Some nonsense from across in Britain...
It seems to me that the main difference between identifying as "working class" and "middle class" is that the working class admit they are proletarians. Many people identify as middle class but just because you work in an office rather than a factory doesn't make you not a member of the working class. Unless you own the office.* British politics has become less about class over time with the old partisanship (w/c =Lab; m/c = Tory)** weakened and yet at the same time class is as pervasive as ever. Just as an aside, I had a lecturer who asked a whole lecture hall of students at my uni if they are working class and no-one said yes. One of my tutors did the same in a seminar and I was the only one to say that yes I am working class. Class mobility has actually declined over time, not increased on both sides of the Atlantic. *** paradoxical really.
*Okay it's a little more nuanced than this but most people working in an office etc are at the bottom with crap jobs, etc, as I said, that's not middle class.
** it was once said that class is the be all and end all of British politics; all else is embellishment.
*** Source: http://www.monbiot.com/2006/07/07/willy-loman-syndrome/ if you haven't read this article I recommend it.
We had this discussion in Politics seminars last year. Our lecturer put it to us that the label 'Working Class' is having an identity crisis. There are many out there who believe that working class people work in factories or down mines, don't have a car, go on holiday to Blackpool ever other year, vote Labour etc. In the model of the traditional cloth cap wearing Northerner of the 50s.
Since the decline of the manual labourer that has happened throughout the Western world this is obviously no longer the case. The majority can afford 'luxuries' undreamed of by their parents, everybody can have at least one TV and car, most work in 'white collar' office jobs, a lot have enough disposable income for yearly foreign holidays etc. In short, most people would identify as 'Middle Class' by yesteryear's standards.
So what has happened? Has the working class just been re-defined or has it disappeared entirely, half swallowed up by 'lower middle class' and half dumped into a sort of 'underclass' with generations of unemployed in the same family? We watched a video of people being stopped in the street, most said they were 'middle class', one man in a suit and tie standing next to his BMW said he was 'working class'. Most tellingly, one family were asked if they would identify as 'working class' and said that they wouldn't, because they don't work.
In short, it's a big mess.