Social class is the most salient feature of contemporary British society.

Résumé du document

If the concern of the British population towards social class is proportionate to the number of films made by the British cinema industry on the matter, then social class is really a salient feature of the British society today. Indeed, with Trainspotting (about junkies from Edinburgh), The Snapper (about the relationship of an adolescent girl with her father during her pregnancy in a working class family), The Full Monty (about unemployed men and their struggle to find jobs), and tons of others, the number of films on social issues in Great Britain is huge.
In politics however, the subject is way less mentioned, or in a very vague way. "The class war is over," said Tony Blair during the Labor party conference last year. This affirmation seems clear but it was mainly pronounced to reassure the population and to tell people not to think too much of social condition. This declaration is simplistic when we think of the diversity of the matter of social class in the British society.
This feature might be the most salient one of the British Society. But is it the most important one? Is it the one that people most think about? Is it up to date?

Extraits

[...] Statistics made in 1996 showed that 81% of the British population believed that there was a class struggle in Britain whereas only 66% believed so in 1981. It also showed that 68% of people believed they belonged to a class ridden society whereas only thought to be in a classless society. But if the statistics show that people believe to be in a society where classes are important, nowadays, the system is not so clear to them. People sometimes think being in a certain class but they are not. [...]

[...] The society is now divided in eight classes. The classification takes into account not only the job, but also the amount of security in the job, the degree of control over the worker's job, the perks coming from the job, etc. But the classes remaining in the people's mind and used by them to classify themselves and others, are the three imagined by Marx, the upper class, the middle class and the working class. A fourth class may be added: the underclass. [...]

[...] From an international point of view, social class seems not to be the most salient feature of the British society. Indeed, medias abroad talk more easily of the monarchy as a salient feature than of the social class. When other countries talk about the British social class, it is usually to talk about the advantages of the aristocracy and of the Royal Family. From abroad the system of class has become old. Most countries consider it as an industrial revolution thing. [...]

[...] To conclude, we can say that the social class system has aged over time and even if the British people still identify themselves to it, the fact that they sometimes do not know to what class they belong is an illustration of this aging. This was unthinkable 50 years ago. Indeed, everyone knew to what class they belonged and how to behave in accordance to it. Nowadays, class has become dissociated from culture, and some people purposely behave as people of lower class to show their origin, it is considered as a “fashionable” thing. George Orwell saying “England is the most class-ridden society under the in 1937 seems to still be true today. [...]

[...] "The class war is said Tony Blair during the Labor party conference last year. This affirmation seems clear but it was mainly pronounced to reassure the population and to tell people not to think too much of social condition. This declaration is simplistic when we think of the diversity of the matter of social class in the British society. This feature might be the most salient one of the British Society. But is it the most important one? Is it the one that people most think about? [...]