A question of class
We shouldn't expect many political polls in the next few days given the Easter break (and if we do, we should probably be wary of them for the same reason) In the meantime here's an Ipsos MORI poll on class. The poll found 52% of respondents considered themselves working class and 44% middle class.
Polls are of course weighted to represent the correct class breakdown of the country, but these breaks - based on occupation - bare little resemblence to how people classify themselves. Amongst the AB socially classification (that's professionals like teachers, doctors, businessmen, managers and so on) 68% see themselves as middle class, 30% working class. At the opposite end of the scale, the DE social classification (that is, casual workers, the unemployed and long term sick, labourers, semi-skilled manual workers, etc) 66% see themselves as working class but 28% see themselves as middle class. It may mean people have strange ideas of what class they are, or it may just mean the ABC1C2DE classification of social grade by occupation isn't actually very good.
More fun are the questions further on about what political parties and activities people associate with different classes. Perceptions of political parties representing different social classes are still present to a degree - 39% of people think the Labour party best represent the working class (compared to 10% who think the Tories do and 8% who think the Lib Dems do). 46% of people think the Conservatives best represent the middle cass (compared to 19% who think Labour do and 7% who think the Lib Dems do). 65% think the Tories best represent the upper classes.
Taking the bus is the activity most associated with being working class (by 62%), followed by having an allotment (52%, down significantly from 72% when a similar question was asked in 1991), eating in front of the telly (48%), watching Coronation Street (45%), going to football matches (42%), and eating peas with a knife (35%). Buying organic food was the activity most associated with being middle class (52%), along with going to museums (46%), playing cricket (41%) or rugby (39%).
Going to the opera (61%) was associated with the upper classes.
Shopping at Lidl, Somerfield, Iceland, Morrisons or Asda was seen as working class, Tescos as relatively classless, Sainsburys as Middle class and Waitrose as either middle or upper class.
