Forget the classless society - two thirds of us now say we're working class and proud

Margaret Thatcher must be reaching into her handbag for a tissue to wipe her eyes. In spite of years of social engineering during the Eighties and Nineties, of encouraging home ownership and giving people the right to buy their council house, the British population considers itself more working class than it did 12 years ago.

A survey yesterday by Mori shows more than two-thirds of people feel "working class and proud of it" in spite of all the Thatcherite efforts to give voters ideas above their stations, ideas that were supposed to result in them voting Conservative.

Regardless of having fewer manual workers in manufacturing industry than at any time in history, and in spite of the relative increase in living standards, 68 per cent of people who were asked by the pollsters whether they considered themselves working class said "Yes".

The unexpected results augur well for Labour at the next general election, with people who are not working class by traditional definitions apparently identifying with Blairite values. The social values poll found 55 per cent of people who would traditionally be described as middle class said they had working-class feelings.

Dr Roger Mortimore, a political analyst and associate director of Mori, described the findings as "a remarkable renaissance". Similar research in 1999 found 52 per cent felt working class, 58 per cent did in 1997 and just 51 per cent did in 1994.

"It seems that over the period of office of the present Government there has been a remarkable renaissance in the feeling of working class solidarity – a period during which, measured by conventional definitions, the size of the British working class has continued to fall," Dr Mortimore said.

Many people traditionally failed to put themselves in the category into which market researchers would place them, but even taking that into account, the results were startling.

Academics are also astonished. Dr Peter Tyler, a reader in economics at Cambridge University, said: "Only 3.6 million people now work in manufacturing industry and the working population as a whole is 28 million, so most people are not in manufacturing, the traditional constituency of the working class.

"I am very surprised at these results. Most people, even if their income does not justify it, have delusions of grandeur, and traditionally many have considered themselves middle class when they are not. To have the middle class consider themselves working class is completely unexpected."

Dr Tyler said the results could be based on a misunderstanding, particularly among young people, over what "working class" meant. "Young people like to think of themselves as being more egalitarian, so perhaps if they work and they like to feel everyone is equal, they may consider that is enough to call themselves 'working class'."

Joe Ashton, a former Labour MP, said a person's roots were more important in forming how they felt about themselves than their job or how much they earned. He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that Cherie Booth QC was a prime example of this, in spite of being the Prime Minister's wife and a successful and high-earning barrister.

"If you want to define a working-class woman it is that relationship between her and her mother," he said. "The mother looks after the kids while she goes out to work, just like Cherie Blair does. Cherie Blair has her mother [Gale] there. She is working class from Liverpool."

Many of those who considered themselves working class in the poll would probably not have met with the approval of Ron Davies, a former Secretary of State for Wales. In a documentary to be shown on Friday he attacks Wales's First Minister, Rhodri Morgan, for being middle class but pretending not to be.

Mr Davies tells HTV Wales's Tin Gods? programme: "He tries to create the impression that he is some sort of authentic voice of the working class. Of course Rhodri would not recognise the authentic working class if he bumped into them." What neither Mr Davies nor Mr Ashton dared to suggest was that being the daughter of a shopkeeper – as Baroness Thatcher was – meant that you qualified for membership of Britain's elite working class.

Who do you think you are?

1. When you get up in the morning where do you turn for a view of the world?

a) Radio 4 Today programme?

b) BBC TV Breakfast News?

c) GMTV?

2. Your view of muggers can be summed up as:

a) Family background and educational achievement tend to play a major role in determining the propensity to commit crime

b) We need to understand a little less and punish a little more

c) They should be tortured with knives

3. Who fills in your tax return ?

a) You don't have to because it's all in an offshore trust

b) Your accountant

c) You do, if you get one

4. You're off on holiday and you need a chunky novel to read. Which of the following would find its way into your beach bag?

a) Howard Jacobson

b) Catherine Cookson

c) Jackie Collins

5. You mostly bought your furniture at

a) You didn't buy it, you inherited it.

b) Heals

c) World of Leather

6 When you have work done on your home, it is overseen by

a) The architect

b) The interior designer

c) The builders

7. Your dream car is:

a) A mud-spattered Land Rover Defender estate

b) A nearly new BMW 3 series

c) A Vauxhall Nova fitted with lowered suspension, flared wheel arches and a Chevrolet V8

8. Which best describes your accent:

a) You make the Queen sound common

b) a hint of a regional accent in a mostly neutral voice

c) a local accent so strong as to be incomprehensible even in the next street

9 Which politician would you least like to be stuck in a lift with?

a) John Prescott

b) Jack Straw

c) Nicholas Soames

10. Your pension plan is:

a) The aim is to live off the interest on the interest

b) With a life assurance company, but I'm concerned about the stock market

c) The Lotto. It could be me

VERDICT:

Mostly a) To you, the concept of the working class was alien long before Margaret Thatcher came along.

Mostly b) You are middle class but, like most of your peers, probably wish you weren't. Anyone for tennis?

Mostly c) At last, the genuine article. Wear your cloth cap with pride.