Does one deserve respect for being well spoken or having a title?

The answer is, of course, no.

However, should one be treated with disdain, resentment or even heckled on the street for the same reasons?

Equally, I would say no.

Having already had problems with university applications for what the papers have termed "positive discrimination", it seems the same idea has permeated into Brighton and Hove public ethos (and indeed, perhaps the country's ethos).

On numerous occasions I have been heckled when speaking with friends in public because I am "well spoken" or (and I hate the word) "posh".

Whatever my opinions of these people might be, I do not insult them for the way in which they speak.

I think people need to start treating others as human beings.

I am accused of snobbery simply because of the way I speak yet I would say the far more dangerous thing is inverse snobbery.

Brighton and Hove used to be the stomping grounds for all the aristocracy including, of course, the Prince Regent.

It seems much of the city's current population wishes to chase out the waning remnants of this class of people.

Whatever preconceptions people may have about us, we are human beings and deserve the same respect we always show others.

Not only this, but many of the upper classes have a long history of public service, which I think warrants at least the privilege to walk the streets without being heckled by an increasingly crude and superficial public.

I may be only 18 but it seems society has been turned on its head and is punishing and penalising those whose only crime is really to have been born.

-Lord Edward Romain - Viscount Anijar, The Upper Drive, Hove