light the blue touch paper...

[KalamityKel]

Oh I knew I weren't middle class already! :p

[Nero]

It's sometimes not being discriminated against, rather seeing others (non-white) being given special courses, mentoring systems, traineeships etc that some people don't like. I don't like it really, especially when the people who are selected tend to be people who could have a really good shot at success anyway. Where some organisations fall down is completely discounting the fact that disenfranchised candidates can, and often do, include working class people, be they white, brown, yellow, or black. And who's to say that once selected to a scheme, they won't end up becoming just like the white people who selected them. Organisations tend to have a predominant culture, and it would be very hard to change it radically with just a few ethnic minority candidates, which begs the point, why select them in the first place? Nero

[Moos]

I hope this isn't veering too far from the point but the socio-economic indicator David quoted includes a lot of '...and their widows'. Do we then infer that a woman takes on her husband's class (presumably having previously belonged to her father's class....'?!) Not having a pop at you, David, as you said it's a few generations out of date... but it raises an interesting point. Certainly a person's choice of partner can often impact how other people see them, and indeed how they see themselves.

Nero, most academics who study corporate selection processes agree that interviewers overwhelmingly choose candidates who are like them, regardless of the similarities of the job for which they are applying. This of course is used as an argument in favour of positive discrimination ("how else will the different get in?") but it certainly also means that people who break the barriers are often not typically representative of their type - female traders, for example, often used to behave very 'malely'. It takes a few 'generations' of barrier-breaking to see the behaviours change, and a greater variety of individuals succeed on their own terms.

[mockney piers]

Most successful UK sitcoms have boiled down to exploiting class differences or class aspiration to comedic effect. That Hyacinth Bucket one was based almost entirely on the above situation.

[Keef]

That was called Keeping up appearances. Who could forget Alf Garnet and his gay, black lodger in In sickness and in health! TV Gold!

[SteveT]

Mockney Piers wrote:Most successful UK sitcoms have boiled down to exploiting class differences

Not in Porridge or Faulty towers really. The two most successful sitcoms I believe.

[blinder999]

> Not in Porridge or Faulty towers really. The two

> most successful sitcoms I believe.

It could be argued that Porridge is mostly about lovable working class lags pulling fast ones on the middle class warders.

And the first ever episode of Fawlty Towers was called 'A Touch of Class':

"When Basil tries to sneak away to eat breakfast, Sybil confronts him with an expensive advertisement he has placed in an upper class magazine. Basil says he is trying to attract "a higher class of clientele" so he can "turn away some of the riff-raff." He says it is working, as they have received a reservation for Sir Richard and Lady Morris"

[Brendan]

Fawlty Tower may not have been based on class but it was reliant on certain British stereotypes which, because of the nature of this country are intrinsically linked with class.

[mockney piers]

I said most Steve, not all.

But Fawlty towers is based on Basil's desperate fawning aspirations and his horrific misplaced snobbery. I'd say it's the quintessential class based sitcom.

You're much closer to the mark on Porridge, though it does have many elements of it there within.