REALLY? Does anyone really give two hoots about the background of the putative Labour leadership pugilists? Every politician of whatever stripe seems to be engaged in some unrecognised and never-ending game in which the more you downplay your roots, the more points you will score.
It’s a pastime enjoyed by backbenchers, cabinet ministers, and as we all know, courtesy of our hapless PM’s perpetual reminder that he is simply a humble ‘son of a toolmaker’ – no sniggering at the back, please: grandeur is no impediment to participation.
It’s all too reminiscent of the legendary ‘Four Yorkshiremen’ sketch written by Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graham Chapman, Marty Feldman and John Cleese. Originally aired in 1967 on At Last The 1948 Show, it sent up nostalgic conversations about humble and difficult childhoods.
As the conversation develops, the claims of privation become ever more preposterous with such gems as: ‘We had to live in a cardboard box.’ ‘A cardboard box? You were lucky! We lived for three months in a rolled-up newspaper in a septic tank.’ How we laughed, little realising that such absurdity would one day become de rigueur posturing for all politicians.
Take the parka-loving leader of the Green Party. His demeanour is very much the ‘man of the people shtick’ but scratch below the superficial shell and you’ll find someone who attended independent Stockport Grammar School with fees today coming in at a wallet-busting £19,000 per annum. It’s an establishment I would imagine isn’t burdened by a confetti of applications from horny-handed sons of the soil. Yet from Zack’s grating monologues and bon mots one would think he was the product of a far more prosaic establishment.
How can we forget dear old Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party’s very own Rick from The Young Ones, their modern-day Don Quixote, forever tilting at perceived right-wing windmills and rapacious capitalists as the country round him perished economically and societally? But far from his working-class carapace, as Tatler magazine correctly observed: ‘It takes a certain kind of confidence – and a certain kind of privilege – to find swagger in a shell suit, but that is just what Jeremy “Jelly” Corbyn does. Meet the man who was raised in a manor, went to prep school and epitomises the essence of posh radicalism.’
His exclusive upbringing even drew a withering comment from Harriet Harman, herself no stranger to the trappings of a privileged education at St Paul’s Girls’ School. On passing the leadership baton to Jezza in 2015, she joked: ‘It’s quite surprising to discover that I am not old enough or posh enough to be the front-runner of this current leadership election.’
Why, and what benefits do these people assume will flow from this charade? I couldn’t care less if the Labour leadership election resulted in the offspring of an Eton provost and marchioness claiming victory provided they had the brains and wherewithal to tackle the dire straits that the UK finds itself in. Similarly, if the tortuous process resulted in the son or daughter of a shopkeeper assuming the helm of the Labour Party, I would, like many be thrilled if they weren’t just a pathetic second-rate tribute act to Starmer, Corbyn, Blair, Brown, Miliband etc. But looking at the dismal aspirant crop, I think we are all going to be not so much disappointed but tragically proved correct.
The auguries are already bad when Wes Streeting – an alleged contender with impeccable working-class credentials – felt compelled to reveal his family connections to the notorious Krays. Quite what this revelation has to do with anything is beyond me, suffice to say that perhaps it garlanded his leaden and lumpen offering with a certain amount of stardust. Or perhaps he was thinking of extortion and enforcement – two virtues that seem uppermost in the echelons of the Labour Party.
His banal and overused metaphor that Labour must ‘field their best players’ had me clutching my sides. Has he bothered to take a look at these utter third-raters who would not even grace a Sunday league park match?
Unlike Margaret Thatcher, who had a real vision for transforming Britain, Wes simply, and with wearying predictability, fell back on the old canard that our interests would be best served by yoking ourselves to the knackered donkey that is the EU. Sclerotic, moribund and a shining example of rank stupidity, any actual benefits would accrue from this shotgun marriage are vanishingly small. Have his constituents been clamouring for this change in direction? Maybe they were wowed by how successful this harmonious group were in acquitting themselves over Iran? No? Thought not.
Wes, it’s not a vote winner. That boat has well and truly sailed. But as a true Socialist, why let the largest democratic vote in UK history get in the way of you and your party’s muddle-headed and misguided sixth form dreams?
As far as the so-called King of the North is concerned, if he vanquishes Reform in Makerfield it will be business as usual. For all his highfalutin talk of ‘change’ we can rest assured that that particular commodity will be sparsely spread. ‘Change’ will mean more Net Zero stupidity, more taxes, more immigration, more welfare, more unemployment and more unsustainable public debt.
In the real world, the fact that welfare payments now exceed tax receipts would ordinarily provoke some genuine reflection and, as they so like to pronounce, some ‘difficult choices’. Nothing will happen: you can bet the house on it.
Or as a proud Labour MP might tell his constituents: ‘I used to get up in the morning at night, at half-past-ten at night, half an hour before I went to bed, eat a lump of freezing cold poison, work 28 hours a day at the mill, and pay the mill owner to let us work there. And when I went home our dad used to murder us in cold blood, each night, and dance about on our graves, singing hallelujah.
‘Aye, you try and tell the young people of today that, and they won’t believe you . . .’
