Social class

· Social grouping: most people mix socially with the same kind of people as their work colleagues, and usually live in streets or neighbourhoods.

· Movement between classes: many people move from one category to another during their working lives.

· Class in Britain is not entirely dependent on money: people can be high class and poor, or low class and rich.

· Marriage outside one’s class is much more common than it used to be, though, generally people seek marriage partners within their own social group.

· The élite of society: the ‘gentry’ class (landowners, and others who move in the most exclusive English social circles) - children educated privately; a better academic education than in state-funded schools; a sense of social superiority.

· The ‘top’ 1 per cent: enormous influence and control; probably own about one-quarter of the nation’s wealth < inheritance spread around the family to minimise the effects of taxation.

· Opinion polls since 1964: ‘There used to be a lot of talk in politics about the ‘class struggle’. Do you think there is a class struggle in this country?’ In 1964 48 per cent thought so, in 1995 the figure was 81 per cent >; the increasing disparity between rich and poor in Britain.