The Ruling Class, Chavs and Stagflation.

There we are – a picture from Monty Python's Twit of the Year contest. Now that is what a lot of upper class people aspire to be.  In the sketch they are trying to walk along a straight line; I'm sure the upper class twits in real life have seen this sketch (who hasn't?) and yet they carry in being a twit.

Prince Harry is not an upper class twit in fact he, like his dad, would laugh at the sketch; twits have been a figure of fun on TV here for years and yet upper class twits still exist.

It was very hard to describe to my American friends just what the class system here is; in America there is no real class system and they don't have an upper class. They associate class with money whereas here the upper classes would never be so vulgar.

For example you would never see the upper classes buying furniture – they inherit it.

But the class system here goes right from the top to the bottom – to the under class.

The middle classes definitely look down on the working classes – even these days.

A lot of the working classes have become middle class and some of the middle classes don't like it so they have invented another class – the Chav.

The Chav, a few years ago, was called a casual or a Sharron, if you were a girl, or a Kevin, if you were a boy.

There is a Chav Test, rather like the 'U ' and none 'U' test which tested people to see if they were upper class or not. You could not be upper class if you were in trade or had to actually 'earn' money – that would never do.

The Chav has to drink cold lager, shop at certain shops, wear Burberry, track suits, shell suits, trainers, American baseball hats and – sounds a bit like an American here – maybe wear a hoodie.

The word Chav. I believe, is Romany for Boy – so you can't call a girl Chav a Chav!

The dictionary definition is informal , derogatory  ( Southern English ) “a young working-class person whose tastes, although sometimes expensive, are considered vulgar by some.”
By some!!!

It is just an excuse for snobbery. One part of society looking down on another part. The English are very good at it. Of course there is snobbery in America but it's more get up and go there; if you have the talent they don't care where you're from; as long as you don't live in a trailer park!!

And people here are not all snobs – there is just this 'class' system.

If you turned up at Buckingham Palace in a shell suit to meet the Queen and the Duke I'm sure 'Phil the Greek' would slip out and put a track suit on to make you feel comfortable.

But look at the experts who are running this country – just look at them. Do people have confidence in a Chancellor of the Exchequer who issues a ridiculous budget and then goes back on some of the things he felt so strongly about a few weeks ago?

What kind of confidence does that give people who want to invest here? Not much but money is flowing in to the country from Greece and Spain at the moment so what are the experts doing with it?

Here are the experts by the way, when they were boys and at the same school. Eton, of course, the famous public school:

(1) the Hon. Edward Sebastian Grigg, the heir to Baron Altrincham of Tormarton and current chairman of Credit Suisse (UK); (2) David Cameron, Prime Minister; (3) Ralph Perry Robinson, a former child actor, designer, furniture-maker. (4) Ewen Fergusson, son of the British ambassador to France, Sir Ewen Fergusson and now at City law firm Herbert Smith. (5) Matthew Benson, the heir to the Earldom of Wemyss and March. (6) Sebastian James, the son of Lord Northbourne, a major landowner in Kent.(7) Jonathan Ford, the-then president of the club, a banker with Morgan Grenfell. (8) Boris Johnson, the-then president of the Oxford Union, now Mayor of London. 9) Harry Eastwood, the investment fund consultant.

This one is from 1992, there are eight famous faces:

(1) George Osborne, now the Chancellor of the Exchequer; (2) writer Harry Mount, the heir to the Baronetcy of Wasing and Mr. Cameron’s cousin; (3) Chris Coleridge, the descendant of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the son of Lloyds’ chairman David Coleridge, the brother of Conde Nast managing director Nicholas Coleridge; (4) German aristocrat and managing consultant Baron Lupus von Maltzahn; (5) the late Mark Petre, the heir to the Barony of Petre; (6) Australian millionaire Peter Holmes a Cour;(7) Nat Rothschild, the heir to the Barons Rothschilds and co-founder of a racy student paper with Harry Mount; (8) Jason Gissing, the chairman of Ocado supermarkets.

Gawd help us!!

Now a word about my last post; I had an email about stagflation. I said it was another story.

Stagflation is when high unemployment coincides with high inflation. According to Keynes, if I remember correctly, it can't happen if Keynesian economics are adhered to correctly but when it did happen, in the 70s, under Keynesian policies, they called it stagflation; someone made up the word: a cross between stagnation and inflation.

It seriously damaged the Keynes economic philosophy and turned people back to Adam Smith. 
But Adam Smith was from the 18^th century and he believed that free market economies are more productive and beneficial to their societies. Did he mean beneficial in terms of profit or beneficial in quality of life. Did he mean it looks after the poor and weak with regards to health care, welfare, education or did he mean it will make a profit for the country and the people making the profit can throw the scraps to the hungry?
I think he meant in the world of profits.
He felt that an invisible hand had a control over markets and I often wonder what his answer to the world economic crisis in 2008 would have been.
But back to stagflation: I remember reading in The Guardian in 1976 (yes I have that kind of memory) that as two million men lost their lives in the first world war there was no baby boom as in 1945.
Sixty years after The Somme, there was no mass retirement in the work force so those millions of vacancies in the job market didn't arise so they had high inflation and high unemployment.
I think the current government here are using Adam Smith's economics and trying to reduce the deficit that way whereas the Americans under Barack Obama are using Keynesian economics and spending their way out of the recession.
And in any case – what's the deficit?
Answers on a postcard to 10 Downing Street.

When we lived there (America) unemployment was over 11% and the economy was on its way out – now unemployment has reduced drastically and the economy is growing; so which is the best way austerity or growth?