A TOUCH OF CLASS

They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool
'Til you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

Returning to my Kingsman theme once again, I've been thinking about what the movie really says about class in Britain. For instance, there's one beautifully telling scene toward the end in which the head of the Kingsman organisation, Chester King/'Arthur' (played by Michael Caine), attempts to poison the young recruit Eggsy (Taron Egerton) with a glass of brandy after Eggsy refuses his invitation to join a New World Order—one where the elite will survive while the global population is mostly eviscerated by their use of free, high frequency smart phones.

At this stage of the Pygmalion-style story, Eggsy has transformed from a working-class “yout”/“wrong ’un” into a supremely capable spy. However, with his mentor Harry Hart (played by Colin Firth) having been 'killed' under nefarious circumstances, Eggsy begins to sense something rotten at the top of the Kingsman hierarchy. This forces him to act—initially out of self-preservation, and soon after as a defender of the world.

"The problem with us common types is, that we are light-fingered. Kingsman's taught me a lot, but sleight of hand ..." - 'Eggsy'

The casting of Michael Caine is especially interesting in the film, as it symbolises his own journey through the class system and his career as a movie star. One of Caine’s most iconic early roles was as Harry Palmer in The Ipcress File, where he played a working-class London spy with a criminal background. Palmer, like Eggsy, was a stark contrast to the more typical aristocratic spies who came before him—and neither character appears a natural fit for the elite institutions they serve.

It’s fitting, then, to imagine Chester King as a kind of corrupted continuation of Harry Palmer—someone who, over decades, has become part of the rotten intelligence establishment he may once have resisted in his youth. When Chester finally realises he’s been outwitted—having unknowingly drunk the poisoned brandy himself—his 'gentleman' mask slips, and he reverts to his original working-class Cockney voice. This moment reveals that, like his young adversary, he too had to fight his way through the British class system to reach the top. But unlike Eggsy, who wears his working-class identity as a badge of honour, Chester’s “success” came at the cost of betraying the social environment from which he came from.

There's room at the top they are telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be - John Lennon