Comments on: Time to ditch “middle class” in serious journalism

By: Charlie Marks

Charlie Marks — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 21:17:47 +0000

Good points Nigel – however “super-rich” is a more useful term to be clear we are talking about the few, not the many.

By: Nigel Stanley

Nigel Stanley — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 09:00:37 +0000

I think using class at all in these kind of discussions is nearly always confusing. Class in Britain is not directly related to income or wealth, but a much more complex construction.

Why don’t we just call the rich the rich?

By: Charlie Marks

Charlie Marks — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 22:17:26 +0000

For sure, Matthew…

By: Matthew

Matthew — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 18:51:57 +0000

What about reintroducing “upper class”? I heard the Duchess of York being described on Radio4 as bringing “middle class values” into working class households with her forays into council houses. Surely someone who married into the Royal Family can’t really be bracketed in with most “middle class” families, no matter how you define that term.

By: John

John — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 09:33:51 +0000

Less than a thousand a month? Good to know that I (with a salary putting me in the top 20% of UK earners) could also leave class behind and start saving now to send my kids to private school when they’re older, for only slightly more than our entire household income every month…

By: Charlie Marks

Charlie Marks — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 02:12:51 +0000

Jane, on top of all the other bills, very few families could cope with school fees – especially in the middle of a recession.

You might have left behind class as an issue – good for you – but most other people have not.

By: Jane White

Jane White — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 06:44:43 +0000

Why make this a class issue? What a pointless throwback to an old world most of us have long left behind. As for private education being only open to the “top few” percent of society, it is undoubedly true that very few parents can simply pay for school fees out of freely disposable income. http://www.allaboutschoolfees.com was established to identify how much private education actually costs and to provide savings guidlines for parents to allow them to save in advance for private education. Most users of the site start saving within three years of their children being born and need save less than £1000 a month. I realise this is still a substantial amount but doubt this equates to only being affordable to the “top few”.