This scrounger be more than satisfied with our lot in life - just keep the benefits coming !
Not all of us can bothered to work our arses off just to consume more material things - a simpler, quieter life in comfort be enough.
Aspiration requires perspiration = no thank you !

In the fifties and the sixties hesitant youth was not that keen on voting - just in case. A lot were dead-end kids but never knew it. Until they reached their thirties and hadn't made it.
The Tories managed to divide the young from the old and middl-aged and thus conquered the world of politics. In spite of the awful performance of the Conservatives in power, even the Harold Wilson governments had narrow majorities most of the time. And that was before the internet, social media, cable tv and television reality programmes.
For the moment we can't see how Labour or the left-wing can compete. Absolute disaster may come to the rescue. But we're not hoping

MUtton Heads

I strongly suspect Ms Bennett's volunteering hasn't taken her into many non-metropolitan working class enclaves across the UK. As McMac and Archie Dempster claim, poverty of aspiration is a real and pervasive force in some parts of these communities. Unfortunately, because it's an inherent part of the culture of some parts of the working class, it's unlikely to respond to a bit of tinkering with the tax system or adjustments to the minimum wage. This is a long-term culture change project.

In my experience, it's not so much a case of having 'you've no chance' drummed into you - it's not as dynamic as that - more a case of a deeply rooted belief absorbed from the surroundings that many opportunities and jobs are 'not for the likes of me'. For me, that was in spite of having supportive parents who valued education and told us repeatedly that we should aspire to do anything we wanted to.

But as the son of a factory worker and a typist, the possibility of a professional career seemed to have roughly the same level of reality as becoming a Zulu warrior, even though I came through my low achieving comprehensive with good O levels. That's partly because we didn't know people who did professional jobs, so they didn't seem real. Everybody's parents worked in factories or shops or down the mine, or drove a truck or whatever, and the only 'professionals' we came across were the teachers at school or the GP, and the GPs were all ancient and posh, so not like us.

So in order to make a more constructive and informed contribution on the issue, perhaps Ms Bennett should consider 'doing an Orwell' and actually mixing with some working class types. Better still, she could 'do a Baggini' (see Welcome to Everytown - Granta 2007) and actually try living amongst some ordinary, unfashionable, provincial working people for a while to see what's really going on.

What a dissapointment this article is: Throws in all sorts of attacks on the Labour Govt (and i'm not labour anymore) but says absolutely nothing about poverty of aspiration pers se. A clear FAIL i'm affraid.
you only had to look atthe BBC 2 programme onthe two Oxbridge tories last night to se the counter point. A class who feel a supreme and unchallengable sense of entitlement to high office, top jobs, and what they perceive as social status. Thw two insurgets soon found out how anyone who attepts to "get intio the magic circle" gets treated. Smeared, gerrymandered out, snubbed and patrobised. We need hundreds of thousands of working class young people to grab the f*****ing high tables (in every sense) of this country and to know that they had the right and indeed duty to do so. as the High Master of Eaton says to his pupils "Why not you?" Too many working class kids instead get "you've got no chance" drummed into them from the earliest age by family, teachers, peers, the nedia et al. This article showed a wilfull failure to understand this pervading culture

Plain John Smith said:....... wouldn't be anything to do with the fact that NuLab let four million people into the country?
He's Tory and believes in the "trickle down fairy".....but he's right, and they're still piling in, Dear Coalition.
When is that fact going to be recognised?
BTL = "impossibly expensive private rental dumps "......there's you 'legacy' Blair - that and a poxy war.

Er, the massive levels of youth unemployment wouldn't be anything to do with the fact that NuLab let four million people into the country? No, how could one commit such a thought crime?

"If we take action on equality – raise the tax rate for incomes of over £100K to 50p, crack down on tax evasion and avoidance, work to rein in soaring executive pay and bonuses, make the minimum wage a living wage and ensure benefits provide a basic decent standard of living – then that social mobility is a lot more likely to be loosened up. "

Er, how does doing any of these things have any impact on social mobility? I would have thought they would have had the opposite effect, as higher taxes will simply deter people from working harder, seeking promotions, or starting their own businesses.

What exactly should the minimum wage be? If you put the minimum wage up to (say) £10 per hour,so the factory cleaner is making that sum, the production line worker will want his wage put up to £12 ph, so in turn the toolmaker will want his put up to £15, which means the foreman will want £18, which means the manager etc etc etc: all minimun wage legislation does is create an inflatioany spiral in which everyone's wage is ultimately devalued. Anyone remember the Seventies?