The Politically Homeless Working Class

Hand-moisturising bistro-attendee James Mills, writing on the Guardian web-wreck yesterday, was close to getting something right.

As the proportion of Labour MPs with a manual-working background has fallen, so has its share of the vote

Yeah, that'll be it. Cos working class people really look into the background of their PPCs before casting their vote. Happens all the time, it does.

I was just discussing it with Bert down the road the other day. He said - and I quote - "if only that Labour guy who was telling me that my life is shit, and that I am shit for enjoying it, wasn't well-educated and a bit posh, I'd have voted for him".

James, the working class expert apparently, went on to say.

[...] a BBC poll last year showed that almost 60% of white working-class people felt unrepresented in parliament. Labour, the traditional home for that social group, saw their share of the lower income DE demographic at the last election fall by a third to 40% according to recent analysis. This cannot be mere coincidence.

No, James, it's not coincidence. You're incredibly correct in that assumption.

You see, the working class have pretty much lost interest in politics simply because politics has lost interest in them.

The solution, perhaps, would be for Labour politicians to - and I realise this may come as a bit of a shock - um, actually listen to the working classes?

I know it's a bit of a dirty thing to do, James. They're a bit chavvy, after all, and there are so many wine and cheese parties for you to attend. But if you're going to write about the views of the working class, don't you think that there is something rather important that you have missed?

The total proportion of MPs who were previously manual workers was 8% in 1997. This figure had fallen to 6% by 2005. Now in 2010 the current crop of MPs from manual-working backgrounds is a mere 4%. Among Labour MPs the figures are not much more encouraging either. In 1998 13% percent of the 418 Labour MPs were from a manual working background, but only 9% of the current 256 Labour MPs are.

And all of them, without exception, trumpet the party Guardianista-led line.

It doesn't matter if you have 1% or 100% of MPs from working class backgrounds. Working class people usually vote on a tribal basis. The fact that Labour have blown that natural allegiance from the working man should be a damning signal of failure for socialist policies.

However, James, who has no fucking clue as to how a working man thinks, works, or plays, reckons the way back is to promote a few working men into the ranks of the PPCs and it's all going to be hunky dory.

James, come here mate. I'll speak quietly in your shell-like as I don't think you have quite got it, and I don't want to embarrass you unduly. Shhh.

{whisper} I think the reason Labour were shunned by their core vote could have something to do with their ... BEING FUCKED UP THE ARSE BY LABOUR.

Working men (and women) are the productive sector in our country. The guys who make your TV, the ones who put together your car on the production line and forge the metal you use everyday. They also provide your utilities. They empty your bins, they cut your grass verges, they deliver your post and they risk their lives defending you against aggressors.

And how did Labour treat them? Hmmm, let's see.

They failed to supply troops with equipment that would protect them; they condemned their lifestyles; they destroyed the leisure haunts of the working man; they taxed their meagre pleasures to destruction.

And why? Because unproductive, middle-class, state-paid, quangocrats and fake charities, who all live comfortably in non-working class comfort, told them to.

Where do you live again, James, you didn't say?

Salient facts, James:

[...] demographic at the last election [fell] by a third to 40% according to recent analysis.

And James's solution?

We need more than 9% working class MPs because we used to have 13% in 1998

Yeah. That's what it is. Obviously.

Never mind the policies, bus in the gutteral idiots and the Islington tofu parties can carry on regardless.

Good fucking grief.