Class is back

…and the divisions are more bitterly felt than ever

Until recently, the British middle classes felt quite good about themselves. The class war was over, and they had won it. Pretty much everyone wanted to join the middle classes. If they were not already members, the way things were going they very soon would be. ‘Embourgeoisement’ was the sociologists’ word for what was happening. Contrary to Marx’s flight plan, the bourgeoisie was turning out to be the preferred destination of History. No longer was British society shaped like a pyramid, with a steepling summit of idle toffs and an enormous broad base of deprived and discontented proles. It had already become more or less diamond-shaped, tapering sharply in numbers and influence at both the top and the bottom. At this rate, Britain would soon look rather like a cottage loaf, with both its upper and lower crusts nicely rounded into conformity with middle-class values and lifestyles.