Many years ago, someone I worked with asked me what kind of accent a telephone caller had. I laughed and told him I was the last person who could answer the question. After all, I was from Canada where people speak with the same accent, except for Newfoundland and the French-Canadian regions. It was an incident that reminded me how disturbed I was by how overt the class system in the United Kingdom is. People freely speak of how others speak, where they live, how much money they earn, what clothes they wear and so on.
I can see a battlefront for the impending class war. It is being waged in the aisles of local supermarkets. Several years ago the British government instituted a tax on plastic bags. However, in true government fashion it gave rise to an unintended consequence. Shoppers arrive at their supermarkets of choice armed with bags to go away with their purchases.
There are a number of different grocery stores here. There are the traditional ones like Marks & Spencer, Waitrose, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Asda, The Co-op and Morrisons as well as online grocers such as Ocado. There are also discount stores like Aldi and Lidl. The public has their views of the store catering to particular segments of society.
Aldi and Lidl remind me of Food Basics and Price Chopper in Toronto. The shelves are industrial racking and there is a minimum of staff. They are frequented by many. But as patrons check out with their home brought bags, I have noticed that many use the bags of other, more traditional supermarkets. It is almost as if they are gentrifying their weekly shop.
This is not the same as the regentrification of neighbourhoods where changes are permanent. With groceries, the bags are cosmetic or a disguise to change their provenance. Maybe the phrase “you are what you eat” has become more ephemeral.