THE MIDDLE CLASSES : ENDANGERED SPECIES ?

In an interview to be published in this weeks Tribune the Prime Minister states that the Tories, if elected, would ' betray the Middle Classes.' The message being given is therefore that it is the Labour Party, if elected, that will defend the Middle Classes. Aside from the issue that the Labour Party now and ever since its re-election in 1997 has clearly put the interests of the Middle Classes as central to its policies rather than its traditional constituency of the conviniently ignored working class,
I was not aware that the Middle Classes were under any great threat.
Are the Middle Class an endangered species ? While certainly the recession is effecting all surely those that are most keenly feeling its icy grip are the working class, if, indeed they are still in work. With Corus closing down today one is seeing free market callousness still very much alive and the destruction of thousands of jobs where people do actually make things, rather than those precious so-called middle class occupations where people manage things. This chimes with my earlier post about 'You and Yours' that having to get by on slightly less and perhaps rethink that third holiday in some far flung unspoilt paradise ( before it is spoilt by large numbers of visitors )and maybe buy just virgin olive oil rather than extra virgin olive oil, is not being seriously disadvantaged, neither is it being 'betrayed' and it does not make the blessed middle class an endangered species.
What it does betray is the ideals of the founders of the Labour Party, who foresaw increasing inequality and wanted to put in place checks and balances through well considered socialy driven legislation and organisation, which are aimed not at maintaining the status financial or otherwise of any one defined interest group but that broadens wealth and well being as widely as possible. And if an idea is good, its good, ideas do not have sell-by dates, before inevitable cries of 'idealisim'.
I suggest that the middle class are a tenacious species that under the guise of mild manners will do everything that is necessary to maintain their position. Why the leader of the Labour Party and, naturaly of the Tory Party, should be squabbling over who can 'protect' them best is pretty damn ridiculous.