The Likes of Us: A biography of the white working class by Michael Collins (Granta, 2005)
Once they were portrayed as the salt of the earth. Nowadays, they take to the streets when paedophiles and asylum seekers are in their midst, they expose their lives on TV reality shows, they love Gucci and hate the Euro. The broadsheets cast them as xenophobes and exhibitionists and mock their tastes and attitudes. Who are the white working class and what have they done to deserve this?
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All Oiks Now: The unnoticed surrender of Middle England by Digby Anderson (Social Affairs Unit, 2004)
Discussing the everyday behaviour of the English in pubs, supermarkets, shopping malls, health clubs and so on, Anderson marks and warns against a trend away from what he views as peculiarly English virtues and toward brutishness.
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Class in Britain by David Cannadine (Penguin, 2000)
The British see their country as a huge (perhaps harmonious) hierarchy, as a society deeply divided into upper, middle and lower classes, or as the setting for a constant struggle between ‘them’ and ‘us’. Class distinctions reflect reality – life on a council estate is very different from life in a stately home – but they are also constantly used by politicians to forge new notions of national identity, demonise opponents and distribute praise or blame. In this survey ranging from Dr Johnson to Thatcher, Major and Blair (and their contrasting ideals of a ‘classless society’), Cannadine cuts through the rhetoric to the fundamental truths about class in Britain.
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Classes and Cultures: England, 1918-1951 by Ross McKibbin (Oxford University Press, 2000)
McKibbin investigates the ways in which 'class culture' characterised English society and intruded into every aspect of life from 1918 to the mid-1950s. He demonstrates the influence of social class within the mini-cultures that together constitute society – families and family life, friends and neighbours, the workplace, schools and colleges, religion, sexuality, sport, music, film, radio – and examines how increasing Americanisation affected them.
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The Condition of the Working Class in England by Friedrich Engels (Penguin, 1987)
Engels’ polemic explores the staggering human cost of the Industrial Revolution in Victorian England. He paints an unforgettable picture of daily life in the new industrial towns, and for miners and agricultural workers, in a savage indictment of the greed of the bourgeoisie. His later preface, written for the first English edition of 1892 and included here, brought the story up to date in the light of 40 years' further reflection.
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In Defence of Aristocracy by Peregrine Worsthorne (HarperCollins, 2004)
A reactionary and playful look at the origins, evolution and demise of the aristocracy and what we can expect to replace them. Worsthorne argues that the aristocracy has contributed mightily to Britain’s stability and prosperity.
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London Labour and the London Poor: A selection by Henry Mayhew, edited by Victor E Neuburg (Penguin, 1985)
Originating in a series of articles written in 1849-50, the subjects included here range from costermongers to ex-convicts, from chimney-sweeps to vagrants. Mayhew had no theoretical or political axe to grind and avoided vague philanthropy: he was as prepared to attribute the hardships of the poor to themselves as to society. Nevertheless, his outlook was compassionate and practical, and his aim was simply to report. This selection shows how well he succeeded.
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Mind the Gap: Class in Britain now by Ferdinand Mount (Short Books, 2004)
According to Ferdinand Mount, ‘the gap’ is the invisible, yet powerful, divide between classes that always has, and perhaps always will, plague Britain. Through observation and research, covering issues as diverse as the distribution of wealth, the significance of speech patterns and the politics of egalitarianism, Mount pursues the answer to the fundamental question: How can oppressive inequality in Britain be wiped out once and for all?
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A Natural History of the Rich by Richard Conniff (Arrow, 2004)
An investigation of the foibles and lifestyles of that most bizarre and fascinating of animal species – the very rich – presented in the context of animal behaviour and evolutionary psychology.
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Noblesse Oblige, edited by Nancy Mitford (Oxford University Press, 2002, first published 1956)
Nancy Mitford’s 1955 essay ‘The English Aristocracy’, in which she outlines the 'U' (upper-class) and 'non-U' classification of linguistic usage and behaviour and its implications, is joined by counterblasts by Evelyn Waugh, ‘Strix’ and Christopher Sykes. Osbert Lancaster, caricaturist of English manners, takes the debate into the visual dimension, and John Betjeman poeticizes on the theme.
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Lifemanship: The art of getting away with it without being an absolute plonk by Stephen Potter (Moyer Bell, 2005, first published in 1950 as Some Notes on Lifemanship)
This book, from the inimitable Potter, ‘explains how to triumph in daily life – in conversation, at the week-end party, whilst wooing, and in many other succulent situations’. The ultimate guidebook to anyone who wants to penetrate the upper-middle class of the 1950s.
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Four Weddings and a Funeral (UK, 1994)
Directed by Mike Newell
A truly comprehensive examination of the British upper-middle class, this hugely popular film follows the fortunes of Charles (Hugh Grant) and his friends through the eponymous rites of passage, as they wonder if they will ever find true love and marry.
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Raining Stones (UK, 1993)
Directed by Ken Loach
This exploration of living hand-to-mouth in a society where work is scarce and a pint at the pub offers life's sole release was written by Jim Allen. Bob and his family are barely making ends meet when two events upset the careful balance: Bob's van is stolen; then he learns that his daughter’s outfit for her first communion is going to cost more than £100. To Bob, nothing but the best is good enough for his daughter, but he's on the dole …
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High Hopes (UK, 1988)
Directed by Mike Leigh
Slice-of-life look at London working-class couple Shirley and Cyril Bender (Ruth Sheen and Philip Davis), his mother (Edna Doré) and her upper-middle-class neighbours, the Boothe-Brains (Lesley Manville and David Bamber), plus Cyril's pretentious sister (Heather Tobias) and her philandering husband (Philip Jackson).

The Ruling Class (UK, 1972)
Directed by Peter Medak
Peter Barnes' adaptation of his own play targets British chauvinism, institutions, public schools and the sexual perversion and social misery they feed off. The death of the 13th earl of Gurney (Harry Andrews) during one of his masochistic evening rituals leads to the accession to the title of his insane son Jack (Peter O'Toole), who believes he is God. Only Tucker (Arthur Lowe), the old family retainer, sympathises with him, but even he now drinks and sneers openly, knowing too much to be fired. When Jack ‘recovers’, he adopts another persona, that of the typical reactionary British lord, in favour of flogging, capital punishment, sexual repression and strong class distinctions. He secretly identifies with Jack the Ripper, too.
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The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (UK, 1962)
Directed by Tony Richardson
With a screenplay written by Alan Sillitoe from his own short story, the film is a memorable portrayal of a rebellious working-class youth (Tom Courtenay), sentenced to borstal after robbing a bakery, who rises through the ranks of the institution through his prowess as a long distance runner. During his solitary runs, reveries of his life before his incarceration lead him to re-evaluate his privileged status as the governor's prize athlete.
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School for Scoundrels, or How to Win Without Actually Cheating (UK, 1960)
Directed by Robert Hamer
Based on Stephen Potter’s One-Upmanship and Lifemanship books, with a nod towards Sheridan’s play, this film traces the progress of Henry Palfrey (Ian Carmichael) as he tries hard to impress but always loses out to the rotter Raymond Delauney (Terry-Thomas). Then he discovers the ‘Lifeman College’ run by ‘Professor’ Potter (Alastair Sim) – ‘Just remember, if you’re not one up on the other fellow, then he’s one up on you’ – and discovers the secrets of success. But has Henry the courage to put all his lessons into effect?
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Look Back in Anger (UK, 1958)
Directed by Tony Richardson
The film version of John Osborne's mould-breaking 1956 play features Richard Burton as university-educated Jimmy Porter, trapped in a working-class existence and lashing out at everyone around him, including his middle-class wife Alison (Mary Ure), the daughter of a retired colonel, and her actress friend Helena (Claire Bloom). The critic Kenneth Tynan wrote that Jimmy Porter ‘represented the dismay of many young Britons ... who came of age under a socialist government, yet found, when they went out into the world, that the class system was still mysteriously intact.’
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Mrs Miniver (US, 1942)
Directed by William Wyler
Director Wyler admitted that he made this film about a ‘typical’ English family – headed by a perfect wife and mother (Greer Garson) and her bluff but brave husband (Walter Pidgeon) – at the beginning of World War II as propaganda: the final, rousing speech by the vicar was broadcast on Voice of America and copies of it were airdropped over Europe. However, despite its American credentials and flag-waving, the film depicts the quintessential English middle-class family of the 1940s, albeit one that, through the liaison between the Miniver son and the daughter of the local aristos, has married into the upper class.
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