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Those of us who write spend our entire lives in an endless English class.

I don't know why that is, but English politics is just so overly white. It's very much about the class structure.

English, as a subject, never really got over its upstart nature. It tries to bulk itself up with hopeless jargon and specious complexity, tries to imitate subjects it can never be.

I don't like class distinction, and there is far too much of that in England.

In the U.K., there is a sort of obsession with class.

I don't think the elite class is only speaking the good English.

So what's really behind the 'English Only' Movement? Fear. Fear of being taken over and one day they will have to learn something different. Heaven forbid they would have to learn something new.

I'm reluctant to use the word class so much.

I think you could ask 10 English people the same question about class and get a very different answer.

The air of the English is down-to-earth. They care about details; there's a tradition, but there's also a counter-culture: the younger generation versus the older generation and so on. But then that's well blended into a happy balance and crystallised into common sense.