Middle class? Moi?

Am I still working class? Maybe I'm turning into Polly Toynbee? Maybe I did years ago.

As the descendant of dockers, trawlermen, builders and shopkeepers who rented, never owned, who mostly left school at 14 or 16, and never went to university I have always thought of myself as working class.

But -- I own my own home, as do my parents. I went to university (they didn't). I go to cultural events, I love museums, art galleries, theatre, libraries, literature, Radio 4 and my favourite TV channels are BBC2, 3 and 4 and Channel 4. I read the Guardian (online, obvs). I read the Daily Telegraph (the thinking person's Daily Mail).

On the other hand I love pubs and beer and punk music and rock music and motorbikes. I belong to a union, I slag off the government on Twitter because of the way it is privatising the NHS. I vote Labour. But so does Polly Toynbee.

Are these class divisions just too simplistic? Or am I just lower middle class? Is that what social mobility has done for me? In six generations we've gone from Lincolnshire trawlerman to PR person who can only afford a Fiat Panda. Go back six generations from Polly and you get wealthy Lincolnshire landowner George Toynbee. So we have Lincolnshire and Labour in common.

But it's not looking like my daughter will be able to afford a house of her own, despite the money we have saved for her. What little social mobility there was has come to a halt.

Culturally and intellectually we are educated and sophisticated and middle class. But it is still inherited wealth that really counts.

My brain is middle class, then, but my bank balance is still wearing a blue collar and a flat cap.

I bet Polly's got a bigger car than me. And so will her children have.