England is the most class-ridden country under the sun. It is a land of snobbery and privilege, ruled largely by the old and silly.

Patriotism is usually stronger than class hatred, and always stronger than internationalism

The ruling class is and will continue to be the class of decision makers.

At the moment we have a ruling class that has one law and the people the other.

A Yorkshireman in the South will always take care to let you know that he regards you as an inferior. If you ask him why, he will explain that it is only in the North that life is 'real' life, that the industrial work done in the North is the only 'real' work, that the North is inhabited by 'real' people, the South merely by rentiers and their parasites. The Northerner has 'grit', he is grim, 'dour', plucky, warm-hearted and democratic; the Southerner is snobbish, effeminate and lazy - that at any rate is the theory. Hence the Southerner goes north, at any rate for the first time, with the vague inferiority-complex of a civilized man venturing among savages, while the Yorkshireman, like the Scotchman, comes to London in the spirit of a barbarian out for loot.

The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.