Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

‘War on the middle class’

Hang on, that sounds familiar, doesn't it? Yes, of course, it's a reminder that newspapers don't exist to tell you what's happening but merely to repeat and reiterate a certain set of beliefs. In fact, I think the headline "Labour war on middle classes" is probably in a set of templates at the Daily Mail (and Telegraph) as you can put it on pretty much every story you like.

This time it's about giving teachers more cash if they manage to stick it out for three years at a less good school. Which presses the alarm bells for Mailites: it means giving money to people who work for the public sector (bad); it means trying to reduce social inequality by making all schools as good as each other theoretically, thereby having a potentially detrimental impact on the most expensive house prices (bad); it means all those extra pounds paid by the rich to live in the catchment areas of better performing schools will have been wasted, if that dirty comp down the road encourages better teachers (bad) - so therefore: LABOUR WAR ON MIDDLE CLASSES.

Incidentally, people regard me, for example, as being somewhat of a lesser person (which I may well be) for using such derogatory terms as Littlecock or Littlebrain to refer to that titan of journalism Richard Cuntwad Littlejohn. But look. National newspapers, as ever, are just catching pace with blogs - and the front page of the Mail thinks it's OK to call Harriet Harman Harriet Harperson (guffaw! Is funny innit?!?!?!).

Anyway, the last time we encountered WAR ON MIDDLE CLASSES, we were talking about last year's Budget - and the fact that putting tax on petrol and booze was somehow targeting the middle class (because no-one else drinks or drives, obviously) - but it fits anything you like.

Labour taxes X: LABOUR WAR ON MIDDLE CLASSES
Labour wants to help poor people: LABOUR WAR ON MIDDLE CLASSES
Government introduces special "middle class" payment only to be paid to people who belong to middle class: LABOUR WAR ON MIDDLE CLASSES

As Neil Buchanan would say, try it yourself.

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Related posts:

1. ‘War on the middle class’
2. The Telegraph and the ‘middle class’
3. The ‘squeezed middle’ and class conflict
4. Rooney, middle-class prostitutes and the blame game
5. Budget narratives