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  Monday 21st February 2005  Society   Powered by Yeast Logic
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Baseball caps come off as class war turns ugly

Chips and egg and red, red wine
by Bob Wallet

It was an inevitable backlash. Saturday evening, 26 February 2005, saw the first salvo in what could become a new civil war. Seventy modified hatchbacks tore through the centre of sleepy Mingers, a Hertfordshire village just outside Devon. After two hours of burn outs, doughnuts, mooning and general mindless high jinks, eight middle class systems analysts lay dead. "An dey wuz fu*ckin askin forit," said Zepo, a member of the Half Baked Massive from Tontine. Questioned later by police Zepo, who can't be named for legal reasons, but is known as Mark Aldritch from Shepherd Avenue, Crewe, said: "Two of em came at me wiv a couple of bottles of Haute Sauvignon 96. Den da crew hit em."

Prior to the events in sleepy Mingers, The Rockall Times had spent four weeks embedded in the two communities to observe the festering relationship between the haves and have-nots of post-Hattersley Britain. To the underclass of suburban estates and inner city tower block ghettoes anyone who drinks wine and drives a 4x4 is fair game for their slim jims, specially made bricks and razor edged baseball caps. Having suffered enough of the "chavscum" baiting anger had been boiling for some time. Fizzer — real name Peter Macilroy from CliveofIndia Crescent, Leeds — expressed his mates' feelings about the whole situation. "We just wanna drive us cars, listen to us music, fuc*k us birds and piss about with us girlfriends. But them lot over there," he points towards "Cheviot View", a new Redrow development of executive homes on the other side of the railway sidings. "They fink we're all pigshit."

But do they? On the other side of the divide is Paula Peel. Paula is your typical "Have it all Mum". Married for three years to Ainsley, a systems analyst with a local bookmakers, she has two children Myleen and Spice and proudly delivers them to St Hubert's Primary School every morning in her Humvee. "We got a leaflet through the door one evening," she says not trying to hide her broad Gateshead accent. "It was obviously a wind up. But it had a list of what makes you middle class." She produces the leaflet which is printed on cheap 124gsm matte paper and uses the highly unfashionable Arial typeface:

middle classes...

  • are systems analysts
  • drive humvees or other fuck off 4x4s
  • drink wine with their chips and egg
  • have block paved driveways
  • put pelmets up on the inside of their windows
  • think Ant and Dec is anarchic
  • listen to Classic FM
  • call their kids after pop stars

middle class men...

  • have bad skinheads
  • are football hooligans
  • have crisp white shirts and beer guts
  • listen to Madonna

middle class women...

  • have Simply the Best as a ringtone
  • have one a-level
  • work in human resources departments
  • are floating voters

Paula Peel was incandescent when she read the leaflet. "I've got two a-levels in General Studies and Art, and my ringtone is Holding out for a Hero. These people are just jealous because we're successful." Does she drink wine with her chips and egg? "Some nights we do."

Such antipathy could be seen as a local spat if it were not for the fact that it is repeated across the country from West Bromwich in the north to Ipswich on the southern tip of Cornwall. The two sides are baiting each other. The chavs push leaflets through doors, the middle-Cs respond with glossy pamphlets; chavs etch offensive graffiti along badly-parked BMWs, the middle-Cs correct the spelling. The sectarianism even spread to the classrooms of one primary school in Hull when a seven year old boy criticised his teacher for wearing a pink outfit, calling it "so Jordan". The riot which ensued was ended only when armed police stormed the building and a sordid collection of Harpers and Queen magazines was confiscated.

5 February 2005 saw an early indication of the trouble to come. Martin Fluke and his girlfriend Sammy Jo Biscuit were walking out of their local Tesco Supermarket and Lifestyle Centre in Accrington. They had just stocked up on Sunny Delight and Jaffa Cakes for the weekend when they were deliberately mown down by a large man driving a Volvo S60. Eyewitnesses described the distressing sight of over two hundred Jaffa Cakes being spilled across the supermarket entrance. "It were 'orrible," said 158-year-old Ernie Potter. "One minute they was on that crossing there and the next he was on the roof of the car and she was stuck 'ead first in the cash machine." The driver of the vehicle was later identified as 41-year-old Terry Titling, a systems analyst with a local ball bearing manufacturer.

Titling fits your typical middle-C profile known as "Fat Bastard Skinhead Dad". He hangs on to his laddish days even though he's married with two children, middle management, aspiring to be a member of Combat 18 and claiming to have real taxi drivers as mates. "I told the police I never saw them," Titling told The Rockall Times when we caught up with him in Fuengirola. "I was temporarily blinded by sunlight and next thing there were gold chains and mobile phones all over my windscreen." Titling was given a conditional discharge and ordered to do eight minutes of Community Service. Martin Fluke is still recovering from his dislocated jaw and Sammy Jo Biscuit has only just had highlights put back into her hair.

Dr. Bob Bullit, head of the Psychosociological Department of the University of Goole claims that the "Chav Middle-C" conflict has been festering since the 1980s when the Peugeot 205 GTi became popular. "It had a spacious rear, see," says Bullit, originally from Caernarfon. "When you pack it with hi-fi equipment it marks you out, but older family type people were still driving around in cars with boots so they had to make do with little door speakers. That's when the two sides started to go 'ead-to-'ead as it happens. D'you see." Bullit explains that such shortcomings can eat away at a man. "They're successful, they've got the kids, the bleach blonde wife, the systems analyst career and then they pull up at the lights and some 'erbert in a Punto has louder music. That can devastate a man. It leads to resentment, d'you see?"

That resentment eventually emerged with the now notorious Chavscum website, which still receives just over two billion hits a day. "That were like a red rag to a bull," says Kelvin, a 13-year-old Citroen Saxo driver from Ludlow and founder member of the Luddite Massive. "Don't know who Luddites were," he confesses, "but it sounded good like." Started by an anonymous systems analyst from Chichester, Chavscum ridicules the deviant classes in all their many forms, even identifying celebrity chavs such as Linda Barker and Bob Willis. In January 2005 they invited surfers to "knobble a chav" for the Tsunami disaster appeal. "Nick their bling and pawn it, then donate the cash to us," came the call. Police in seven regions reported an upsurge in street muggings. Gang feuds were suspected at first until witnesses consistently reported the unusual number of Lexus and Mercedes estate cars used in the getaways.

The Chief Constable of Merseyside, Richard Dyke, told The Rockall Times: "We knew something wasn't right. The victim / criminal profile was reversed." Dyke was distressed to learn from this publication of secret plans to start retaliating. "Well, Max Power has a lot to answer for and we'd be very interested in him helping us with our enquiries." Max Power, unbeknown to the Chief Constable of Merseyside, is a specialist car modification magazine and is running a year long competition. "How to hit Middle-C" awards points for every victim of a road rage incident, but, and here is the clever bit, "the victim must be carrying some kind of status symbol at the time of the accident" — a cynical parody of the Accrington Tesco Jaffa Cake incident mentioned earlier.

This will come as no consolation to the eight who perished in Mingers, innocent victims of nothing more harmless than a magazine competition. "The eggs curdled," said Harriet Muffit, blonde wife of one of the "Mingers Eight", 37-year-old Philip Muffit, a systems analyst with a local firm of gas fitters. "I had the candles ready for dinner then we were going to settle down and watch the first series of Changing Rooms on DVD." So far, no-one has been charged with the deaths, leading some to suspect that the police system has been infiltrated. An accusation strongly denied by Chief Constable Richard Dyke. "We're all masons, not chavs. If you print that slander I'll consider legal action." Does he drink wine with chips and egg? "That's none of your business."

As the specially-imported tumbleweed blows across the Charlotte Church estate on the edge of High Wycombe another car meeting takes place, another Max Power competition plan is hatched, the sound of Blazin Squad fills the night air. There is a smell of burning rubber. This evening, someone, somewhere carrying a Marks and Spencers Hake Fillet in Hollandaise Sauce will be the latest victim of what could turn out to be a very long and ruthless conflict.

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