Posh Bashing

[drew]

Vicky Pollard. A character created by two publically educated millionaires to poke fun at the lower classes.

Rather selective when you take into account they poke fun at all aspects of society

I really think the "politics of envy" is one of the most ridiculous concepts around. If I am against fox-hunting, it is supposed to be the politics of envy - what rubbish.

There are seriously rich people who manage to use their wealth to do seriously good stuff for people worse off than themselves.

The current posh basing bit is surely more about multi-millionaire cabinet ministers making decisions which favour the rich and militate to make the poor poorer, or to treat them inhumanly. I genuinely think that most of the cabinet - even that most people - don't realise what life is like for those who are really up against it.

This. If they came across as more philanthropic they wouldn't get attacks on their background. Instead of considering them as posh perhaps you should look at it on the basis that it is unearned privelage
.

 

[father_and_son]

Two points if you'll indulge me...

Posh and Rich are NOT the same thing.

You can be posh and be very poor (Stately Homes are expensive to maintain if you only inherited the home and not the business empire which first built it!).

Likewise you can be very rich and common as muck (Lord Sugar always strikes me as in this category - the man has no class at all!)


The posh have always been ridiculed by the working class, just as much as they ridicule the working class - such is the tribal nature of the human spirit.
The rich have always been envied by the poor - such is the greedy nature of the human spirit.

If you are rich and posh you are disliked by more people than if you were just rich or just posh!

Secondly...
Add to this the great British tradition of putting people on pedestals then knocking them off again and you get result suggested by the OP. By action, or lack of, we put this government into power because we got fed up of the last one, critising them for being Champagne Socialists and out of touch with their working class roots. We now have one that is being critised to being rich/posh and out of touch with other people's working class roots! It is both our right and our hobby to knock the political elite that we put into power!

 

[keaton]

Let's be honest, it's not is it?

It is.


And people have been taking the piss out of the wealthy in England for at least 500-600 years, i'm surprised you're only just noticed

 

[Peteinblack]

I really think the "politics of envy" is one of the most ridiculous concepts around. If I am against fox-hunting, it is supposed to be the politics of envy - what rubbish.

There are seriously rich people who manage to use their wealth to do seriously good stuff for people worse off than themselves.

The current posh basing bit is surely more about multi-millionaire cabinet ministers making decisions which favour the rich and militate to make the poor poorer, or to treat them inhumanly. I genuinely think that most of the cabinet - even that most people - don't realise what life is like for those who are really up against it.

This.

 

[wellquickwoody]

So did I - it must run in the family!

Anyway, it became acceptable when the rich and wealthy continue to earn millions whilst us plebs struggle to pay our bills.

So exactly why should plebs earn millions, and be rich and wealthy?

 

[DJ Leon]

Since when has it become socially acceptable to publically lambast and discriminate against people because of their background and ubringing?

I have seen countless examples of this on TV, radio and social media since the Tories came into power. Imagine if it was done the other way round?

I don't think it has become 'socially acceptable to publically lambast and discriminate against people because of their background and ubringing'.

However, in the context you specifically refer to -the background of our government (the cabinet is drawn from a wealthy elite and from a frighteningly narrow educational background) it seems pretty damn proper to criticise them for making the poor (and not the rich) pay for a crisis that was caused by the rich in the first place.

 

[seagullsovergrimsby]

As is the whole "Big fat gypsy ......" series of mockings.

Let's be honest, for every Tim Nice But Dim there is also a Wayne & Waynetta Slob.

More like for every Tim Nice But Dim there are also 500 Wayne & Waynetts Slobs.

 

[Common as Mook]

Just seems to me that in a world of political correctness (and rightly so in a lot of cases) this form of argument and condemnation is archaic to say the least

 

[Biscuit]

When I read the title I thought this was a thread about Peterborogh.

I thought it was about Prince Charles having a wank

I thought it was about White Collar Boxing.

 

[gazingdown]

It's probably worth remembering that politicians were voted in by the public, they didn't "inherit" or "buy" their MP status.

 

[ROSM]

The candidates in the last Labour leadership election were hardly a representative cross section of society either. Andy Burnham jumps out as the exception.

However I think the reason for the rise in instances recently are probably down to the policies being carried out and the perception of the main beneficiaries and losers. So pasties and warm pies are generally seen as a working class food. Granny tax changes can be seen as directed at the poorer in society, the reduction of the highest rate of tax is seen as benefiting the well off.

But the piece here is the perceived lack of empathy from the current Conservative leadership. That may or may not be true. Cameron has spent a long time trying to present himself to be not 'someone who believes they were born to rule'. As a PR man he knows that is key but his recent facade dropping and outbursts in parliament make it easy to caricature him. Its a story because he actually had done quite well in presenting himself in a more charming light. Now that's dropping then he's fair game. As Matthew Norman wrote in the Independent this morning, the world suspected Bill Clinton was a womanising rogue so when he was found out, nobody was susprised. George W Bush was seen as dim so he was forgiven for it. If the latter who was a tea totaller had been exposed as a heavy drinker then reaction would have been different.

 

[Dirk Gently]

I don't think it's so much about class and privilege. I'd say it's more that we now have "career politicians". People go to university with a planned career-path into politics, so this is what we tend to end up with from both parties : politicians with no real life experience and who only know the closed world of politics but nothing else.

Oh, for the days when people used to go into politics as a way of "putting something back" after a successful life, a life spent gathering real experiences of the way the world works and what it's like for real people.

 

[gazingdown]

I don't think it's so much about class and privilege. I'd say it's more that we now have "career politicians". People go to university with a planned career-path into politics, so this is what we tend to end up with from both parties : politicians with no real life experience and who only know the closed world of politics but nothing else.

Very true, I'm not convinced that loads (from all parties) of PPE->Spad->politician route is good for the country....and I suspect there's a lot more in the wings waiting.... There's a balance to be stuck somewhere.........

Oh, for the days when people used to go into politics as a way of "putting something back" after a successful life, a life spent gathering real experiences of the way the world works and what it's like for real people.

I'm not convinced politicians of previous eras were quite how you may think to portray them. Some socialists were borderline communists (or even fully fledged ones), many Tories were the gentry etc. More recently we've had 2 working class tory leaders (Thatcher/Major) and conversely, arguably less working class labour leaders.

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

That was a reply to a specific comment.

Yes - it was a specific reply to the politics of envy comment, but I think it is more about attitude than anything else, and that bashing people just becuase they are posh - or just because they are rich is going in to the area of sweeping generalisations, and also agreein that posh and rich are (by no means) the same thing. I think it is more about prejudice and discrimination than anything else. You can't lump all "posh" people together. You can't lump all "rich" people together. Ypu can't lump all "poor" people together. Individuals have different sets of circumstances which have formed them and different attitudes to what they have or have not.

 

[Common as Mook]

Good article this. From the Guardian too

m.guardian.co.uk

 

[repomanse25]

its all got very political

 

[Rambo]

When I read the title I thought this was a thread about Peterborogh.

I thought it was going to be about shagging Victoria Beckham, disappointing or what?

 

[Superphil]

What about the millionaires daughter, born with a silver spoon in her mouth, who was arrested and charged after joining in the croydon riots, is she a posh chav?

 

[RexCathedra]

Money can insulate you from hassles.
if you're properly Posh, you don't ever need to know you're being bashed, you can buy yourself one helluva bubble.

The really rich are invisible.

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

Trouble is I can't really imagine Mr Cumberbatch playing, say, Rodney Trotter or Citizen Smith..... but maybe he could and maybe someone should give him a chance.

And I would not have thought people get "bashed" just because they are posh. Surely there are normally other contributing factors. Senior politicians who are Oxbridge and Public School educated and are multi-millionaires in their own right do not attract public sympathy when they maintain "we are all in this together", because they do not suffer like many others. I don't want to get in to political arguments - it is just the obvious example.