Everyone's calling Katie Hopkins an insufferable snob, but even an article by Joan Smith in that esteemed quality paper The Independent last year made pretty much the same generalisations around class and names:
I now realise that I owe the taxpayers of this country an apology. My first home was a mansion set in 75 hectares of landscaped gardens, with a boating pond and Gothic ruins. My family would never have been able to afford it on their own – I'm not a Rothschild, as some of you may already have suspected – but we were able to live in a stately home built by the banking family. And it was all thanks to the generosity of the local authority.
Yes, I have to admit, I grew up in "social housing". Council houses, as they used to be called when I was a child, came in all shapes and forms. Social housing allowed my parents to live in a Grade II*-listed building in west London – my dad was a council gardener, and the flat came with the job – instead of a row of identical boxes on a modern estate.
Now someone has noticed this anomaly, which means that working-class people are still living in posh areas of our cities. It's a scandal, as a headline in yesterday's Daily Telegraph pointed out: "No one has a right to live in Kensington at taxpayers' expense." A right-wing think-tank has tackled this injustice head-on with a report – endorsed by the Housing minister Grant Shapps – which wants councils to sell posh houses and use the money to build cheaper homes.
Inevitably, given the shortage of space in our cities, that means somewhere else: a place we might usefully designate "Not-Kensington", where people on low incomes can be with people like themselves. They'll be more comfortable, you know, with all the other Kayleighs and Duanes. Another way of achieving this species of social engineering, it now occurs to me, would be to create zones in our cities where parents who give their children certain first names are not allowed to live. But that's not (yet) the proposal to hand. Policy Exchange is urging local authorities to sell off "expensive" social housing as it becomes vacant – magnanimously allowing the current tenants to die there or move of their own accord – and build hundreds of thousands of cheaper homes with the proceeds.
The idea apparently stems from the discovery that more than a fifth of council house tenants in England live in homes worth more than the average privately owned home in their areas. (Have you ever noticed, by the way, that poor people live in houses while rich people have "homes"?) The report estimates that selling social housing could raise £4.5bn a year, and fund a programme to build houses in Not-Kensington and create up to 340,000 jobs in the construction industry.
You don't have to be a great thinker to see the problems with this proposal. What are the chances of all that money being spent on providing social housing? Very low, judging by what's happened when social housing has been sold off in the past, and now local authorities are desperate for funds for other projects. Loss of social housing stock, which began when Margaret Thatcher embarked on an ideological mission to sell it off, is one of the reasons for today's catastrophic housing shortage.
Then there's the problem of social exclusion, which will only get worse if people on lower incomes – including nurses, fire fighters and other essential workers – are denied access to public housing in nice parts of our cities. Neil O'Brien, the director of Policy Exchange, claims that the scheme wouldn't mean social housing tenants having to move from their local area – just to a less sought-after street, whatever that means. He must be thinking about all those wide, undeveloped spaces in Pimlico and Notting Hill, but the chief executive of the National Housing Federation takes a less rosy view. "It could effectively cleanse many towns of hard-working people who simply can't afford the high prices of buying or renting privately," David Orr said bluntly.
When I finally moved with my parents to a council estate, I discovered what social exclusion meant. In sixth form, I was one of a handful of girls at the local grammar school who didn't live in privately owned homes. I didn't have many friends, even though I think the other girls' condescension was mostly unconscious. I barely knew public schools existed, and I only discovered much later that Old Etonians were running the country. As they are in 2012, of course.
One of the things I like most about the area of London where I now live is that it has what's known as "mixed" housing. Even so, class prejudice runs deep: a cop once asked if I'd had any problems with the council flats across the road, adding primly that he'd had to speak to some of the tenants about "inappropriate behaviour".
Some days, I have to pinch myself. It's the 21st century, and we're actually talking about moving working-class people out of nice areas? According to Policy Exchange, people don't have a "right" to live in expensive places – unless they're rich, of course. Thankfully, the wealthy won't ever have to face the prospect of living in Not-Kensington. And I can only offer my sincere apologies, as a working-class person who undeservedly started life in a Rothschild mansion.
A colleague was checking this out on youtube during a break in work so I know what this is about. I then heard this person being interviewed last night on Radio 5, and found her opinions so ridiculous it was actually quite funny and entertaining. Yeah, she's a troll who's sadly gone beyond her 15 minutes of fame.
(worried) Is Mike an okay name? I'm terrified of the judgement of this tedious attention-seeker.
Still, searched for the thread and made a comment...so the troll wins. B*gger!
And no one has a stereotype in mind when the name Tarquin is mentioned..?:rolleyes:
I find it quite amusing the lady with Tyler named child then use abusive swear words to describe their feelings. Oh the irony
All that aside quite frankly when my daughter comes home and a new boyfriend is mentioned the first question is "Where does he live?" closely followed by "Is dad rich?"
Call me old fashioned but is she ended up with a Tyler or a Wayne or even a Kevin I would be gutted....
Just looked at her Twitter again, every tweet is making her look more & more ridiculous now.
I imagine unlike any other rational human being, outside enjoying the sun with family & friends, she's wasted the day sat with her laptop, tragically & desperately trying to think of comments purely to antagonize us peasants.
Just looked at her Twitter again, every tweet is making her look more & more ridiculous now.
I imagine unlike any other rational human being, outside enjoying the sun with family & friends, she's wasted the day sat with her laptop, tragically & desperately trying to think of comments purely to antagonize us peasants.
Everyone's calling Katie Hopkins an insufferable snob, but even an article by Joan Smith in that esteemed quality paper The Independent last year made pretty much the same generalisations around class and names:
I now realise that I owe the taxpayers of this country an apology. My first home was a mansion set in 75 hectares of landscaped gardens, with a boating pond and Gothic ruins. My family would never have been able to afford it on their own – I'm not a Rothschild, as some of you may already have suspected – but we were able to live in a stately home built by the banking family. And it was all thanks to the generosity of the local authority.
Yes, I have to admit, I grew up in "social housing". Council houses, as they used to be called when I was a child, came in all shapes and forms. Social housing allowed my parents to live in a Grade II*-listed building in west London – my dad was a council gardener, and the flat came with the job – instead of a row of identical boxes on a modern estate.
Now someone has noticed this anomaly, which means that working-class people are still living in posh areas of our cities. It's a scandal, as a headline in yesterday's Daily Telegraph pointed out: "No one has a right to live in Kensington at taxpayers' expense." A right-wing think-tank has tackled this injustice head-on with a report – endorsed by the Housing minister Grant Shapps – which wants councils to sell posh houses and use the money to build cheaper homes.
Inevitably, given the shortage of space in our cities, that means somewhere else: a place we might usefully designate "Not-Kensington", where people on low incomes can be with people like themselves. They'll be more comfortable, you know, with all the other Kayleighs and Duanes. Another way of achieving this species of social engineering, it now occurs to me, would be to create zones in our cities where parents who give their children certain first names are not allowed to live. But that's not (yet) the proposal to hand. Policy Exchange is urging local authorities to sell off "expensive" social housing as it becomes vacant – magnanimously allowing the current tenants to die there or move of their own accord – and build hundreds of thousands of cheaper homes with the proceeds.
The idea apparently stems from the discovery that more than a fifth of council house tenants in England live in homes worth more than the average privately owned home in their areas. (Have you ever noticed, by the way, that poor people live in houses while rich people have "homes"?) The report estimates that selling social housing could raise £4.5bn a year, and fund a programme to build houses in Not-Kensington and create up to 340,000 jobs in the construction industry.
You don't have to be a great thinker to see the problems with this proposal. What are the chances of all that money being spent on providing social housing? Very low, judging by what's happened when social housing has been sold off in the past, and now local authorities are desperate for funds for other projects. Loss of social housing stock, which began when Margaret Thatcher embarked on an ideological mission to sell it off, is one of the reasons for today's catastrophic housing shortage.
Then there's the problem of social exclusion, which will only get worse if people on lower incomes – including nurses, fire fighters and other essential workers – are denied access to public housing in nice parts of our cities. Neil O'Brien, the director of Policy Exchange, claims that the scheme wouldn't mean social housing tenants having to move from their local area – just to a less sought-after street, whatever that means. He must be thinking about all those wide, undeveloped spaces in Pimlico and Notting Hill, but the chief executive of the National Housing Federation takes a less rosy view. "It could effectively cleanse many towns of hard-working people who simply can't afford the high prices of buying or renting privately," David Orr said bluntly.
When I finally moved with my parents to a council estate, I discovered what social exclusion meant. In sixth form, I was one of a handful of girls at the local grammar school who didn't live in privately owned homes. I didn't have many friends, even though I think the other girls' condescension was mostly unconscious. I barely knew public schools existed, and I only discovered much later that Old Etonians were running the country. As they are in 2012, of course.
One of the things I like most about the area of London where I now live is that it has what's known as "mixed" housing. Even so, class prejudice runs deep: a cop once asked if I'd had any problems with the council flats across the road, adding primly that he'd had to speak to some of the tenants about "inappropriate behaviour".
Some days, I have to pinch myself. It's the 21st century, and we're actually talking about moving working-class people out of nice areas? According to Policy Exchange, people don't have a "right" to live in expensive places – unless they're rich, of course. Thankfully, the wealthy won't ever have to face the prospect of living in Not-Kensington. And I can only offer my sincere apologies, as a working-class person who undeservedly started life in a Rothschild mansion.
Names are like any other fashion - they will vary according to social group.
There is a difference, imo, between recognising this and actively wanting to segregate kids on the basis of class.
It's positively Victorian.
Admittedly the other Katie put up pretty feeble arguments but it's the look of snooty disgust on Katie Hopkins face, as for the superior way she dismisses the other K by holding her hand up like a headmistress to a naughty school child:mad:
She's been quite active in the media lately, CBB is around the corner and La Brick managed to get herself in the last one - could this be a plan because she's going into the house?
Comments
http://www.independent.co.uk/hei-fi/views/joan-smith-selling-expensive-council-houses-wont-improve-social-housing-8069163.html?origin=internalSearch
I now realise that I owe the taxpayers of this country an apology. My first home was a mansion set in 75 hectares of landscaped gardens, with a boating pond and Gothic ruins. My family would never have been able to afford it on their own – I'm not a Rothschild, as some of you may already have suspected – but we were able to live in a stately home built by the banking family. And it was all thanks to the generosity of the local authority.
Yes, I have to admit, I grew up in "social housing". Council houses, as they used to be called when I was a child, came in all shapes and forms. Social housing allowed my parents to live in a Grade II*-listed building in west London – my dad was a council gardener, and the flat came with the job – instead of a row of identical boxes on a modern estate.
Now someone has noticed this anomaly, which means that working-class people are still living in posh areas of our cities. It's a scandal, as a headline in yesterday's Daily Telegraph pointed out: "No one has a right to live in Kensington at taxpayers' expense." A right-wing think-tank has tackled this injustice head-on with a report – endorsed by the Housing minister Grant Shapps – which wants councils to sell posh houses and use the money to build cheaper homes.
Inevitably, given the shortage of space in our cities, that means somewhere else: a place we might usefully designate "Not-Kensington", where people on low incomes can be with people like themselves. They'll be more comfortable, you know, with all the other Kayleighs and Duanes. Another way of achieving this species of social engineering, it now occurs to me, would be to create zones in our cities where parents who give their children certain first names are not allowed to live. But that's not (yet) the proposal to hand. Policy Exchange is urging local authorities to sell off "expensive" social housing as it becomes vacant – magnanimously allowing the current tenants to die there or move of their own accord – and build hundreds of thousands of cheaper homes with the proceeds.
The idea apparently stems from the discovery that more than a fifth of council house tenants in England live in homes worth more than the average privately owned home in their areas. (Have you ever noticed, by the way, that poor people live in houses while rich people have "homes"?) The report estimates that selling social housing could raise £4.5bn a year, and fund a programme to build houses in Not-Kensington and create up to 340,000 jobs in the construction industry.
You don't have to be a great thinker to see the problems with this proposal. What are the chances of all that money being spent on providing social housing? Very low, judging by what's happened when social housing has been sold off in the past, and now local authorities are desperate for funds for other projects. Loss of social housing stock, which began when Margaret Thatcher embarked on an ideological mission to sell it off, is one of the reasons for today's catastrophic housing shortage.
Then there's the problem of social exclusion, which will only get worse if people on lower incomes – including nurses, fire fighters and other essential workers – are denied access to public housing in nice parts of our cities. Neil O'Brien, the director of Policy Exchange, claims that the scheme wouldn't mean social housing tenants having to move from their local area – just to a less sought-after street, whatever that means. He must be thinking about all those wide, undeveloped spaces in Pimlico and Notting Hill, but the chief executive of the National Housing Federation takes a less rosy view. "It could effectively cleanse many towns of hard-working people who simply can't afford the high prices of buying or renting privately," David Orr said bluntly.
When I finally moved with my parents to a council estate, I discovered what social exclusion meant. In sixth form, I was one of a handful of girls at the local grammar school who didn't live in privately owned homes. I didn't have many friends, even though I think the other girls' condescension was mostly unconscious. I barely knew public schools existed, and I only discovered much later that Old Etonians were running the country. As they are in 2012, of course.
One of the things I like most about the area of London where I now live is that it has what's known as "mixed" housing. Even so, class prejudice runs deep: a cop once asked if I'd had any problems with the council flats across the road, adding primly that he'd had to speak to some of the tenants about "inappropriate behaviour".
Some days, I have to pinch myself. It's the 21st century, and we're actually talking about moving working-class people out of nice areas? According to Policy Exchange, people don't have a "right" to live in expensive places – unless they're rich, of course. Thankfully, the wealthy won't ever have to face the prospect of living in Not-Kensington. And I can only offer my sincere apologies, as a working-class person who undeservedly started life in a Rothschild mansion.
(worried) Is Mike an okay name? I'm terrified of the judgement of this tedious attention-seeker.
Still, searched for the thread and made a comment...so the troll wins. B*gger!
I find it quite amusing the lady with Tyler named child then use abusive swear words to describe their feelings. Oh the irony
All that aside quite frankly when my daughter comes home and a new boyfriend is mentioned the first question is "Where does he live?" closely followed by "Is dad rich?"
Call me old fashioned but is she ended up with a Tyler or a Wayne or even a Kevin I would be gutted....
She's obviously a bad Mumbai all accounts. She speaks a load of Uttar Pradesh.
Any Moradabad jokes.
She needs to Hyderabad opinions because she's running out of Lucknow and making a right Assam of herself. I couldn't Kerala less what she thinks.
I don't want to put a Dhampur on things but she's Dhanbad for her own reputation
I imagine unlike any other rational human being, outside enjoying the sun with family & friends, she's wasted the day sat with her laptop, tragically & desperately trying to think of comments purely to antagonize us peasants.
She's bordering on needing a straight jacket!
As long as it's a designer one dahling
Harrods are having a made to measure one designed as we speak dahling.
Primark offered to run up a bulk of them for her for free, her butler is still trying to scrape her off her marble floor:eek:
Maybe Primark could have them delivered to her by a couple of their staff members called Demi-Mai and Jayden - that would make her day
If their address is a haiku however, that is another matter.
Especially if they delivered them in a MASSIVE "Primark Van" in full view of all her neighbours, Poor Katie.........the shame of it!
She'd be shrieking like a mad woman at poor Demi-Mai & Jayden:D
Naming trends go in cycles.
It can traced across all demographics.
My outrage isn't faux. I think she's an insufferable snob.
Because they come from a subcultural background where those names are popular.
It's not rocket science.
Names are like any other fashion - they will vary according to social group.
There is a difference, imo, between recognising this and actively wanting to segregate kids on the basis of class.
It's positively Victorian.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QK87lKJq6lI
Admittedly the other Katie put up pretty feeble arguments but it's the look of snooty disgust on Katie Hopkins face, as for the superior way she dismisses the other K by holding her hand up like a headmistress to a naughty school child:mad:
Not rocket science? I thought they were just dodgy '80s pop songs! LOL
I like the way you used the term subcultural. You'll be talking about the Untermensch next. :eek: