It long been recognised that there is a glass ceiling in British society that prevents children with potential progressing to the top. This research reveals there is a glass floor that inhibits social mobility as much as the glass ceiling.
One of my more right leaning friends in a angry defence of the far right display in London last weekend let something very enlightening skip. That the reason these guys were there is that the average working class man has had enough. I guess the million dollar question is what have they had enough of?
I find it hard to believe they have had enough of monuments being vandalised, as annoying as that might be it’s hardly on the same level of black people being lynched or murdered.
The reality was there was no threat. On their beloved monuments save from themselves and their wayward bladders.
For some it’s purely a racist matter. There is something jaw droppingly depressing watching guys with swastikas and iron crosses doing Nazi salutes in front of a statue of Churchill.
And don’t underestimate the efforts of the usual Britain first, Tommy, Katie Hopkins Ghouls to stir it all up.
unfortunately but again just to blame it on race is I feel disingenuous.
There are other factors , booze, boredom but surely there must be more to it than that.
Why do so many white working class lads feel so disenfranchised. Why are they so angry at the world. In one sense this should be their time, we have the most right wing populist governments in my lifetime. These are the guys that back Boris.
They have eventually got their brexit, they are free from the European lefty shackles and can now make Britain great again.
Yet still they are angry, they came spoiling for a fight with the BLM protesters and when they couldn’t be found the police would have to do instead.
So they continue to lash out , as they have done for ages still not sure what they are lashing out against, the fascists and the fuelled up, the footy lads and fantasists still smouldering with pent up anger but not fully sure what they are angry about.
Perhaps deep down it’s that sense that they can’t break through not only the glass ceiling but the glass floor that holds back any advancement. The governments own report states “It’s a social scandal that all too often demography is still destiny in Britain.”
Study author Dr Abigail McKnight from the London School of Economics remarks: “The fact that middle class families are successful in hoarding the best opportunities in the education system and in the labour market is a real barrier to the upward social mobility of less advantaged children.”
Maybe it’s more simplistic, I really don’t know the answer what I do know is it runs far deeper than Brexit and a right wing Government can placate.