy them an island this week-they'll have to make do with a lake!"

The UK government has said that tax avoidance is between £97 billion and £150 billion,whereas benefit fraud was less than £1 billion,so their obession with benfit fraud makes as much sense as if,after the great train robbery,the police had said "We have excellent news.The robbers have got away and are a vital part of the economy.But we did catch 3 passengers who didn't have a valid ticket"

Why is it that the more you earn,the more you can get away with?

I'll leave that with you.

That time of year or just my age?

I don't know if it's just that time of year when everything just seems to annoy me,or whether I'm just getting to,well,you know,'that' stage in my life.

The recent death of Malcolm Mclaren has brought back to me how I (and a lot of my friends) were in our younger years.The things that we were going to do were only limited by older people trying to stop us having fun. Personally I wanted to travel around and see what was around the corner,but somehow I ended up living in normality.

What about you?
Age is one of those things that just kind of creeps up on you.One minute your only real ambition is to get a new pair of Adidas Kick trainers instead of the second hand ones and everything is valued on how many leather footballs things cost.
The next thing you know you've become an well versed on government policy and an investment plan maturing is a REALLY exciting prospect.

I've finally realised that it's utterly futile trying to escape being forty.Why? Because no matter how you act,you'll still have friends that try to drag you into the world of forty-ness.I've stared in catatonic bemusement as someone explained "me and the missus had a row for ages about what bathroom suite to get" and all I can think about is how when they were younger they got drunk on cheap cider and decided to graffiti a bus shelter poster.I have a fear that one day I'll meet someone I once broke into an abandoned old building with and he'll say something like "If my isa performs,I'm hoping to take the family to the Lake District in the summer."

Probably the most depressing phrase from 40 year olds who've became to comfortable is "We've had the builders in doing an extension/loft conversion and it's been hell."

Righty ho then,so the medieval painters and poets that depicted several layers of hell with the bottom one portraying eternally tormented souls writhing about in perpetual agony as they boiled in molten lead knew about YOUR plight,they would have added an even more horrible layer,in which people had to walk round some bags of plaster and cement to get to the kitchen would they?

One of the shocking aspects about becoming forty is that once you get to that age it doesn't stop.You carry on getting even older than that..There follows another age,called forty one,then forty two and then each one comes round quicker than the last.You talk to a friend about the day you went to a party and ended up sleeping in the bath,saying,"that must have been 10 years ago" then you realise it was 1989.
There are endless shocks in store,such as the bloke who presents the news is younger than you are.Which can't be true.He's middle aged and grown up and says things grown up things like "That's all from us but there's more on our evening bulletin at ten o'clock."

I can't be older than him! But I am.The same thing goes for politicians and secretary of the FA.

As Malcolm Mclaren once said
To be bad is good ... to be good is simply boring."

Have fun people,I'll catch you next time.