'I went to eton (but my kids talk like yardies)'

RIP anne feeney 

 “a fearless and formidable force for justice and workers’ rights onstage, in the studio, and on the picket line” - tom morello (rage against the machine)

 the two myths of social mobility (ladder as pyramid)

horsemouth attended an online birthday party/ quiznight for his old friend denise (who sings on volume three and named the track amarach or volume four).

jonnie and denise were there, dave and claudia were there, graham and fiona were there and of course your humble narrator was there. as soon as horsemouth had managed to win a quiz he retired for the evening. (but this was already quite late on).

'I went to eton (but my kids talk like yardies)'

this was essentially the complaint of david goodhart. he was in the difficult position of being the only etonian on a panel discussion about social mobility (together with timandra harkness, sadie ryan, selina todd. the panel host was matthew sweet (who for once horsemouth found annoying).

selina was there as the author of snakes and ladders: the great british social mobility myth.

now social mobility is the compensation for the great british class system, you may be destined for the factory floor and a life of penury and precarity because of the accident of your birth but by pure talent and hard work you can rise up to become a valued member of the middle class and who knows (if you are talented enough) you may even be allowed to marry into the upper class.

it is generally held to be a beautiful thing when the social mobility escalator is working and a terrible thing when it is not. there is at least an individual or family solution to to the treatment of 90% or 50% of the population as mere beasts of burden (huzzah). we are shown the ladder we are not shown the pyramid against the side of which it rests.

any notions involving a radical democratic equality simply do not occur to the british. instead (in their spare time) they wander slack jawed in wonder round the whole stinking edifice gawking like tourists.

it being britain these social changes are reflected in the way we speak. there is an official hierarchy of accents where the braying of the posh is considered to be more correct than regional accents, accents that mark you out as being a member of the middle class, a member of the working class and the language of the street and the gutter. broadcasting has led to bbc english an exaggeratedly correct version of the spoken language from which, in their informal moments, the middle class may safely depart.

horsemouth should, of course, have a south wales accent (it's where he grew up), instead he has a standard middle class accent buffed down with a little cockney (where he lives now). when he was growing up the south wales accent was not considered fashionable (if he'd known it was going to be fashionable he would have kept a mild version of it).

now language we may all deploy equally (it does not require capital or factories) so it is now perfectly possible to play a good game of regional accent (as long as the grammar is correct) or even a good game of bad grammar and the language of the street (if you are posh enough to recover from it later).

but these are not matters of political power and social justice - these are just observations of one's position within the social machine. the way up and out, in the valleys of south wales in the 70ies horsemouth and his class mates were told was through education.

but peak equality has been and gone.

david goodhart (author of head hand heart and equalities advisor to the government) worries that we don't value the manual and caring skills enough (but not enough to do them himself you understand, his concern is for society). (thus do the philosophers ensure that a chair is bought for them and food is put on their table). he takes particular ire with the over education of the poor, in particular the blairite social engineering where fully 50% of children were to go to university. surely that is too many (opines the philosopher from his table).

this attempt to raise up 50% of the population is (of course) doomed to failure (the working class will have degrees but not the middle class security that the possession of the piece of paper should entitle them to) but also was rapidly sabotaged by the government introducing a system of fees and loans for higher education. thus ensuring that the aspirants are hobbled with debt (as they ascended the ladder) and thus remain precarious.

a generation of politicians that had benefited from a free university education has pulled the ladder up after themselves but even this is only a partial critique of the system's evil.

selina todd is there to show us the pyramid to encourage us to think about collective risings rather than individual escapes and...

well there she is as part of a wonderfully moderated panel, we chuckle at the unfairness of the system, we inspect the cornices of regional accents and the children of etonians speaking like yardies, in terms of missing the point it is almost as if a guardian reporter had been sent to cover it (won't someone think about house prices for the young families struggling to get on the property ladder! ah-ha look! there's another ladder).

horsemouth is sorry to sound so chippy about the matter but there it is.