''THE LOST COCKNEY VOICE'':

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p051fhqs

*''Queen's Cockney'' = half Cockney and half Queen's English (current day example: Dot/June Brown from East Enders). Acquired around war time when the Queen's English accent was broadcasted on the radio and those listening would adopt aspects of it. 
*Prejudices displayed towards Cockney's. Parents told their children ''you won't get a job if you don't speak properly''. Connotations of Cockney were ''commoners'' that were ''thick'' and of ''lower social class''.
*Cockney's used to live in a close-knit community until post-war when they started to spread out and Estuary English was produced.
*Younger generations were no longer influenced by the radio like their parents and grandparents as cinema became the key force, bringing in American variations of language.
*In the 90s, Estuary English became more fashionable and even those in power used it as a tactic to appear more approachable - Tony Blair.
*June Brown - aware of her ability to pick up and drop the Queen's Cockney accent depending on her location and who she was with.
*Although Cockney is a dying voice, due to the housing prices in London meaning young people can't afford to live there, the new equivalent today is Multicultural London English (MLE) and it also suffers the negative connotations of Cockney.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KdVoSS_2PM
*The One Show film exploring MLE and where it comes from. Linguists have found influences from all over, including Greece and Africa but it still maintains aspects of Cockney from which it developed. EG: th fronting (the use of the fricative sound f in replacement of the voiceless dental fricative th).
*The shift has occurred over one generation and therefore is continuing to grow - MLE is a dialect as well as an accent as its users create new slang and use it depending on how trendy or popular it is. This indicates that its growth is not over and could never be.