Cars and social status

Social status has always intrigued me as I’ve never really been able to get my head around it. Maybe it’s because I’m a Liberal by instinct and see social status as being of no interest?

Anyway, this particular ramble is about cars and the perceived social status that goes with them. Of course, such social status before the motorcar was based on the ‘turnout’ of the horse, harness and carriage, so Jack Hargreaves tells us in an episode of the early 1980’s Ch4 TV programme ‘Old Country’. You can find it here on YouTube -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9gbY0cAvDA

For me too it all started back in the early 1980’s when my dad, who’d previously bought his own cars (his first was a Morris Traveller), was given one by his employer, seemingly because he was a branch manager as a part of his employment package. A nice yellow MKI Vauxhall Astra. The car he sold on gaining the Astra he’d previously bought from his company when the lease on dad’s area manger’s car, a green Triumph 1500, came to an end.

                     Me & Mum - 1966 (in Rochdale) with Dad's Morris Traveller

You may realise realise from this that dad’s area manager had gained a company car some years prior but then again an area manager covering the whole of the north west of England would clearly need a car and anyway he was obviously deemed to be of a higher eployment/social status. As an aside, I bought that MKI yellow Astra from my dad’s company when it in turn came to the end of its lease. Dad, at that point, was given an MKII Astra.

Without doubt I’d noticed, unsurprisingly, that dad’s area manager was given a higher spec’ car and it made my youngish mind wonder about cars and social status.

Yes, of course, cars have always had a status about them as in the early days it was only the wealthy who could run them. As they got cheaper the ownership base widened, but even in the early 1960’s having a family car was still relatively unusual amongst ordinary working class/lower middle class folk. The local doctor would have one to do his rounds, but they were still pretty much beyond the pocket of many working people. Now, of course, the lack of a car is all but seen as odd in our car dependent communities.

I read the other day about what, if I recall correctly, was a Dutch study regarding the effects of taking children to school by car instead of walking/cycling. Unsurprisingly, the walkers and cyclists taking their children to school were fitter, had less body mass but interestingly they also seemed happier too. So clearly running a car on shortish journeys has more than financial consequences; it damages your health/wellbeing too.

The now infamous school-run clogs up roads around primary schools in particular and often the journeys made are less than a couple of miles. But is having a car and taking your children to school in it all part of social status or is it just a consequence of young families living their days at 90mph so to speak? I suggest both.

Does a parent in a basic run-around car feel socially inadequate against a row of top of the range German cars that their children’s friends parents roll up in? Are parents who walk or cycle their children to school left feeling as though they don’t quite fit in?

And here’s another interesting and rather sad aside. Quite some years ago, during the time I was a local councillor, I was contacted by a pensioner couple who asked me if I could try to get a local circular bus route to take in their estate. It seemed like a good idea to me so I surveyed the quite middle class estate telling them about the request and asking for support to campaign for the route to be adjusted accordingly. Suffice to say I got a lot of negative responses from car-owning folk who did not see the need/want a bus trundling around their estate. I only got positive responses, in the main, from households without a car and they were few and far between. Without a groundswell of support the campaign was doomed. See what a mean about car dependent communities; we’ve got them and some folk will cling hard onto them.

A chap I know recently told me that a friend of his had likened his car to an old lady’s shopping car. Yes, it’s a small car but quite adequate for his purposes and budget and the person making the remark had a much fancier car. Did it make him feel inadequate and looked down upon? Yes, it certainly did.

All this makes me think that cars are very much the ultimate status symbol in our society. Having a car is vital if you want to fit in. Having a grand car is a further step up and you may well feel the need to compete with your family/friendship group to stay fitting in. It’s like having the latest i phone, wearing the latest fashions, even having the latest footballers’ hair cut, for blokes anyway. And talking of Prem League footballers and indeed other successful sports people don’t they always have an expensive car to go with their perceived celeb’ status?

And what of Tesla’s? With sales seemingly dropping off following the company owner doing what looked to many to be akin to a 1930/40’s German political salute the cars gained the unfortunate nickname ‘Swasticar’ and overnight a popular car amongst the middle classes with an environmental/social conscience became a problem. Will they sell second hand? Will environmentalists continue to buy them? Will they now sell to far right supporters? Probably not as they also tend to be fossil fuel enthusiasts, so no buyers there then. If you bought one to be up with the latest car trend or simply because you want to do the right thing for our environment* then buyer regrets may well be an unfortunate consequence.

I must admit that I’d rather not have a car. It costs me small fortune to run, but our evermore car dependent communities mean that unless you live within a major city your public transport options, particularly with regard to buses, get less and less by the year. But just look at how London is changing (health warning -petrol heads should not view the following video because of potential detrimental blood pressure consequences) but will it lead to a whole new social status issue with cycles? -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OunBRdTIe3w&t=339s

Yes, I’ve got a car but it’s not a BMW, Merc’ or Audi etc. so no, I’m certainly not trying to fit in and may well be looked down upon and perceived to be of a low social status as a consequence, but frankly this old Liberal doesn’t give a damn.

Now go out, stretch your budget as far as you can, lease a fancy car and show it off at the school gate and amongst your friendship group. But you’ll have to keep upgrading to maintain your social status. If, however, you can’t afford to upgrade (oh the social shame of it) change the number plate to a personalised one. It’ll get you some social Brownie points and stop folks reading your reg plate to clock the age of the car and them realising your just a poor person struggling to keep up.

* Electric cars generally are not necessarily good for the environment as we may like to think because mining for the minerals to build batteries is a massive problem in the making.

 

Did ‘Owenism’ eventually win the day in the Labour Party?

Dr. David Owen will probably be best remembered as one of the ‘Gang of Four’ who left the Labour Party to form the SDP in 1981. He was, at least to many Liberals (during the SDP/Liberal Alliance), the most right-wing of the Four and the most difficult, by a long chalk, for Liberals to get along with. Indeed, he was oft referred to as Dr. Death by Liberals who felt he’d probably destroy the SDP and the Liberals along with it.

His politics have often struck me as being all but centre-right and considering our centre-right (at least economically) present Labour Government the question I pose is has Starmer’s Labour Party become ‘Owenite’ in all but name? In other words have the politics of Dr David Owen finally won the day within Labour?

Labour’s problems are many and deep, not least because its working-class right-wingers have shipped out to Reform, it’s progressives are moving to the Lib Dems and its socialists have made a new home in the Greens whilst Jeremy Corbin’s new Party will obviously attract many a socialist too. An Owenite-like centre-right rump could, if things continue to go badly for Labour, be all that’s left!

As a Social Liberal of the left I always felt that Bill Rodgers, Roy Jenkins and the wonderful Shirley Williams were far more akin to the free thinking of Liberalism. Owen was, at least to me, difficult, uncompromising and stubborn. Although our warped electoral system had a big hand in killing off the SDP my feeling has always been that Owen’s personality as well as his politics were also a significant factor.

I see the approach of our present Labour government being akin to what I think DavidOwen stood for and Starmer has what seems to be a similar stubborn streak to him too. Yes, he’s U-turned over Pensioner’s Fuel Allowance and some Welfare cuts but only because centre-left and socialist Labour back benchers held a gun to his head. I suppose the big question now is how many of those rebelling Labour MP’s will jump ship to Corbyn’s new party?

 

* The logo above is, I understand, that of the Continuing SDP i.e. the party that remained after the merger between the original SDP and the Liberal Party. David Owen being the first Leader of the Continuing SDP.

 

I want one of those sandpapered-look top of the range cars

You must have seen them in a matte black finish looking like at the end of the paint finishing process a minimum wage person has been handed a piece of sandpaper and told to take the shine off the vehicle so it looks like it’s just been undercoated, because the unfinished look is presently seemingly trendy.

Well, I came across one today on my cycle ride and whilst pondering on how bad they look, to me anyway, something else hit me. No, not the that car but the fact that I could barely see the driver as the windscreen was so dark/black too. Had it been inadvertently sandpapered as well?

My point here, joking aside, is that I was taught very early on as a cyclist to try to make sure drivers make eye contact with you at junctions. If they don’t they’re a danger to you so in this case they were a danger because I had no idea if they’d looked at me or not. Surely windscreens should not be so dark as to only be able to make out a vague outline of the person driving? Frankly, I couldn’t even tell if the driver was male or female!

It reminded me of the young lads we see in every community these days, all dressed in black with their hoods up no matter how hot/sunny the weather is. Some even have their faces covered too trying to look like gangsters, even though most will not be, but it’s cool to look like one if you’re young, or so it seems.

So have I now come across the adult car version of a black-hooded disguised teenager? If the car had stopped and a driver dressed all in black from head to toe had got out it may all have made more sense:-)

 

The things I’ve learned as a cyclist

 

 

I came back to cycling about 15 years ago following a 20+ year lay off. The things I’ve learned are:-

* There’s far more traffic about and most of it is being driven at least 10mph over whatever speed limit is in force for any particular road.

* Driver behaviour (I’m a driver too) has got far worse. So many selfish drivers who think the whole road is there’s and no one else on the road matters at all.

* BMW’s, Merc’s, and Audi’s, when driven by males say under 50, are usually a danger to all road users. It’s as though they’ve read a driving manual that simply says ‘You’re the King of the Road’.

* Company vehicles/white vans often seem to be driven madly. Targets to reach and parcels to be delivered meaning speeding is all but required?

* A significant number of pedestrians only seem to listen for the noise of approaching vehicles rather than looking to see what’s coming. As cycles make little or no noise I’ve taken to treating all pedestrians who are not looking at me as as a potential danger to me and indeed themselves. My most amusing encounter was a chap in his 30’s walking backwards into the road, right in front of me, to take a photo!

* Do driving schools teach trainee drivers how to overtake cyclists safely? I’m wondering as I’ve been close-passed by such cars at times. Are there refresher courses for driving school drivers? You’d think whenever there are changes to the Highway Code they’d be called in for such refresher training; are they?

* Painted on Cycle lanes mean absolutely nothing as vehicles just park in them causing danger to cyclists. Indeed, there’s an argument to be had that they create danger rather than make cyclists safer as those of us who pedal have to turn into fast moving traffic to get around park vehicles. Well meaning but damn dangerous.

* The police generally (my experience is within Merseyside & Lancashire) seem not to have any remit/willingness to deal with drivers who act dangerously around cyclists. It takes a cyclist to be knocked off before they’ll take much, if any, notice.

* Dogs on those extendable leads can get well into the road and often do only to be pulled back rather too late. I’m guessing the dog walkers simply listen for vehicles behind them and only when hearing a vehicle approaching pull the dog in?

* Some motorists (always youngish and male) seem to like shouting at cyclists simply because we’re there. Things shouted at me ‘get off the road you’re slowing the traffic down’, ‘get on the pavement where you belong’ and the classic ‘read the Highway Code and get insured’. Of course, cyclists should not be on pavements except young children but sadly the police don’t enforce this. Cyclists usually know the Highway Code better than drivers! Oh, and I’m insured as are all the cyclists that I know.

* On country lanes beware the young farmer with his tractor that’ll do 40 mph pulling a trailer far wider than his tractor or with the bucket down charging at you!

* When a cyclist gives way to allow a vehicle to pass or waves a vehicle on few drivers can be bothered to raise a hand to say thanks. It’s as though they expect cycles to give way to them whatever the circumstances.

* When I’m driving and overtaking a cyclist I go as far as I can in the opposing lane to pass them only to see following vehicles passing the same cyclist far too closely. I guess many fellow drivers have no idea about trying to allow 1.5m between a cyclist and passing vehicle and look at me as doing something odd?

* I’ve only once seen the 1.5m for passing cyclists HC advice advertised on a dot matrix highway sign, that was in Bradford this year. A Sefton Council highways officer told me that when the new advice came out of government and the Highway Code was amended accordingly they put the new advice out on social media and I congratulated them for it. They responded saying they’d taken so much abuse from drivers about the posting that they’d taken the advice down/stopped promoting it!

* There are some bad cyclists out there, running red lights, riding at speed on pavements and acting just like bad drivers. I suspect a bad driver is a bad cyclist.

* Our roads generally are becoming like the wild west with the only law enforcement being after the accidents apart from the odd speed camera.

 

When the IT goes down for whatever reason

Back in the day i.e. some 7+ years ago or more, when I was a civil servant and therefore before I retired, one of my jobs was to try to keep a local business continuity plan (BCP) in place and up to date. It helped guide us through what to do when disaster struck – fire, flood, utilities down (water, gas electric), terrorism, local/national IT problems etc. etc.

My thoughts went back to those days when I walked into my local Co-Op and saw significantly empty shelves caused by their IT systems being hijacked, as indeed has also happened to M&S.

I started to wonder what the BCP’s look like for the data/IT/distribution centres of big national retailers? Do they have/is it possible for them to have back up traditional manual stock systems? Surely, being able to reasonably quickly revert to the old way of doing things has to be firmly in the mind of business planners as hijackings by criminals/rogue or enemy states must be expected on all but a daily basis.

Yes, keep updating the IT security to try to make your systems are as inaccessible as possible, but also plan for the fact that breaches, with far reaching consequences, will happen. Take all your staff, particularly frontline staff in shops, through what the back-up systems are, how to do a daily manual stock-take and phone through requirements each day to try to keep the shelves as full as possible. This is particularly an issue, I assume, with food retail.

I wonder how seriously both having a BCP and most importantly keeping it up to date are taken? It’s no use turning to it in times of crisis only to find that it was last updated some years ago and no one can remember when the last run through of it took place. Oh that was when Mary was in charge but she left 3 years ago. I think you get my drift here.

And don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to suggest that the Co-Op’s BCP’s (or for that matter M&S) weren’t up to scratch, they could well have been and hopefully were, but the longer a business can’t fully function following a crisis the less robust the continuity planning. Well that was my way of looking at the process.

 

44 years on the last Merseyside County Council 

election still causes the odd rumble/grumble

Social media outlets can often be strange places where people just say what they’re thinking, sometimes without any filter or indeed knowledge of what on earth they are talking/upset about. This is particularly a thing with social media community groups I find.

In the lead up to this May’s local elections I saw postings raising concerns and offering some odd all but conspiracy-type theories regarding why there were no local elections in Sefton Borough/on Merseyside this year.

In fact we’ve not had local elections one in every 4 years on Merseyside since our County Council was abolished back in the Thatcher era. The last County election* was as long ago as May 1981. That’s some 44 years!

Here’s a link to a Wikipedia page which tells the story of the rise, fall and short 12 year life of Merseyside County Council - created 1974, abolished 1986:-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merseyside_County_Council

OK, I was involved in local politics on Merseyside for 40 years so like any other politician, of all political colours, I know why the Boroughs of Merseyside** have 3 consecutive years of local elections and then one with none and that this electoral cycle has been embedded for a very, very long time now. On that basis why have a few voters cried foul in May 2025, asked why they’ve not had polling cards, even pondered on who may have put the brake on their local elections? Do they have such thoughts every 4 Merseyside years I wonder?

My first ever local election campaign was actually the very last set of Merseyside County Council elections of May 1981 where my good Liberal friend Jack Parkin was the candidate in the oddly named West Lancs No.3 Ward. Odd in that the ward was not in West Lancs at all and had actually been removed from West Lancs Rural District back in 1974 when local government had been reorganised. I recall that the ward was actually referred to as Maghull South, West & Melling. That Jack came pretty close to winning from a standing start has long been a fond political memory of mine.

Electoral graphic - Wikipedia

 

But turning back from my personal nerdy election memories to the reason for 2025 being ‘fallow’, in local election terms, on Merseyside. When it was explained on social media, by me and indeed others as to why we have no elections this year I got the distinct impression that some folks still seemed to cling to something being wrong even to the point of thinking that their right to vote may have been removed from them.

When you consider that only around one third of voters, or even less, actually usually vote in local elections (and only two thirds in General Elections) that means the Apathy Party actually tops the poll at pretty much every local election, so why the cries of foul when a quite legitimate ‘fallow’ year, in terms of local elections, comes around?

As a parting aside, I recall how difficult it was in my campaigning days to get people to vote in local elections, so the irony of some folks protesting about how their ‘opportunity’ (there wasn’t one) to vote in May 2025 was ‘taken away from them’ by forces unknown is not lost on me.

* Merseyside County Council was abolished in 1986

** Liverpool, Sefton, Knowsley & Wirral & St. Helens

 

Our railways need to be a 7 day a week operation

Like the NHS, social care and retail our railways need to be a 7 day operation and the staff working for them probably need to be on something like 5 out 7 day contracts. I include managers/bigwigs in that too, I might add. 

 

I say that as a life-long trade unionist. That our railways have long relied on staff doing overtime to deliver a 7 day a week operation is frankly ridiculous. That some of our railway lines don’t operate on a Sunday, at all, is also ridiculous – Ormskirk/Preston comes to mind.

I listened to the new big chief at Northern in the YouTube video (It's a long watch) linked below. He certainly talks the talk, but will he deliver?- 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxBDa9mP_Yg

Maybe Northern could shed a couple of lines to help them cope and reform? Ormskirk – Preston and Kirkby Headbolt Lane – Wigan should be turned over to Merseyrail with a more intensive, 7 day service. Probably Bidston – Wrexham needs to be become a Merseyrail service too i.e. no longer Transport for Wales.

But turning back to my trade union angle. Where presently employed staff don’t want to work 5 out of 7 contracts then they should be offered a generous opportunity to leave the railway. Things have to change if we're to try to meet climate change targets and get more people using our railways. My view is that if the UK builds a reliable frequent railway then passengers will come and use it. Reopened lines have proved this and one, The Northumberland Line, is referenced in the video.

Oh and an old hobby horse of mine, the circular buses that connect communities to their local railway station (Maghull on the Merseyrail Network being an example) should be free and frequent.