Government Chief Whip Andrew Mitchell has been in a spot of bother recently for allegedly saying the following – according to The Sun – to a police officer in Downing Street who refused to let him ride his bicycle out through main security gate:
Best you learn your f*cking place. You don’t run this f*cking government. You’re f*cking plebs.
According to his Wikipedia entry, featuring public school, Cambridge and the world of high finance there’s no doubt that Mitchell is a patrician.
The term patrician originally referred to the elite families in ancient Rome. They were the top of the social pile and had wider political influence than the citizens and residents below them. It has subsequently become a vaguer term used for the aristocracy and elite bourgeoisie in many countries.
Below the patricians in ancient Rome’s pecking order came the plebeians. Plebeians were defined as “the non-aristocratic class of Rome, and consisted of freed people, shopkeepers, crafts people, skilled or unskilled workers and farmers“. Over the centuries, some plebeian families in Rome nevertheless became quite rich and influential. Pleb is now used – as above by Mitchell – as a derogatory term for someone thought of as inferior, common or ignorant.
However, the plebeians were not the lowest of the low in Rome. Below them came the “Capite censi“, i.e. “those counted by head” in the census, and slaves. The largest group of the capite censi were the proletarii, literally “those who produce offspring”. Proletarii were therefore Roman citizens owning little or no property.
So, looking back at the origins of “plebs”, by using it, was Mitchell actually (if unknowingly) abusing the middle classes, Middle England and the bedrock of Tory support?