Labour management: Which contender is probably the most working-class?

The Labour management contest is already being in comparison with Monty Python’s 4 Yorkshiremen sketch, because the contenders compete with one another over who has probably the most humble background.

No-one has claimed their household lived in a brown paper bag in a septic tank, like one of the characters in the sketch, however it’s absolutely solely a matter of time.

Surprisingly few Labour leaders have come from genuinely working-class backgrounds – and there may be little proof that voters care about whether or not they did or not.

So what’s behind the “prolier-than-thou” sparring?

Rebecca Lengthy Bailey clearly feels her staunch working-class roots in Salford are a serious asset within the battle to be the following Labour chief.

“I am not a millionaire or a landlord, and I did not go to a complicated faculty,” she wrote, within the Tribune article announcing her candidacy.

This was a not-so-subtle swipe at her rivals. The “millionaire” is, presumably, Sir Keir Starmer (his Wikipedia web page was repeatedly edited on the finish of final 12 months to take away the world “millionaire”).

‘A city exterior London’

The “landlord” may solely be a reference to Emily Thornberry, who has come below fireplace up to now for her property investments.

The “posh faculty” reference is more durable to pin down – Jess Phillips and Sir Keir went to state grammar faculties, however not one of the contenders was privately educated.

Thornberry and Starmer are the management hopefuls most frequently pressured on to the defensive over their roots.

In the newest instance, an exasperated Sir Keir started referring to himself within the third individual in a BBC interview, declaring: “Keir Starmer grew up in a city exterior of London.”

There may be nothing notably privileged about his background in Reigate, a Surrey commuter city. His father was a toolmaker and he was the primary in his household to go to school, as he’s at all times fast to level out. He’s even named after the primary Labour MP – Keir Hardie, a cloth-cap sporting, working-class hero.

However he’s clearly delicate in regards to the impression that, as a north London MP and one of many nation’s main barristers, he’s a member of the hated “metropolitan elite”.

The previous director of public prosecutions was knighted in 2014 for “companies to legislation and prison justice” however prefers to not use his title.

‘Scraping the barrel’

Ms Thornberry can be titled, by advantage of being married to Excessive Court docket choose Sir Christopher Nugee, however prefers to not be referred to as Girl Nugee.

“I’ve by no means been a Girl and it’ll take an awesome deal greater than being married to a Knight of the Realm in an effort to make me one,” she said in 2018.

She hits again at claims she shouldn’t be working class sufficient by declaring that she grew up on a council property, and is the daughter of a single mom.

All true sufficient, though her father, Cedric, who deserted the household, was a world legislation lecturer who went on to be the assistant director basic of the United Nations.

Mrs Lengthy Bailey has additionally confronted accusations of exaggerating her working-class credentials.

She could have labored in a pawn store and at name centres earlier than coming into politics, however she additionally had a profitable profession in legislation (not in contrast to Thornberry and Starmer, maybe).

Center-class membership

She stated on her election leaflet that she grew up watching her father Jimmy “worrying when spherical after spherical of redundancies” have been inflicted on the Salford docks the place he labored. The docks closed when she was simply two.

The Salford and Eccles MP has accused critics who’ve pointed this out of “scraping the barrel”, including that her dad had additionally confronted the specter of redundancy at his subsequent job.

There may be scant proof that being “working class” is a bonus in terms of successful Labour management contests or, certainly, basic elections.

Of the three Labour leaders who’ve managed to win basic elections since World Warfare Two, solely Harold Wilson may declare to have risen from humble beginnings. Jim Callaghan and Neil Kinnock have been working class and happy with it, however they by no means gained energy. Jeremy Corbyn got here…