(1219)(1334)
Just dropped an X over there:
“I’m writing a post on Restore, Reform and the English class system. It will be at blog HQ, not here, I’ll link … just don’t think it will be productive here. No shift in position, just observation. So that’s me out for an hour. Enjoy the last half Memorial and Bank Holiday.”
Antecedents
I was state primary/elementary educated, LEA, not grammar, father a builder/painter/electrician, mother a maternity nurse. My level of education is partly down to excellent teachers of the old type in primary, then started my public school education which is why I write and spell the way I do.
Thinking of analogies, Casino Royale’s James Bond, being mocked on the train by Vesper, is not far away. Some other people who might have a few things to say on’t might include DH Lawrence and Hemmingway. My education did open doors but the real recruiters passed … I met them, socially, but there was something a bit insubordinate, wild, liable to take unexpected courses … not even I knew what I was going to do beyond a medium term plan.
In some ways natural conservative party, I’m also natural old labour, hence my circle being upper middle, with a labour sticker on the window. Way back when. But also trade … mate got me into a screenprinting apprenticeship, also liked woodturning, built fences, sheds, boats (long before 2013) … about the only field I was never interested in was electrician. Military took three years of my life, went from sergeant to officer school as one pip lieutenant, didn’t think I was good enough, left and went into the civil service, finally back to teaching, headmaster etc. was a DJ on alternative radio for a while … not Radio Caroline but could have done.
So I’m a weird demographic with a Yorkshire da and Irish mum … largely regarded as “not one of us” by any group, bricklayers to professors to ministers of state … no demographic calls me one of them. Interesting eh? Women have never been quite able to pin down what I am. A person could turn to drink, become a psycho or just be amused by it all. Better the latter.
Which is not to say I’m Jimmy No Friends … there are a few networks, with the Unherdables close to the top in my estimation. And I like people, it’s even my mission to work for our people … which makes me a natural Restorer.
Were I try to sum up my natural cohort, I’d say an orphan of liberty or an unherdable.
Natural Reformers, natural Restorers
Problem on X I find is that there are ladies who like my education, are appalled by my Restore pushing … they’re respectable middle-middle, even upper middle, love everyone but too sane to hug trees, too capitalist, too NIMBY, my old young conservative set … but dissident, so they would vote that way in a stable society but are appalled by the Tories, so opt for Reform. I’m afraid my embracing of the ordinary people does not appeal to them. And these have always been my people … both lots.
Interesting that Rupert heads a working and middle-middle party, yet he is landed gentry to a point, with many Tory connections. Farage is just a chancer I’m afraid, non U to his aspirational M25 bubble, Sloan Rangers etc.
Then we come to language and accents. Restorers are quite direct, not RP (that’s Reform), plus the females swear like navvies. Henry Bolton called them out on it, forgetting we have Americans and Canadians involved too, Antipodaeans, Euro nations. Restorers tend to have local accents, Reformers are more “aspirational”, let’s say. I find Restorers far more to the point, I feel comfortable among them … and yet, those Reform ladies and I still talk to each other on a friendly basis.
We haven’s even got to the Israel or Mosley/Enoch factor yet.
