To be honest, I difficulty stopping myself punching a hole in my computer screen while watching that video. The young woman's 'rant' said a lot more about her inflated sense of self-importance and her own skewed view of social hierarchy than it did about language. The accent she was imitating at the beginning of the video is the stereotypical 'posh' plums-in- the mouth accent of the English ruling classes of yesteryear, with its unnaturally extended vowel sounds. Of course, hardly anybody really speaks like that. Even Prince William and Prince Harry don't speak like that! What's more, nobody is expecting foreign learners to imitate this accent. As well as being intensely annoying, this young woman also fails to understand the basic difference between accent and pronunciation. ACCENT indicates geographical region, and, to a lesser extent nowadays, social class and education. None of this is relevant to you as a non-native learner. Of course nobody is expecting you to imitate the accent of an 80-year-old English aristocrat! Nor is anybody expecting you to imitate the accent of a Manchester rap artist or a Glasgow bus-driver, either. What you DO need to do, is learn clear and correct PRONUNCIATION. If you consult any good dictionary, you will be given two alternative pronunciations for all words - one is the standard American, and the other is standard British. The latter is RP. This is the way I speak, and it's also the way that most of my family, friends and colleagues speak. Call it modern RP, relaxed RP, call it what you like. It's not posh and it's not upper class. It's just neutral, plain, standard English, the same as in the dictionary. And this is the pronunciation which you should follow if you want to speak an 'ordinary' British English which anyone would understand. Please don't waste any more of your time listening to that irritating young woman in the video.

Whilst I can kind of see what she means I don't think most British people think of it in that way. So for example when we refer to accents we normally refer to the region or origin (rather than the qualities within them). So for example we say northern or southern even though there are many accents within these categories. We also have smaller classifications such as Geordie, Somerset or Cockney...etc. Whilst it isn't essential to have an accent it can sometimes be confusing. For example a very thick northern accent can take me a couple of seconds longer to understand in some cases than others but that doesn't stop our communication. I think the accent doesn't really inhibit an individual's work choice or career however I would strongly recommend developing or aiming for a clear pronunciation if you wish to work within a customer service or general communication's position. However, as mentioned previously, the accent doesn't greatly affect your work options. It doesn't really change the language drastically it just changes the sounds of certain letters. But yeah the it just adds a bit of character to the language. (Just my opinion, I am a native speaker)

I've never heard of RP. I did follow your links, and eventually listened to that girl waffling on and on (and getting confused in her accents!). She does have a point though - that accent, which I would probably call 'BBC English', is rather archaic. To me, it is more amusing than offensive though.

Thank you for all yoru comments. I think now I have a better understanding of which direction I should be aiming at for British English accent.