Class & the Establishment

Question 1

The Ruling Establishment

Answer 1

• A term used for informal networks, connected the political and social ruling elite within Britain
• Privileged people, majority male
• Held all wealth, influence and power in Britain
• Included the aristocracy and the highest-ranking politicians, judges, bishops, civil servants, diplomats, police and officers in the armed forces
• ‘Knew people who mattered’
• Wealth<background and connections
• Attended public schools e.g. Eton, Harrow
• Attend university at Oxbridge
• Enter high-ranking positions
• Sometimes known as ‘the-old-boys-network’

Question 2

The British Class System

Answer 2

• Deferential and conformist society
• Ingrained respect for authority
• Class loyalties was strong when it came to general elections
• Class divide was reflected through politics
• Conservative Party: traditional, represented interests of the rich, upper-class and the affluent middle-class
• Labour Party: funded by trade unions, political voice of the proletariat
• 1951 General Election: 65% of the proletariat voters voted for Labour, 80% of the middle-class voters voted for Conservative
• George Orwell (social critic/British novelist): ‘Britain is the most class-ridden country under the sun’

Question 3

The Tripartite Education System

Answer 3

• 1944 Education Act: introduced by Education Minister, Rab Butler
• Provided secondary education up until the age of 15
• 3 types of schools: secondary modern, grammar and technical schools
• Entry to grammar schools, 11+ exam
• Children of humble working-class birth could rise up the social ladder and achieve status, however it was highly unlikely
• 75% of state pupils fates became sealed by selection after only 11 years of age
• Limited those who failed to life in a factory, or at best, routine office administration
• Strengthened rather than break the rigid class structure
• 1/3 of working-class students who did manage to get into a grammar school, did not stay in education, priority to leave school get a job/earn money

Question 4

An Increasingly Less-Deferential
Society

Answer 4

• Late 1950s there were signs of a shift in attitudes
• Gradual breakdown of old social class restrictions
• Growing loss of traditional deference
• 1956 Suez Crisis: exposed PM Eden of blatant lying and incompetence
• Rise of the Campaign for Nuclear Deterrent (CND), 1958: encouraged the tendency to question and challenge authority
• Britain was becoming more individualistic and less conformist
• Profumo Affair: popular press coverage, previous tactics used by government to prevent the publication of sensitive/embarrassing information no longer worked

Question 5

‘Criticism of the Ruling Establishment’

Answer 5

• Critics believed that Britain was being held back by its ruling social elite
• Ruling elite emphasised arts education rather than science or technology
• Critics argued that Britain needed leader s who earned their positions through their personal merit and understood the modern/technical age better
• Achieved in the 1964 General Election: Harold Wilson’s Labour Party, ‘The White Heat of Technology”

Question 6

The Rise of Political Satire

Answer 6

• 1960s: political ‘satire boom’
• Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller and Alan Bennett made a huge impact with their stage show, ‘Beyond the Fringe’
• 1961: political magazine, ‘Private Eye’, witty disrespect for the great and famous
• 1962: ground-breaking satire show, ‘The Week That Was’, BBC television, lampooning public figures

Question 7

The Lady Chatterley Lover
Trial

Answer 7

• August 1960: Penguin Books announced its publish of an uncensored version of ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’
• Originally privately published in Florence 1928, then an uncensored public version in 1932
• Sexually explicit content/words
• Novel depicts an upper-class woman who embarks on an affair with her working-class gamekeeper, husband had been paralysed in WW1 creating emotional/physical distance between them
• November 2nd 1960: Penguin Books were found ‘not guilty’ under the Obscene Publications Act for its printing of Lady Chatterley’s Lover
• Made a significant impact on the publishing world

Question 8

Angry Young Men
‘Literary Rebels’

Answer 8

• Late 1950s: group of writers used the arts to attack the behaviour and attitudes of the established upper/middle-classes
• ‘Look Back in Anger’, John Osborne, staged in 1956, controversial
• Rebelled against traditional theatre and literature
• Wanted to produce plays and books that reflected contemporary society
• Writing was sarcastic, bitter, often bleak in outlook
• Mundane everyday settings, use of everyday language
• 1958: ‘The Birthday Party’, Harold Pinter
• 1960: ‘ A Kind of Loving’, Stan Barstow