Why the maddest job advert of all time actually makes total sense in 2024

CAMDEN People's Theatre has come under fire for a job advert for a new artistic director and joint CEO, in which it says it is encouraging applications from a long tick box of under-represented groups, along with people who identify as "working-class, benefit class, criminal class and/or underclass".

- Martin Robinson

Hmm. Who exactly would identify as being "benefit class"? It smacks of middle-class people putting their foot in it at pick-up time when talking to the unpopular parents from the council estate. Anything else you want to add? "Dole-y types"? "Lazy bastard class"? As for writing "criminal class and/ or underclass", I mean, forgive me if I'm wrong but if you belong to the underclass it does not follow that you are also a criminal. Nor are those categories the same as being working class. This is not an "and/or" thing.

Then again, perhaps part of me can warm to this idea that "criminal class and/or underclass" are in fact one and the same. It's pleasingly old school.