On 'Class'

The musical Chicago is quite rather good. I have seen the film and watched the musical theatre production, and I (first) begrudgingly and (then) rather over-excitedly liked it. My favourite songs are the one where Billy Flynn the hotshot lawyer does the puppeteering, and the one where it goes ‘Nobody got no class’. Google (our mutual friend) tells me these songs are called ‘We Both Reached For The Gun’ and ‘Class’.

The eponymous class of the latter song is about decency, manners, respect: classiness. That side of class is easy to define, easy to implement, and without doubt is an aspiration.

The band The Indelicates have released a song today, also entitled ‘Class’.



But their class is the one that divides rich and poor, the entitled few and the disenfranchised many. I have a massive problem with definitions of class particularly my own – I work in a non-skilled fairly poorly-paid job, I rely on Working Tax Credits and Child Tax Credits and qualify for free NHS dental care and wigs and all that, but then my parents are professionals and I own my own house – and as such it is equally as relevant a concept in day-to-day Britain as it is entirely irrelevant.

My class – Working / Middle / whatever – doesn’t affect my ability to go shopping or wear jeans or consume or just to live a normal life. But it does present obstacles, the kind that Simon and Julia Indelicate espouse: I don’t know the right people to truly succeed in politics or journalism or in the city. I don’t necessarily want to.

But say the best person in Britain, the most naturally able person to be Prime Minister or Governor of the Bank of England or Editor of The Times wasn’t able to get the opportunity to succeed in the meritocracy we pretend to live in. What if they couldn’t intern for no pay at The Telegraph, or do work experience at their own expense at Citibank, or their aunt can’t get them a job at Carlton communications? Well these are the important career, life, country-changing first rungs on the ladder that are only available to the upper class, to the few, to the rich.

We need to create a fairer pathway from education into the workplace. We need to create a fairer education system. We need... fuck, I don’t know. Something. Hope. Cos without hope we’re just treading water in a pool of wasted sweat and bitter regretful tears.

And why not buy the Indelicates new album when it comes out, too. Titled Diseases of England, it's the scathingly-despairing indie-rock-vaudeville soundtrack to the winter of our dissent, dischord and disharmony.