Don’t be fooled by Mr Ordinary – the Tory leader is a member of the ‘overclass’, says david lindsay |
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David Cameron's prominence draws attention to what I call the overclass.
Like the underclass, this emerged in the 1980s as result of the policies of the Thatcher Government, and became entrenched in the 1990s.
The overclass is at least as cut off as the underclass from life as it is normally lived. However, it is much less numerous, concentrated almost exclusively in one corner of the country, and much more pernicious economically, socially, culturally and politically.
Although related, its members have none of the social conscience of the old aristrocracy, rather regarding their enormous wealth as 'merit', and as entitling them to behave in absolutely any way they see fit, not least with regard to drugs.
Between 1688 at the latest and 1914 at the earliest, Britain's political life was defined by the struggle between the expanding middle |
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| The middle class has been conned into believing its own interests are identical to those of Cameron or George Osborne |
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and the top. There might have been dire consequences for the emerging working class, but the process eventually delivered it the means of redress. Yet the middle class has now been doubly conned.
It has been conned into believing that its own interests are identical to those of David Cameron or George Osborne (when, in reality, Cameron demands that Blair condemn calls for curbs on City bonuses, while Osborne rushes to defend private equity funds).
And it has been conned into believing that the skilled working class is indistinguishable from the characters in Shameless when, in truth, there is little difference these days in terms of income, concerns and often even taste.
The actual median wage for full-time work is around £23,000: that is the real middle.
It seems that Cameron has not seen or heard the last of that Bullingdon Club photograph. Good: he must not be allowed to sell himself, Blair-like, as just an ordinary (if vaguely upper-middle-class) husband and father in early middle age. He is not. 
FIRST POSTED MARCH 5, 2007
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