we are a scream, by and large.

... the working classes have largely been working through the '90s and '00s. Chavs (or neds if you live north of the border) are more readily identified with the idea of an underclass. The old, classic Marxist notion of a proletariat (a word i can only now use in a People's Front of Judea voice) was the urban, industrial workforce, to which - or to whom - we owe a great deal. The more historically recent underclass - possibly dating to the breakdown in the postwar social contract around the '70s, first under a Labour government struggling with the economy, then accelerated by Thatcher – have been left to stew for decades with low educational achievements, joblessness, the remnants of council housing (the best of which was sold off long ago), family breakdown, alcohol & drugs. The chavs/neds are not working class in any traditional sense of the word - in political economy terms they represent something else altogether.
Meanwhile, with the benefits system as it is, the world economy as it is and exposure to the chill winds coming, it doesn't take that much of a tumble through the trapdoor to find yourself in rented accommodation with chav/ned neigbours... Most of us are actually 'all in this together'.
"Le Ned, C'est Moi," as Louis XIV didn't say.