Cambridge students are a group of interest to the British right-wing media, always portrayed in a specific light. This includes claims that we all share a ‘privileged-and-we-like-it’ attitude, with no regard for wider society or anything other than ourselves. These media outlets use this caricature of the Cambridge student to tap into the UK’s obsession with class, but is it also a part of their widespread advocacy of class warfare?

Recently we saw both The Telegraph and The Daily Mail pick-up articles on the student and social media success Caroline Calloway, whose online product consists of packaging her personal experiences into picture format, often alongside a well-written life commentary. Caroline’s selection of personal experiences is definitely atypical for the average student – but typical doesn’t sell. In a win-win situation, Caroline was able to self-promote her upcoming book, while The Daily Mail got to peddle their image of Caroline’s “fairytale life… of carefree days of dreaming spires, black-tie balls and champagne on the river”. The Telegraph dedicates paragraphs to the Pitt Club and Caroline’s extravagant anecdotes, such as getting stuck in the palace of Versailles and going hunting.

This depiction is certainly not representative of students’ lifestyles, and whereas Caroline uses it to sell a ‘quintessentially British’ experience, the right-wing media have used it to reveal to a primarily aspirational-middle-class readership, falsely, that we all live in some upper-class bubble. This type of exposure, which has been twisted from its originally personal and well-intended outlook on Cambridge into a sweeping generalisation, has unjustly damaged our public image.

It is not just the isolated case of Calloway’s interviews that has the Cambridge student body in the line of fire. “[Cambridge] Students are toff their heads” reads a headline from The Sun, showing a fairly innocuous 2009 picture of a drunken girl above an article spewing the usual hate given to students after Suicide Sunday. The Daily Mail summed up its determination to attack us in an article regarding the same event, contrasting the drunken antics with the sophistication of Trinity May Ball, all accompanied with photographs of the aforementioned girl and top-hat donning ball-goers. The reader is invited to imagine what our parents will think “when they see the widely distributed photographs” once they’ve speculated how many of us will “be in the cabinet in ten years’ time”.

All articles have included anonymous complaints about how our behaviour was “absolutely disgusting”, and has usually ruined a family day out. A search through The Telegraph’s archives for ‘Cambridge University students’ reveals articles ranging from the criticism of barely-lewd behavior on a Varsity ski trip to an analysis of our sex lives based on a Tab survey. The ski-trip coverage in question was in January 2011, the month the Arab Spring began, and can be found in their World News section under France. These exemplify the coverage we get from right-wing papers for displaying what is best described as normal student behaviour.

However, it is fair to say that the class distribution among the Cambridge student body is unrepresentative of that of the country as a whole. This, along with the media’s blatant silence or patronisation when it comes to student activism, misrepresents us to readers.

The university is working hard to change this: the 2014 UCAS End of Cycle Report states that the proportion of successful applicants from areas within the bottom 40 per cent of higher education participation (predominantly working class areas) is greater at Cambridge than the national average.

The increase in state-educated students at Cambridge was the greatest of all UK universities between 2012 and 2014, a 5 per cent increase to 63 per cent, making Cambridge an embarrassing but improving fourth-worst in the UK.

These figures, although not ideal, show that the Cambridge University student body is far from the tabloids’ depiction of us as a malevolent bunch of elitists.

Meanwhile, real elitists, such as the Tory and New Labour politicians, who have overseen the greatest rate of increase in inequality out of any rich country since 1975, act unchecked.

Arguably against the interest of the working class, these papers have used such class-laden divisiveness for decades. The Sun and The Daily Mail were important negative influences on public opinion during the 1984 miners’ strike, the breaking of which left many working-class communities poverty-stricken.

All mainstream media outlets have taken part in the ongoing witch hunt of benefit frauds, who committed less than 2 per cent of total fraud in the UK in 2012, with significantly more money being lost in accidental, erroneous benefit overpayments.

This campaign has led to a shift in public opinion whereby the poorest working-class people (as well as many disabled people and single parents) are seen as social pariahs and leeches.

In the television media, shows such as Sky1’s ‘Harrow: A Very British School’, E4’s ‘Made in Chelsea’, Channel 4’s ‘Benefits Street’ and ITV’s ‘ The Jeremy Kyle Show’ all perpetuate class-based fascination in their viewers and entrench class differences and stigmatisation.

Class warfare is a strong term, and although Cambridge students aren’t exactly under constant scrutiny by the media, we are used as straw men by right-wing media to represent the upper-class elite.

We are woven into the media narrative that still uses one-sided class warfare to appeal to working-class people.