Why is it acceptable to mock the working class?

You may laugh. You may have gasped in disbelief. But yes, it’s true, we now have a new socio-economic classification, known collectively as the ‘working class, benefit class, criminal class, and/or underclass’.

This, is at least, is the latest addition to the list of ‘traditionally disadvantaged groups’ especially welcomed by The Camden People’s Theatre, North London, in a job advert – alongside the more familiar(-ish) categories of ‘D/deaf and/or disabled’, ‘neurodiverse’, ‘LGBTQ+’ and that other newby for our times: ‘global majority’.

This new umbrella category was made known on X by charity worker Anne-Marie Canning on Monday, and the advert has since gone viral, attracting much derision, not least for its anachronistic and confused taxonomy. As the art consultant and writer Manick Govinda put it: ‘I’m from a working-class background of Mauritian-south Asian descent. I feel completely patronised and insulted by a neo-Victorian classification system.’ Another asked: ‘who identifies as “criminal class?” The Krays?’

Most who did express incredulity were aghast, foremost, at the crude lumping together of ‘criminal class’ and ‘working class’, as if the two were somehow overlapping or simply the same thing.