The deep awareness of social class in the UK has a long history, which is reflected in individuals, that is, everyone knows their “should have a place”, and their behavior should be in line with their social class identity. George Orwell said in “The Road to Wigan Pier” that he came from a “lower-middle-class family”, which shows how far the social class has been subdivided.
That was 1937, and this phenomenon has improved significantly in recent decades, and now if someone still treats others differently according to social class, especially if they show top-down discrimination, it is not legally permissible, but morally punishable. despise. From time to time, however, one or two things still pop up that make people realize that in the minds of some self-identified “higher” people, “lower” people doing things that don’t fit their status can still be used to mocking.
Every Wednesday at noon in the House of Commons of the British Parliament, there is a one-and-a-half-hour “Prime Minister’s Question Time” (PMQ), where the Prime Minister answers the questions of MPs in the parliamentary debate hall. The leader of the opposition party has the priority to ask questions and can ask six questions, so The PMQ is often seen as an opportunity for the ruling party to debate face-to-face with opposition leaders. In a PMQ at the end of June this year, because Prime Minister Johnson was attending the NATO summit in Madrid, Deputy Prime Minister Raab appeared on behalf of the ruling Conservative Party; on behalf of the opposition Labour Party, it was the second-in-command, the female MP Ray. satisfied.
The two confronted each other, but it was not brilliant. At this time, Raab decided to take the offensive and asked Rainer, as a Labour MP, why he would dress up and go to a country mansion, where he watched the opera “The Marriage of Figaro” and was seen with his hands. With a glass of champagne, is she a “champagne socialist”, the champagne-drinking petty bourgeoisie talking about revolution?
Rayner is a real working-class origin. He grew up in a declining industrial area in the northwest of England. He dropped out of school at the age of 16 and never went to university. He only obtained a vocational education certificate from the local continuing education college. He has worked as a nurse for several years and engaged in After trade union activities, he joined the Labour Party and embarked on the road to politics. In Raab’s view, with Reina’s experience, it is impossible to enjoy the opera in the spring and the snow, and going to a country mansion to watch opera in a costume is even more inconsistent with her social class status, so she must have forgotten who she is after becoming a member of parliament. , by “pretending” to get involved in the upper class. He probably thought he had hit the nail on the head and was very playful, and winked at her triumphantly, as if to say, “You deserve it too?”
The working class is not worthy of the opera, or to put it mildly, it is not a typical hobby of the working class, and it is not an outrageous view in the UK. Almost ten years ago, in the British social class survey funded by the BBC, the questionnaire included the question of how many times a month you watched opera and ballet, which was used as one of the indicators for judging the social class of people filling in the questionnaire. However, Raab took this as a joke in PMQ, but it reflected his condescending attitude, which was also mixed with regional discrimination and sexism. In one sentence: “Don’t forget your position.”
But what he encountered was a A sharp-spoken opponent. Reyna shot back on social media: “My advice to the Deputy Prime Minister is to be less snobby and review opera more. ‘The Marriage of Figaro’ is about a working-class woman who overcomes a privileged, A story of a bad guy who is stupid and stupid.”
Raab thought it was a coup, but was attacked head-on, and was almost unanimously ridiculed by the media from different positions. This may indicate from one perspective that the understanding of British social class represented by Raab’s remarks is outdated. Britain is certainly far from being an egalitarian society, but the notion that one’s origins solidify people into “upper-middle-working-class” and demands that they behave in line with “the right place” is indeed waning.
