The only difference I see between your illustration of the housewife and plaster and the Mc Canns is that both come from working class backgrounds and the later have achieved something from out of humble roots. Both parties probably had equal opportunity, but one made something of their lives and you have to take your hat off that they have got the publicity to try and find their child and the support that they obviously have. Their roots are working class, their achievement there after is what they have done with their lives and made the most of the opportunties that came their way. Regardless of of their stupidity, the media would be interested that a child was taken from an appartment by possibly a stranger whilst everyone was on holiday...the parents just happen to be doctors. So makes good reading and whilst there is public interest and the papers make money, people will jump on the band wagon to get the same sort of publicity. Why charities often get celebrities etc involved, it looks good for the celb and it attracts attention to the charity. Maybe housewife and plasterer isn't so interesting. The Mc Canns case has been more interesting as it has gone along ..... it has become a bit more like Agatha Cristry on who dunnit......all is needed is Inspector Poirot.

Sadly, I agree with all of what you wrote.
Working class professions or the unemployed, those on benefits....and probably those who didnt look so glamourous wouldve been hung drawn and quartered by the UK press.

Its been a media circus and sadly the obsession with the parents visits to the Pope and anywhere else seems to have caused the most important person - a beautiful, innocent girl - to have been overlooked.

I agree. It is not a question of whether they were or were not at some point working class, or what they managed to achieve academically - it is about the way they would have been handled by the media had they been Wayne and Waynetta Slob and had nipped to the chippy on the corner of the street. They would have been crucified, held us as drunken louts, bad parents, drug takers, sex fiends and whatever else the tabloids could come up with.

As it is the MCanns are intelligent, articulate and well educated. Middle class or not the press knew they would be perceived as such by the general public and therefore made heroes of then rather than demons. Whatever the outcome. if there ever is one (and I am sure we all hope for a positive one even at this late stage) but nobody can really argue that the tabloid press, especially in Britain, make the news rather than report it by creating heroes and villains as suits them.

EDIT: Some very helpful and informative posts regarding the original topic by the way.

On the recession, I was buttonholed outside Gelsons at the weekend by an intense young man telling me I had "a sensual feel for the current situation"...oo-er, he was trying to get me to subscribe to a publication from Lyndon LaRouche PAC www.larouchepac.com, which is concerned about economic reform and the current level of government corruption (here and in the UK).

We compromised on me taking a couple of mags, not sure I really follow the line of thinking but a bank run like that seen on the Northern Rock is a momentous and worrying event, surely.

Good, just what i need for when i go back, a nice cheap house

Maybe I can pick up a bolt-hole

I'm not waiting any longer...the prices may drop a little but in the meantime the exchange rate gets worse.

have you found a place?

Yes I think so...my best friend's husband has been to view it and has given it the A 3 bed/2 1/2 bath detached cottage.

Sounds good - nice to get the bathrooms!

I'll know better when I see it next week.

Enjoy your trip

Are you moving back for good? which area? Me from West Yorks. I would love to go back to the same place.

Nope just buying somewhere so I can go back and visit more often. It will be an investment too...eventually.

We will be buying in Cheshire...much as I love South Yorks my immediate family are in Cheshire and so are my husband's. I moved to Cheshire when we got married...28 yrs ago.

Great, love to be able to do that. Purse strings abit tight So is it Yorkshire?