Labour Membership So Middle Class

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         How many Brit's work in "manual labour" jobs these days, compared to 50 or 60 years ago ..   15%,  20%  ???

A lot of entry-level "manual" jobs have disappeared to mechanisation , automation and 'off-shoring', down here just since I left school in the 1970s;  and I suspect it's quite similar over there..

Down here, the Labor party membership includes tradies and wharfies, nurses and teachers, academics and farmers, and a few small business owners scattered around --  both major political parties here (Labor to the left-of centre, and the Lib's on the centre-right) can be described as "broad church" organisations in the makeup of their membership bases..

Labour is full of champagne socialist hypocrites... they love mass immigration because it pishes up the value of their homes and they can get a cheap foreign nanny for the kids and a cheap foreign plumber etc...

Tommy Monk wrote:
Labour is full of champagne socialist hypocrites... they love mass immigration because it pishes up the value of their homes and they can get a cheap foreign nanny for the kids and a cheap foreign plumber etc...

We have our share of "champagne socialists" down here, as well -- most of them based in inner suburbs of Sydney, Melbourne, and to a lesser degree Brisbane, Adelaide and Newcastle -- with their parties of choice often being either Labor or the Greens...

They are a rare breed out in the regions and rural areas, though..

Actually...


ABC1s vs C2DEs
Social grade defines occupation type of highest income earner in household:
A - Higher managerial, administrative and professional.
B - Intermediate managerial, administrative and professional
C1 - Supervisory, clerical and junior managerial, administrative and professional
C2 - Skilled manual workers
D - Semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers
E - State pensioners, casual and lowest grade workers, unemployed with state benefits only

The figures compiled by Ipsos Mori from the National Readership Survey show that in 1968, two-thirds of households were in the manual or lower-paid social grade bracket known as C2DEs.

But by 2015, the proportion of C2DEs... = 45.8%.


https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2016/feb/26/uk-more-middle-class-than-working-class-2000-data

Tommy Monk wrote:

Actually...


ABC1s vs C2DEs
Social grade defines occupation type of highest income earner in household:
A - Higher managerial, administrative and professional.
B - Intermediate managerial, administrative and professional
C1 - Supervisory, clerical and junior managerial, administrative and professional
C2 - Skilled manual workers
D - Semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers
E - State pensioners, casual and lowest grade workers, unemployed with state benefits only

The figures compiled by Ipsos Mori from the National Readership Survey show that in 1968, two-thirds of households were in the manual or lower-paid social grade bracket known as C2DEs.

But by 2015, the proportion of C2DEs... = 45.8%.


https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2016/feb/26/uk-more-middle-class-than-working-class-2000-data

Just pointing out the obvious that the grading doesn't encompass engineers, analysts and technicians which can easily ear more than the B group
in fact C2 can earn more then B easily too if you include plumbers and electricians.
C1 roles are often poorly paid now, anyone can be a McManager

Many of the old unskilled jobs simply don't exist anymore and that will continue with most skill labor getting automated too and you don't need HR or Line supervisors for Robots.

So is the OP just pointing out the evolving base of a successful party? since it has found new membership demographics when it's traditional demographics shrank.

And not forgetting that these days, many underground miners and quarry ("open cut") workers, oil rig workers, and deep sea fishermen,  can be earning the equivalent of £100,000 or more a year...

Many self-employed farmers and small-business owners (whose qualifications place them in lower grades on that scale..) are millionaires today, on the basis of capital value --  often boosted by skyrocketing property values..

That table's ranking could seem to be quite "London-centric" to me ?

I was pointing out the % of people doing manual labour jobs, as it was claimed it was much lower than it is...

Tommy Monk wrote:
I was pointing out the % of people doing manual labour jobs, as it was claimed it was much lower than it is...

Maybe that classification of "manual labour" only included the likes of labourers, trades assistants, cleaners and farmhands ???

Leaving out other types of genuine "manual" work -- such as farmers, gardeners and groundsmen, strappers and stablehands, storemen, wharfies, boathands, tradies, craftsmen, artists -- could effectively halve the actual proportion of people who still 'work with their hands' most of the time ?