Has the high water mark for chav culture arrived at last? It’s not just that no wedding could be naffer — surely — than yesterday’s meringue marriage of Dosh and Pecs, otherwise known as the model Jordan and the singer Peter Andre.

Nor is it simply that nothing could be tragically grimmer than the recent drug-induced demise of the father of Z-list celebrity Jade Goody, apparently while he was dining in a KFC outlet.

No, it’s more remarkable than that: apparently it’s cool to be middle class again. Gosh really, you ask? Absolutely, it says so in this report.

A new analysis circulating among executives at Lowe Worldwide, the advertising firm, is interrupting — politely, of course — the popular cry that in Britain chav is king. Called Bourgeois Life: The Return of Traditional Values, it advises businesses that consumers are beginning to yearn for a return to “civilised behaviour”.

The researchers claim that “politeness, manners and etiquette” are now the pinnacle of chic. To maximise business potential, they advise firms to ask: “Does your brand have a middle-class heritage which has resonance?” The authors believe people have had an “informality overload” — in other words, they’re sick of Big Brother; and “enough of yob culture” — that’s enough Wayne Rooney behaviour, thank you.

Zoe Lazarus and Richard Welch, of Lowe Counsel, the firm’s research unit, also say there is a desire for “new boundaries” and “guidelines on how to behave”.

Though Asboland has far from disappeared, there is evidence that the authors may be on to something. Take the most popular rock bands of the moment, Coldplay, Keane and Franz Ferdinand.

Their members look more likely to help your mum with the washing up than wreck their hotel room.

As for the singers James Blunt, David Gray and Dido — it’s obvious they know how to hold their cutlery.

Other shoots are sprouting in the flower arrangement of middle-class revival. Cricket has supplanted football, if only temporarily, for sporting thrills.

A fast-food chain called Gourmet Burger Kitchen is sweeping London with a menu that includes chicken, camembert and cranberry and a “Kiwiburger” with beetroot in it; next week McDonald’s, already offering salads, will launch a range of “deli sandwiches”.

Camping holidays — preferably in a floral-print tent from the burgeoning empire of the designer Cath Kidston — are also in (although you must never go near a caravan park). And there were more Volvos at Glastonbury than Godalming.

Meanwhile, in the high street, thong and push-up bra sales are heading south, while Victorian blouses and floor-length skirts are the must-haves of the autumn and winter ranges. “It’s covered-up . . . ladylike chic is what it’s all about,” said a Topshop spokesman.

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