A class act?

mac

Guido succinctly castigates the tiresome and hypocritical Toynbee as a whining elitist. He's right. Predictably, Toynbee asserts that the contempt directed at the sisterhood, including Hodge, Harman, and Jowell on 'right-wing'
blogs is class-based misogyny. 'fraid not, Polly: it's because of their political ineptitude, hypocrisy and tendency to whine in exactly the same manner as you. And there are plenty of male peers in the ministerial ranks, that is a key reason why the party you champion is 20 points adrift in the polls.

CS

That thread on CiF is the Guardian in a nutshell. Every post that dares draw attention to the disparity between Toynbee's public pronouncements and her private behaviour is getting deleted left, right and centre.

CS

Proof that the only crime that's beyond the pale on CiF is measuring the distance between Polly Toynbee's pronouncements and reality.

The Sun does not go round the Earth - DELETED DELETED DELETED!!!

sarah

Pollyanna. Who else? It is crucial to the Left that the ‘class war’ continues, otherwise they’re running out of road.

Thus it is that the Left have deemed the word “chav” is classist. Of course it’s not.

The point about being a chav is that you are vulgar and ostentatious in dress, behaviour and so on. How can you afford Burberry and bling if you’re downtrodden and part of some 'class war'?

If you’ve got money for bling, Burberry and cocaine, you most certainly are not “downtrodden”, you’re clearly self-indulgent and spoilt.

What infuriates Polly and Co is that the “downtrrodden”, the people they use to prop up so many of their phoney arguments aren’t downtrodden at all – they’re able to behave like fin de siecle decadents with money to spend on expensive clothes, expensive jewellery and drugs.

The Left know this and so try to stop people drawing attention to this fact by saying that the word “chav” is “offensive” and “classist”.

The Left must maintain their fiction that these people are hard done by, because the truth shows what a shambles their policies are, and – as is their wont – they use the Orwellian tool of banning language to try to achieve this.

CS

***Its obvious why 'hypocracy' is seen as such a sin among the right-wing?***

They're now actually defending hypocrisy on that thread.

While reluctant to quote Littlejohn, "you just could not make it up..gorblimey elfnsafety elfnsafety".

C Powell

It's not just comments criticising Pol that get deleted; anything criticising the Guardian is deleted also. Comment is free - I don't think so.

One day the Guardianistas will realise how much they're hated and then we'll have the enjoyable spectacle of reading endless articles in which, poor lambs, they try and understand what went wrong.

BCS

I think Polly is wrong about the decline/persistence of class in society. Vast economic inequalities still exist, to be sure, and meritocracy is a cosy delusion. But what has emerged is a sort of cultural classlessness (nicely caputed by the antics of beer-drinking, Zoo-reading Prince Harry). Wealth is no longer as associated with social prestige or cultural sophistication - almost everyone, rich or poor, is now immersed in the same vulgar, tasteless milieu of pop music, estuary English, football, light entertainment etc. Thus perhaps we have lost the truly valuable element of the class-bound society and are left merely with the iniquities Polly fulminates against.

Matthew Blott

Actually I sort of know what Toynbee is getting at here. It's a bit like when you hear black comics tell black jokes, or jewish comedians telling jewish jokes - it's something reserved for them only, if done by someone from the outside it can appear insulting. I'm sure no offence was meant but it is effectively a bunch of filthy rich people who've never had to work for anything in their lives taking the mickey out of the lower classes.

Kris

Wrong. You can be chav and working class. I live in the same street as those who are. Often the Burberry and other brands are fake. And those with the money are builders and scaffolders and have the real thing. Oh, and many of my neighbours have big, aggressive dogs too. Round our way chav stands for Council House And Violent, but the people are still preferable to the royals and the right wing idiots here.

CS

I'm just longing for the day George Osborne gets into power and carries out his promise of removing all government job advertising from the Guardian and sticking it on a free website.

Wonder how Polly will react when they do a Carol Vorderman on her. Sorry, Polly, but belts need tightening. Will you take a 90% pay cut? I suspect that Polly's reply would seriously breach CiF's code of conduct about ad hominem remarks.

CS

***it is effectively a bunch of filthy rich people who've never had to work for anything in their lives taking the mickey out of the lower classes***

This post is being deleted as an outrageously ad hominem attack on the Cabinet.

Angry of SE1

Mathew Blott says "it is effectively a bunch of filthy rich people who've never had to work for anything in their lives taking the mickey out of the lower classes."

The irony is that as a description of Polly and the rest of the Guardianistas this is unbeatable!

mac

So, you don't like 'right wing idiots', royals and those whom you deem to be 'council house and violent', and you seem to be just a touch envious of builders and scaffolders with money. Just who is correctly in step with you then, 'Kris'?

Verity

I don't know, though. The idea of mocking an entire class of people, even if they're jerks, gives me the creeps and smacks just a wee bit of Marie Antoinette. (Yes, I know she didn't say "Let them eat cake, then.) Does Chelsea have a job?

Bean Counter

"I live in Lambeth" - that wouldn't be Crescent Grove, a private road leading to an intimate circle of £2m houses overlooking Clapham Common, would it?

Chuck Unsworth

@ Verity

Chelsea doesn't have a job. It's a locality.

But even if Chelsy doesn't have a job, so what?

Ed Blagden

Best of all is Polly's claim in her article to be Middle Class.

Oh come off it - this from the Great Granddaughter of Lady Mary Howard. That's Howard as in Castle Howard as in Brideshead Revisited.

And what about the black sheep of the family, the rather louche Great Uncle Basil? According to Wikipedia he "attended the University of Oxford, where he had a somewhat unsavoury reputation, and Evelyn Waugh met him there in 1922. Murray would later provide Waugh with the model and first name for his anti-hero Basil Seal, star of the novels Black Mischief and Put Out More Flags."

john miller

I think we've all had enough of Toynbee.

I know where to read it if I want to get ready for my anger management course. Can we just ignore her now please? She is now totally irrelevant. In the old days, when she quoted false facts, a good fisking was in order and quite enjoyable.

What she writes now is just incoherent, opinionated drivel , that doesn't deserve to be noticed.

Nick Kaplan

Chavs are not the working class they are the shirking class and it is an insult to those who actually are or came from decent aspirational working class families to suggest otherwise. I say we should introduce a new immigration policy whereby we exchange shirking Chavs for hardworking Slavs!

Ray

'Chav' is an attitude of mind, not a socio-economic classifiaction.

I know plenty of teenagers who live in council estates who work hard in their communities and are thoughtful and considerate to others. They are not chavs, whatever outfits they might be wearing.

Equally, I know one or two forty year olds who drive around in big cars and couldn't give a damn about others. They are chavs, whatever their income status.

Max Kaye

Nick Kaplan, Any chance we could offer them a BOGOF deal: Two chavs for every hardworking Slav immigrant.

CS

I love it when the Guardian speaks up for the poor and dispossessed.

A recent "So You're Starting University" pull out guide in the Guardian, among it's list of useful things for Freshers on tight budget to know, includes a website address for mail order cakes for when they're feeling peckish.

Yesterday's Guardian guide to gardening on a tight budget suggests, instead of buying expensive plant pots or seedling trays, using empty empty wooden wine boxes.

BCS

I think threads this, ironically, serve only to demonstrate how impressive Polly Toynbee really is. She may be hopelessly (and dangerously) wrong, but somehow she has come to personify an entire political philosophy. As ''Polly'' (rarely Ms. Toynbee) she is a sort of peculiar cult figure, hated rather than worshipped, but inspiring that same fervour nonetheless. Many people could summarise their own political beliefs simply as ''the opposite of what Polly thinks''. Say what you like about her but hers is a formidable achievement.

biggestaspidistra

a man on the radio said chav is romany, in derivation.

Frank Pulley

WTF is going on here? First we give house room to the product of Joan Hari's fingertips - Ugggh! Just think where they've been - and now that of the egregious Polly! Doesn't this coffee house have any decorum or rules of admission. I thought obscenity was banned? You share five sequential vowels/consonants of my surname Brian - behave yourself; you'll give us *ulle*'s a bad name.

mac

BCS - Yes, an interesting thought. Toynbee's is a formidable achievement in the manner of Mussolini 'making the trains run on time', Willie McGonagill's poetry, Jeffrey Archer's novels and, of course, Gordon Brown's economic prowess.

Verity

Chuck Unsworth, I stand corrected, but would note that "Chelsy" is a chav name.

Ray notes: " know plenty of teenagers who live in council estates who work hard in their communities ..."

Doing what? "Community organisers"?

BCS

mac - I suspect it might be slightly more than that. Toynbee doesn't just inspire ridicule (though there is a good deal of that) but also a more virulent animosity which suggests she is taken seriously to an extent. And while she may be wrong she is certainly coherent (witness libertarian Tories defining themselves against her) and obviously expresses herself with an eloquence that other leftist groupies cannot match.

Chuck Unsworth

@ Verity

- What's in a name?

Ray

Verity - a little less cynicism towards the world wouldn't go amiss.

However, to answer your question visit http://www.youth4em.co.uk/.

There are thousands of youngsters doing good work like this - unpaid and mostly unreported - everyday.

Big Alec

I'm one of those chappies whom Ray insists on calling a 'youngster'. I live in Fulham with mama, papa, my brother Rupert and my sister Gemima. My contribution to this debate is thus. We occasionally find ourselves in the local supermarket, which is beastly, as it is always full of poor people, who seem hell-bent on populating their shopping baskets with frozen foods, cheap toiletries and alcoholic cordials. have to say I find them all rather disgusting and bestial, with their tatooes, bad skin and charmless accents. What a dreadful bunch of oiks. I wish we could hunt them with dogs and be done with it.