What Can Thatchers Death Tell Us About What Class We Are?

Recently, one of the most shared items on the BBC website has been the class calculator, it asks questions like: "Do you work in a mine?" and, "When was the last time you ate caviar?" or "How well do you know the Queen?"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22000973

Obviously, people are enraged that they have fallen into the middle class category instead of their beloved working class, others are upset that they are not considered the landed gentry, and instead have fallen into the middle class category. Everyone seems to be middle class but no one wants to be.

As the world comes to terms with the news of Baroness Thatchers death, emotions are running high; never, has a British leader polarised public opinion so much. Some see her as a trailblazer of feminism, as the first female British Prime minister. Others see her as a harlot who paved the way for the privatisation of all things British, a woman who masterminded a class war against her own people, a woman who declared war over 40square miles of farmland to try to revitalised her waining popularity.

I'm obviously going to steer well clear of the politics because I don't really know anything about that sort of thing. BUT I am going to offer the people who were upset by the results of the BBC class calculator an alternative class calculating system, and you don't even need a calculator, you just need a twitter account and a basic understanding of the 5 times table.



All you need to do is to log into your twitter account and look at 20 items on your feed.

This is an example of a lower middle class tweet; Anti-Thatcher with a bit of humour, something that the working classes don't really have the time or the mental capacity to work up down to them being all tired from working in the mines.



 

This one is decidedly working class, mainly because this is the kind of joke that gets told after a hard day sweeping chimneys in the Weatherspoons, or the kind of pubs that puts down sawdust and hosts Karaoke and illegal bare knuckle boxing. The joke itself only works when being spoken, seeing as the joke's set up is in the ambiguity as to whether the word 'fucked' is metaphorical or literal, this ambiguity is lost when @_______ demystifies the joke by using the word miners (ie: people who work in mines) which has a different meaning to the word 'minors' (ie: children) Ultimately the joke doesn't work, much in the same way that the working classes don't work, because they all just claim benefits and stuff.

 



 

This is the middle middle class, sympathising with the working classes but desperate not to want to upset the upper class in the hope that one day he will break the glass ceiling. The fact that he veers more towards the working class view betrays his own deep seated knowledge that he will never be accepted by the aristocracy.

 



 



 

 

 

We are now reaching the upper echelons of the class system, this tweet doesn't acknowledge the negative legacy of the Iron Lady, he simply uses it as an opportunity to attack the left. Welcome to the upper middle class, people.

 

 









If your news feed is full of these kind of Thatcher comments then it is likely that you live on a 50 acre estate in Chipping Norton, live on fois gras and brussel sprouts and other posh food that you can't get in Iceland (the shop, not the country, obvs!) The upper class, landed gentry, whatever you want to call the 1% see Thatcher completely differently to the working classes, middle classes and all the other subclasses in between. Fortunately for Thatcher, these are the people who control the present, they are the people who write history, so for all the thousands of negative remarks about Thatcher, the voices that will be heard in the echelons of time will be people like Cameron and Ian Duncan Smith.

 

Anyway. All this is starting to sound an awful lot like commentary, I could have been mistaken for taking a position at that point WHICH I DON'T! I just want to help you guys calculate your class without having to resort to the horrid vile liberal conspirators, the BBC Class Calculator... so, here goes.

 

FINDING OUT YOUR CLASS:

 

Pick 20 Thatcher tweets in your news feed, each one of them represents 5% (please refer to the 5xTable left for you, if this confuses you) if a tweet has a spelling mistake, that falls into working class, if it is witty and slagging off Thatcher, then it's lower middle class, if it's all solemn but still critical of her then it is middle middle class, if it is simply using the event to slag off 'the left' then it is upper middle class. If it is a load of tearstained wank about losing the greatest leader of our generation then it is upper class.

 

EXAMPLES:

 

you may find that your final tally looks something like this.

 

Working Class: 65%

 

Lower Middle Class:20%

 

Middle Middle Class: 10%

 

Upper Middle Class: 10%

 

Upper Class: 10%

 

If that is the case, you've got it wrong, you have ended up with 115% which is more than you should have counted, this means that you cannot follow simple instructions or do basic maths. You are definitely working class, now get down the job centre you Dole Scrounge!

 

Working Class: 30%

Lower Middle Class: 45%

Middle Middle Class: 20%

Upper Middle Class: 5%

Upper Class: 0%

 

With this percentage, you are definitely lower middle class, you probably like Frankie Boyle because he is being ironic.

 

Working Class: 0%

Lower Middle Class: 0%

Middle Middle Class: 0%

Upper Middle Class: 0%

Upper Class: 100%

 

If it looks like this the chances are you are going to be middle middle class, all desperate to join the elite few and doing everything you can to try to join the ranks of the Elite. you are a fucking class traitor and you sicken me. Just kidding, nothing wrong with a bit of ambition ;)

 

So anyway, with tensions running high and people arguing over the legacy of Thatcher, what better way to defuse the situation than to kill a bit of time working out what class you are? 

 

Isn't that what modern politics is all about? knowing your place?