Since the economic reform of the 1980s politicians like Blair, Thatcher and Prescott absolutely believe that the working class no longer exist and the majority of UK citizens are now middle class (Jones, 2011). This is most probably because they are afraid of the potential working class solidarity and the action it can generate as seen in the events of the Cuban revolution, the UK miners’ strike, the UK general strikes etc. In 2011 ‘Britain Thinks’ conducted research into class identification and results showed that around 71% of people claimed membership of the middle class (Shimshon and Mattinson, 2011). Great news! However the study barley holds any representation and generalisability for the UK population; the online poll used 2,000 participants which is the grand total of 0.003% of the overall residents living Britain, furthermore the study focused on areas of Leeds, London and Birmingham which means that it is difficult to generalise for other parts of the UK, especially when the rural South West and industrial North West aren’t taken into account.
However when party rhetoric falls short the media steps in with discrimination, alienation and mockery of working class communities; most famously the invention of folk devils such as ‘Vicky Pollard’ and’ Wayne and Waynetta Slob’ who are described and presented as feckless, drug using, lazy, benefit scrounging, lacking in self control and aggressive. These stereotypes help re-enforce unfair and fictitious views of the lower class in UK society which helps promote not only a hate and distrust towards them by the general population, but also leaving distrust among the working class themselves (Jones, 2011; Adams and Raisborough, 2011). Depictions of working class people using recreational drugs in TV shows like Shameless is the result of the increase in drug users, 40,000 extra, in the 1980’s under Thatcher, perhaps they forgot to mention it may be due to the ‘firing squad’ that the Tories led through their tearing up of public-sector jobs.
