# Class background of the British civil service? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 29, 2011, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/class-background-of-the-british-civil-service/598064 "2011-09-29T21:09:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2011, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/class-background-of-the-british-civil-service/598064/21 "2011-10-04T23:38:53Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I was also thinking of the BBC drama [_A Very British Coup,_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Very_British_Coup) wherein a real-thing working-class democratic socialist becomes PM, and his chief enemy is a civil servant of obviously aristocratic background. > > Don’t know how realistic any part of that is. And, in a sort of inverse/converse situation, we have [_To Play the King,_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Play_the_King) wherein an aristocratic politician (not civil servant) stands athwart anything smacking of socialism even when it comes from the King. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2011, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/class-background-of-the-british-civil-service/598064/22 "2011-10-05T08:48:21Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > What about actual daily speech in the UK? Does anybody speak anything “in between”? Is John Oliver (on _The Daily Show)_ “in between” or is that RP he’s talking? Yes. There’s milder forms of regional accents. Listen to Sir Ian McKellen talking in interviews. He has a mild Lancashire accent. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2011, 9:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/class-background-of-the-british-civil-service/598064/23 "2011-10-05T09:30:26Z")
Would Estuary English be considered as a form of “in between” accent? It’s sometimes thought of as Cockney (and other working-class accents of South West England) mixing together with Recieved Pronunciation: > **[Estuary English](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estuary_English)** > > Estuary English is an English accent associated with the area along the River Thames and its estuary, including London. Phonetician John C. Wells proposed a definition of Estuary English as "Standard English spoken with the accent of the southeast of England". He views Estuary English as an emerging standard accent of England: an "intermediate" between the 20th-century higher-class non-regional standard accent, Received Pronunciation, and the 20th-century lower-class local London accent, Cockn... ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2011, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/class-background-of-the-british-civil-service/598064/24 "2011-10-05T09:41:59Z")
BrainGlutton wrote: \> In the U.S., I assure you, civil service has no upper-class cachet and never has, \> with the possible exception of the foreign service. I wrote: \> The C.I.A. was well known in its early years for having a substantial amount of \> people from old money/prep school/Ivy League backgrounds. Exapno Mapcase writes: \> The CIA was technically civilian, but calling it civil service is a misapplication of \> the term. Especially in the early years when the separation from it and the \> military was literally paper thin. Might as well call the SEALs civil service. Yes, the CIA and the foreign service don’t have the distinct upper-class cachet that they used to have, but they do have a little of it. And they are clearly both civil service these days. My point is that BrainGlutton exaggerates when he says that today no civil service jobs have any upper-class cachet about them. There’s still a little bit of that air about them. It’s been slowly disappearing for decades, but it’s not quite gone. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2011, 9:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/class-background-of-the-british-civil-service/598064/25 "2011-10-05T09:44:45Z")
I wrote: \> Recieved Pronunciation I meant: \> Received Pronunciation ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2011, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/class-background-of-the-british-civil-service/598064/26 "2011-10-05T10:38:56Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Would Estuary English be considered as a form of “in between” accent? It’s sometimes thought of as Cockney (and other working-class accents of South West England) mixing together with Recieved Pronunciation: > > [Estuary English - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estuary_English) Yes. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2011, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/class-background-of-the-british-civil-service/598064/27 "2011-10-05T11:30:03Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > Interestingly, there were two Offices back in the days of the British Empire responsible for looking after Overseas- the Foreign Office (which handled diplomatic relations with other countries) and the Colonial Office (which handled the Colonies). > > Getting into the _Foreign_ Office was fiercely competitive with rigorous exams, interviews, and Standards To Be Met. The _Colonial_ Office was a lot more laid back, taking the view that they needed the right person for the job, and that was more about people skills and communication and being resourceful and so on, so they tended to recruit people more informally from different backgrounds, and did a lot of “word-of-mouth” and “refferal” recruiting. > > The thing was, people in the Colonial Office were quite likely to be in the backblocks of some far-flung outpost of the Empire, doing a lot of practical, hands on stuff (often functioning as the local magistrate or something similar), which required a different skillset to someone attending a Diplomatic Function in Vienna. There were actually several. There was the Foreign Office. The Colonial Office. The _India_ Office. And then the Indian Civil Service, which was part Civil Service personel on secondment, but mostly was competative exams. Incidentally, to serve in anyt position of authority in the Colonies, required quite an extensive knowldge, for India at least, a working knowledge of a native language was needed. Furthermore, the Civil Service exam was not specific to departments, it was and I think still is, a general exam. Successful candiates were asked for where they perferred to go, but recruitment was on a strict need basis, it was not certain they would get it. If the Colonial Office needed 10 and the foreign office 50, that is how many they would get. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2011, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/class-background-of-the-british-civil-service/598064/28 "2011-10-05T12:04:08Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > There were actually several. There was the Foreign Office. The Colonial Office. The _India_ Office. And then the Indian Civil Service, which was part Civil Service personel on secondment, but mostly was competative exams. Incidentally, to serve in anyt position of authority in the Colonies, required quite an extensive knowldge, for India at least, a working knowledge of a native language was needed. Furthermore, the Civil Service exam was not specific to departments, it was and I think still is, a general exam. Successful candiates were asked for where they perferred to go, but recruitment was on a strict need basis, it was not certain they would get it. If the Colonial Office needed 10 and the foreign office 50, that is how many they would get. Ah yes, the India office. I was surprised to disover how few Europeans were often stationed in the African colonies or parts of India- I read somewhere that Nigeria had something like 150 Europeans administering the entire country at one point, and the Indian Civil Service didn’t have nearly as many Europeans in it as you’d think, given the size and complexity of the area being governed. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2011, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/class-background-of-the-british-civil-service/598064/29 "2011-10-05T17:53:44Z")
There was an episode in which Hacker explicitly labeled Sir Humphrey as being middle class. It was the one in which Hacker was trying to get government funding for his local soccer club, which was on the verge of going under. Hacker noted that Humphrey was dressed for the opera and he pointed out how it seemed to be okay for the government to subsidize middle-class entertainment like the opera, but not working-class entertainment, like football. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2011, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/class-background-of-the-british-civil-service/598064/30 "2011-10-05T18:29:05Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Is John Oliver (on _The Daily Show)_ “in between” or is that RP he’s talking? I had John Oliver placed as coming from somewhere in the East Midlands, and Wikipedia says he grew up in Bedford, so I guess I wasn’t too far off. He doesn’t really speak RP, but like a lot of people in the media his accent is mild, meaning “tending towards RP”. But the designation obviously covers a range of accents. The sort of posh, “far back” accent of Sir Humphrey is heard less often these days, although there are still some pretty posh RP speakers in public life, the Prime Minister David Cameron being, well, a prime example. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2011, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/class-background-of-the-british-civil-service/598064/31 "2011-10-05T18:56:56Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Is John Oliver (on _The Daily Show)_ “in between” or is that RP he’s talking? Oliver uses a mild regional accent, not RP. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/class-background-of-the-british-civil-service/598064.md?page=1)