I did hesitate to call his accent “upper-class.” I think perhaps it’s actually a middle-class English accent. It’s not “posh” but it fits perfectly with his manner, which is “snobbish” in a way posh people often aren’t. Self-important.
Or to put it another way… If he behaved that way in England, it would be at least as much of a problem (I actually suspect that talking that way to a UK police officer might have escalated immediately and got him frogmarched off in handcuffs, car towed and impounded etc.
It sounds like RP to me. (Received Pronunciation, which was a thing for along time. Basically teaching the kids to speak the same way, like a BBC broadcaster. If I remember correctly.)
That’s what it sounds like to me. It’s just the standard English of southern England. Someone speaking it would probably not be from northern England, Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland. Or they might be an announcer on British television or radio. That doesn’t make them upper class anymore than hearing someone on American television or radio speaking in a way that makes it difficult for you to tell where in the U.S. they were born causes you to think that they’re from an upper-class family:
I am no expert on accents, nor am I native British. To me he sounds like most of the British actors I’ve heard who all use about the same pronunciation. I knew that teaching RP in schools was a thing a few decades back and figured he was one of the ones who was taught it.
At least with that one she lost her job. She was an appointed commissioner with the NYNJ Port Authority. She had to resign when that came out.
Whenever I hear “Do you know who I am?” It makes me think of the Eddie Izzard bit. I have to restrain myself from saying “This is not a game of who the fuck are you.”
Accents are weird things. The closer you are to them, the more easily you will perceive subtle differences in them. I’m in the South of England; there are local accents here (as everywhere of course), but RP is close by, so at this zoom level, it’s easier to perceive anomalies and differences.
During the final days at Denver’s old Stapleton airport, a crowded United flight was canceled.
The single agent was rebooking a long line of very inconvenienced and frustrated travelers. Suddenly an angry passenger pushed his way to the desk in front of all the others. He slapped his ticket down on the counter and said, “I HAVE to be on this flight and it has to be FIRST CLASS.”
The agent replied, “I’m sorry sir. I’ll be happy to try to help you, but I’ve got to help these folks first, and I’m sure we’ll be able to work something out.”
The passenger was unimpressed. He asked loudly, so that all the passengers behind him could hear, “Do you have any idea who I am?”
Without hesitating, the gate agent smiled warmly and grabbed her public address microphone. “May I have your attention please?” she began, her voice bellowing throughout the entire terminal. “We seem to have a passenger here at the gate WHO DOES NOT KNOW WHO HE IS. If anyone can help him find his identity, please come forward to the gate.”
With the folks behind him in line now laughing hysterically, the man glared at the United agent, gritted his teeth, and spat out the words, "Fuck you.”
Without flinching in the least, the agent smiled politely and said, “I’m terribly sorry, sir, but I’m afraid that you’ll have to stand in line for that, too.”
Well, who are you? (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?) Oh, who are you? (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?) Come on tell me who are you? (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?) Oh, who the fuck are you? (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)
Heh, this guy does the “Do you know who I am?” thing and he hadn’t even won the primary yet? What a fucking tool. Anyone with enough money can put their name in the hat. You ain’t shit, Martin.
He admitted to trolling in that second one, even bragged about it in his self-important way.
“Did you even consider I might be using hyperbole and rhetoric because I know how susceptible you are to it?” Hyde asked the newspaper. “No point in spending money on mailers when you’ll print my name for free.”