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Some argue that they no longer exist, others that they are alive and well and living in China. With the decline of traditional working class institutions and at a time of political quiescence, is the idea of the working classes still a useful category? Do the working classes still exist, and, if so, how do they spend their time? An ICA series shines the spotlight back onto the workers. Caught between the lackadaisical ranks of the underclass and the anxious middle classes, the working class has all but been erased as a category for political debate. After the disappearance of a politics based on class, is it useful to use the language of class? What have the working classes been up to while politics has forgotten them, and how might they be re-engaged in political debate? Speakers: Ferdinand Mount, former editor of the Times Literary Supplement and author of Mind the Gap: The New Class Divide in Britain; Beatrix Campbell, writer, broadcaster and author of Goliath: Britain’s Dangerous Places; Alan Hudson, Fellow of Kellogg College, Oxford and co-author of The Mood of the Nation: Basildon Man Revisited. Participating Chair: Avner Offer, Chichele Professor of Economic History, All Souls College and author of The Challenge of Affluence.