How does Clegg fit into the category of the new people?

All the time we were up in London spending and spending I was thinking I wasn't going to see her any more; then that I was rich, a good spec as a husband now; then again I knew it was ridiculous, people only married for love, especially girls like Miranda. There were even times I thought I would forget her. But forgetting's not something you do, it happens to you. Only it didn't happen to me. (Page 13)

This quote displays two of the main ideas of the novel, the first of which is the changing class landscape of England in the 1960s. "I was rich, a good spec as a husband now," notes Clegg. As a boy, Clegg grew up well outside of the wealthy social scene of England, and now he believes, at least at first, that he can buy his way into the upper class. Throughout The Collector, he will come up against the realization that his financial prosperity is in conflict with his uneducated upbringing.