"The fact that the British elite is stacked full of people from middle- and upper-middle-class backgrounds helps to explain a certain double standard at work. Crimes committed by the poor will be seen as an indictment of anyone from a similar background. The same cannot be said for crimes where a middle-class individual is culpable. The mass-murdering GP Harold Shipman might have gone down as a monster, but did anyone argue that his case shone a light on life in middle-class Britain? Where were the outraged tabloid headlines and politicians' sound-bites about middle-class communities that 'really, really have to change'?"
Owen Jones, Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class (from the opening chapter, The Strange Case of Shannon Matthews)
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