The class struggle
Sir: Tony Parsons' problem is that he seems to believe genuinely that anyone who dis- agrees with his tarted-up rant about the working class must be a lentil-sucking liber- al or a middle-class wanker or simply wrong (`Double-barrelled condescension', 24 October).
Believe it or not, Tony, you don't have a monopoly on class posturing. My mum cleaned her step and my dad read Dickens; they still live in a council place and they are the best. But ask my mum how much dog crap there was in sarff London in the Fifties; ask my old man how many people wanted to discuss Bleak House with him on their way to the Old Bull and Bush; and ask him if he'd rather swap his video for the Ludo board I grew up with. And while you're at it, take a close look at Hogarth's 1751 prints of 'Beer Street' and 'Gin Lane'. Now that was the working classes in spiritu- al decline, and there wasn't a shell suit in sight!
Steve Grant
Executive Editor, Time Out Magazine Limited, 8-14 Southampton Street, London WC2
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