The squeezed muddle

By A McE

POLITICIANS, like sit-com makers, favour addressing themselves to the middle ranks of society, in the hope that enough of us identify with the category to tune in. Since the recession, however, the emphasis on the middle class as a place where aspiration thrives and stolid values of self-reliance are preserved, has been replaced by a more angsty pre-occupation with the fate of the “squeezed middle”, whose living standards are under pressure even as the economy returns to growth.