Yes, Lauren, you do look bovvered

When I was a student of journalism, one of the things that most appealed to me about the profession was that journalists seemed to know how to cut through the bullshit and get to the point. But, increasingly, journalists don’t seem to be doing that as well as they should.

The British media are good at addressing trivial, everyday things, such as the best restaurants, the finest clothes, the nuttiest celebrities, the greatest footballers and the richest businessmen. They are also very good at reporting on what they see as the latest outrageous American behaviour, or the worst tragedies in the developing world. However, they’re terrible at examining societal problems within Britain. Pop bands like The Kaiser Chiefs do a better job of it than The Times do. (The lyrics to the song I Predict a Riot say more about British society than your average edition of The Times. “Watching the people get lairy/Is not very pretty I tell thee/Walking through town is quite scary/And not very sensible either/A friend of a friend he got beaten/He looked the wrong way at a policeman/Would never have happened to Smeaton")

As an outsider who is used to a different culture, I suppose I notice the flaws more than a native Briton would. When you grow up surrounded by societal flaws, you learn to consider it normal. Either that, or you feel you have to justify it.

Take football hooliganism for example. I know people in Britain are very sensitive about this subject. Britons always say it’s not as bad as people make it out to be. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the fact that it’s there at all is problematic. I’ve never been to a Premiership match, but I’ve seen some pretty deplorable behaviour at Championship football matches. The fact that supporters from opposing clubs have to be separated proves that hooliganism is still rampant. But despite the problem, the British media will always make excuses or try to justify it. For example, I often read about how much worse the problem is in Italy. It’s the grown-up sport reporter equivalent of a kid saying to his mother: “Tommy did it first!”

As another example, the British media made much fanfare about the survey that revealed that Britain is now a fairly classless society. At least, that’s how most newspapers chose to spin coverage of the survey.

The survey revealed that many rich people didn’t consider themselves “upper class.” It also revealed that people who were once considered “middle class” now consider themselves “working class.” The whole thing, to borrow a British expression, was a load of bullocks.

If Britain were a classless society, the media wouldn’t have even considered covering the story. In Canada, the class debate doesn’t even register. No one would think to associate themselves with a class. You would never hear someone say: “That is way too middle class for my tastes” -- a comment I have heard muttered in England. I’m not even entirely sure what it means.

Britain is no more a classless society than it was 20 years ago. People are now just more embarrassed about being privileged because it’s not cool. It’s much more hip to be an Alan Sugar (rags to riches business tycoon) than it is to be a David Cameron (Eton/Oxford-educated Tory leader). (As an aside, the pendulum may swing in Cameron’s favour. A 1980s-like fixation on wealth and prestige -- i.e. people being obsessed with footballer’s wives -- seems to be in style at the moment).

And if you need more proof that Britain is not a classless society, take a look at the general public’s love of poking fun at the group of people known as “chavs” -- widely considered the new word for “working class.” A fictional character called Lauren Cooper is the most memorable television creation of last year. She was a slightly overweight, track-suit-wearing, tight-pony-tailed, under-educated girl who always said: “Do I look bovvered?” This is clearly poking fun at Britain’s poor, “working class” population. And if you’ve used public transportation in the last five years, you know that girls like Lauren are out there. They’re usually not funny like Lauren, though. And they do look “bovvered.” For the most part, they don't have terribly happy lives. Deep down, these girls know they were born in a class-based society, and they won’t be able to break out of it very easily.

Still, the British media snapped up the story that Britain is a classless society. Nobody seemed to question it. I wonder if the media were looking for the positive spin in the story, or if they simply failed to see what’s obvious to an outsider like myself.