Death of the -Tories
From Mr Geoff Harrison Sir: Peter Hitchens (`Too rich to care', 19 May) comes close to an uncomfortable truth that all Conservatives should fear. However, he misses an even more apocalyptic insight for the responsible Right in British politics: the middle class is dead.
Those that claim or assume this social categorisation — at least those under the age of 50 — are either the offspring of the genuine middle class, with proletarian habits, tastes and values, or genuine proletarians with money.
We have now a major slice of British society, fundamentally well-off, who look to the state to take care of their health and welfare needs; who live for today rather than defer pleasures until tomorrow; whose cultural values are no different from the uneducated; and whose manners and dress can be summed up as vulgarity triumphant.
Look around you next time you are in Sainsbury's. It's all sun-dried tomatoes tossed alongside frozen oven chips in the shopping trolley, scruffiness passed off as casual chic, the speech habits and social intercourse of the building site, all accompanied by the sleazy mass-culture of television, tabloid newspapers and pop music.
Meanwhile, of course, the genuine working class — once the source of ever-fresh renewal of the middle class through ambitious, aspirational and hardworking individuals — has been disabused of these virtues and told not only that 'Jack is as good as his master' but even better. Why else should all beyond the immediate grasp, whether intellectual, cultural, moral or social, be derided as 'elitist'?
We are about to witness the final triumph of the barbarians and the death of the Tories as a serious political force.
Geoff Harrison
Farnham, Surrey
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