In the news

Social climbers with an inferiority complex / I deserve X but didn't get it = Not a good combo for society...

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/may/15/food-writer-jack-monroe-sues-tory-mp-claims-she-makes-fortune-poor-lee-anderson?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

As much as UK libel laws can suck...get the popcorn ready for this one :)

tl;dr the upper classes are cunts who will spit in your sherry while you're off having a piss and blame the middle classes if you notice when you come back.

JRM training vid?

https://youtu.be/UDIHrX-Jp2E

Reese Mogg is an unpleasant human being. It has little to do with his ‘class’ Whatever the hell that means in the modern age.

Just keeping in touch from schooldays I have friends who bend their backs for a living, friends who use the phrase ‘shooting weekend’ and wear tweed, and friends who live in a smart mews house in South Ken and work for the BBC.

None of it makes them more, or less, a twat. That is entirely down to the individual.

I wish we could get over the class thing.

the phrase ‘shooting weekend’

Sorry but this does make you a twat. The rearing of pheasants in woodland destroys habitat, creates alot of waste, and is generally shit. So sick of the empty feed sacks and shotgun cartridges littering the woods near where I grew up. The keeping of grouse moors invariably involves the persecution of raptors, foxes and other predators. I'm speaking as someone who used to ride a horse and go fox hunting but have learned alot more about how precious our wildlife is over the years.

You don't have to be posh to shoot, but you do have to be a twat, or at least, ignorant and selfish

Yep - this.

I wish we could get over the class thing

After the war old chap.

I wish we could get over the class thing

Bit hard when there’s a total chasm between the haves and have nots. 🇬🇧 Tory Britain ftw 🇬🇧

For example (imo) just the fact that private schools exist make it hard to get over ‘the class thing’.

Reese Mogg is an unpleasant human being. It has little to do with his ‘class’

His perception of class, particularly where he thinks he deserves to be on the scale as opposed to where he thinks he is, has a fair amount to do with how he expresses his unpleasantness. It's not that he's a cunt because he's from a certain class, but a large chunk of his cuntishness is tied up in the notion of class.

Either that or he is simpylly trying to fit in with his wife's family. I'd love to know what they think of him.

haves and have nots

Is that class though or is that wealth? If people are saying that JRM can't escape his grandparents' class despite the uplift and wealth his father achieved.

I don't really have much opinion on it myself, it just seems the discussion isn't about wealth and the opportunities public school brings but something else. At what point can you become upper class - how many generations of Eton-goers does it take? Or is it never, until you marry in?

Also this thread has become a weird fetish around JRM, you lot know far too much about him.

.... a weird fetish around JRM

a weird fetish around JRM, you lot know far too much about him

Yeah. Agree. Really weird.

This sounds like the 'U and Non-U English' idea that's been around for ages.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U_and_non-U_English

A Tatler update for the modern age for those who are U (or possibly Non-U depending on how you view Tatler and it's place/readership)

https://www.tatler.com/article/nancy-mitford-u-and-non-u-language

Yeah. Agree. Really weird.

I think its weirder to not have an interest in the backgrounds, intentions and authenticity of your government ministers and other politicians. It helps to understand the authenticity of their opinions how much you can trust their judgement. It also helps you understand the overall political climate better. Each to their own though.

If people are saying that JRM can't escape his grandparents' class

What's difficult to escape is other people's perceptions of you - which is what it's all about, after all. Made harder by the fact that the rules aren't explained - "if you don't know the rules, you obviously aren't one of us and we may well not tell you that you're not one of us. We'll know, you'll worry". A lot of the general public think Mogg is a toff, but what do the toffs think? Which of those perceptions is more important to him?

I think its weirder to not have an interest in the backgrounds, intentions and authenticity of your government ministers and other politicians.

I agree - to a point, on the understanding that third hand sources are only so useful - but a lot of the comments on here that weirded me out were about the man himself rather than the game he's playing.

Isn't the point raised that the game he plays is a direct consequence of who he is and what he aspires to be?

Honestly, how do you presume to know who he is and what he aspires to be?

He's a cunt and aspires to be the biggest cunt possible.

how do you presume to know who he is and what he aspires to be?

You don't. You can't with somebody you don't know personally, but you can form hypotheses from both his actions and what other people write about him.

I kind of agree, but I would call them assumptions and opinions.

I mean, he's probably not my cup of tea, but he's something - I'd like to know what, but I don't presume I'll ever know.

Exactly. I totally appreciate its a wierdly nerdy level to get into politics. Just never crossed my mind that it would come across as creepy.

For me its a natural extension of all the management and business politics nerding I do for my day job.