Can a MP be working class?

Doing some bloody work might be a start.

Can an MP be working class?

Why not?

Can a MP be working class?

Born to a single mother, XXXX, in York on 23 December 1948, YYYY was initially brought up by his grandparents there. His grandfather ZZZZZZZ was the son of a wealthy trawlerman and was disinherited after joining the Communist Party; he led a hunger march to London shortly after the more famous Jarrow March, which did not allow Communists to participate. His father, whom he met once after his mother’s death, is Welsh. When his mother married a Polish-Jewish printworker, XYZ, he moved to London. They lived initially in a flat in a “slum” in Wandsworth before moving to a council estate in Tooting, London.

On leaving Bec Grammar School in Tooting, his A Level results were not good enough to secure a university place. YYYY worked as an insurance clerk

this sort of background?

How could an MP ever be working class??

It’s very much a professional white-collar going-to-meetings being-on-committees type job.

The best they might reasonably claim is that they had a working class upbringing or were working class before they became an MP.

Besides, who would actually want the working class in charge of running the country? Have you seen them? They are frightful. 😉

big_n_daft that sounds like Dr Evil…

The details of my life are quite inconsequential… very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we’d make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds- pretty standard really. At the age of twelve I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum… it’s breathtaking- I highly suggest you try it.

Your class is determined by whether you sell your labour power or employ the labour power of others. It is not down to accent, appearance or being a manual or non manual worker. You may come from a background of selling your labour but you put yourself at the service of those who employ labour. Many have done that.

Your class is determined by whether you sell your labour power or employ the labour power of others

Interesting definition. So a consultant doctor is working class but the guy who owns the fish and chip van isn’t?

Why do people still get hung up about class? Is it still relevant?

How could an MP ever be working class??

It’s very much a professional white-collar going-to-meetings being-on-committees type job.

The best they might reasonably claim is that they had a working class upbringing or were working class before they became an MP.

The question is when do you stop being one class and start being another – the thread title says “identifies themselves as” so its a self description.

Even if you are the most successful of politicians can you be more than middle class if you haven’t been born into the ruling classes? Alan Clark famously said of Michael Hestletine “He bought his own furniture”

U or non U innit

U or non U innit

The linguistic distinctions are pretty much obsolete. The Ketchup test is still very much valid though. 🙂

Good question. Possibly the chip van owner aspires to employ more and more people to enrich themself therefore he/she is more likely to (misguidedly) identify with industrialists and bankers and be terrified of organised labour. They could be seen as petty bourgeois and vote UKIP etc etc accordingly.

Alan Clark famously said of Michael Hestletine “He bought his own furniture”

He didn’t he actually quoted, another Tory saying it – Michael Jopling I think.

XXXX is David Davis.

I think that pretending an MP can’t be working class is a rather touching inverse snobbery.

Having been on the receiving end of one of his enquiries on behalf of a constituent, I’ll let you tell the Right Honourable Dennis Skinner MP that he can not be working class.

He’s known as the Beast of Bolsover for a reason – though he’d be great as my MP!

The issue is whether MPs really understand the issues facing every day working people. Not what class they were/are/think they are.

If having very little MP’s with experience or the ability to empathise with the working classes, then yes, it does matter.

He didn’t he actually quoted, another Tory saying it – Michael Jopling I think.

Aha- I knew it was from Clark’s memoirs – I assumed it was his own remark

It is a common* misunderstanding.

* As in frequent rather than working class!

You can come from privilege and identify with the working class and vice versa, cf the public school educated Paul Foot with the comprehensive educated William Hague. Your background does not determine your future but it is likely to be a major influence.

Oh and btw concepts of class are not based on hang ups but rather they can be useful tools for social, political and economic analysis. People can get very confused without such an understanding.

Why do people still get hung up about class? Is it still relevant?

Shouldn’t be really but I understand that it can be quite helpful getting a foot in the door in various occupations 😉
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/08/27/elitist-britain-cabinet-mps-oxbridge-private-independent-schools_n_5723662.html
http://www.progressonline.org.uk/2013/10/30/why-working-class-kids-still-get-working-class-jobs/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/10671048/Working-class-children-must-learn-to-be-middle-class-to-get-on-in-life-government-advisor-says.html
Etc, etc, etc

Who on earth would want to identify themselves as being working class?

Apart from 4% of MPs, obviously.

I think you’ve rather missed the point, Julian.

I don’t think it would do any harm if more MP’s came from working class backgrounds, had been to comprehensives and actually worked for a living before going into politics.

The current lot that represent the main parties are so far removed from the common man on street it is ridiculous.

BillMC – Member
I think you’ve rather missed the point, Julian.

Quite deliberately, I assure you.

But I’d much rather not have some oik representing me in Parliament though. We should aim for the highest common denominator, not the lowest.

We should aim for the highest common denominator, not the lowest.

Which is precisely why we need to get rid of all of the current mob.

Deferential voters like to support those they see as their social superiors and their intellectual needs are met by the Tatler and OK magazines.

Why do people still get hung up about class? Is it still relevant?

Not if you think it’s about accent and the word you use to refer to the shitter.

Yes if you understand that

Your class is determined by whether you sell your labour power or employ the labour power of others.