To think Andy Burnham needs to start to show us he can talk about more than "the north" and "buses"

[joeymaynardssandwiches]

I want to get behind Andy Burnham, I feel he's got the potential to be a great counterpoint to the rise of reform. And I do know it's "silly season" in politics and with parliament closed I guess there's a limit on what initiatives can be announced

But so far it feels like he hasn't broken away from being a northern caricature who just bangs on about buses.

I'm a "northerner" (who always thought of Manchester as the part of Midlands ) but I can only do my job in the south and I can assure Andy there are big pockets of deprivation in the south too.

And I am all for public transport, and investment in it. But it just feels like a real "low hanging fruit" approach for his first few weeks and I want to hear him talk about thornier and less uncontroversial issues.

And admittedly I haven't been reading every news story in depth as I have been busy with the kids so he may have discussed other things. But that is my overriding impression at the moment and it feels a bit frustrating

Nooo these are apparently the people we need to lift up in society. They are struggling with all those pipes and taps and washers. Poor sods. No crippling student loans hanging around their necks. It’s a terrible thing.

Are they middle class then? Aristocracy? I am not snobbish as I am not either. Just born in a country which did away with classes.

Working class doesn't mean underclass thats the thing. You can have a comfortable life and be working class. In fact many would argue that it should be the norm to be working class and earn a decent standard of living by said work.

Not sure about all this but Labour struggle to elect females as leaders and the conservatives have had both diversity of race and sex in that role. They don’t really use quotas either, which is good.

Good on Kemi for being successful. Maybe Labour will try harder to match that somehow.

You think Angela Rayner would make a great PM? What credentials does she have that made you think that?!!! And don’t say working class as I don’t think I can handle it.

Do we still have classes or are we pretty happy that education successfully helped social mobility? I know on the Labour website they have used low income and working class interchangeably, so I think working class are now non working benefit claimants which is pretty ironic.

I’m trying to make that make sense. I think you’re saying working class has nothing to do with income or skill, so it’s to do with maybe physical labour or are we back to what your parents did for a job?

I'd say these days working class is anyone who needs their income topped up with benefits.

So I think it is income based now which is what I was suggesting.

i think there’s some snobbishness surrounding some of the working class career suggestions.

No it doesn’t mean that. It simply means that many working class people have low incomes despite working. Some working class people claim benefits even though they work full time. There are also working class people people who earn decent money.
As an “outsider” who has been living here for decades I can see that Britain still has pretty defined class system. There is the Royalty, then all the hereditary peers in the Lords. People who are born with titles. All the sirs and dames.
All the middle class leafy suburbs. In some areas to get to a good state school the parents have to be rich and afford to live in an expensive neighbourhood.

You are very much talking as an outsider and talking about a time in history that is no longer relevant. It’s like talking to an American who thought we all sat around eating cucumber sandwiches and speed dialling the queen (now sadly departed.)

It simply means that many working class people have low incomes despite working. Some working class people claim benefits even though they work full time. There are also working class people people who earn decent money.

Errr again you make no sense. You’ve dragged benefit claimants, working people who are also topped up with UC and people who earn decent money into the same category. What is the criteria of this ethereal class then? If it’s not income - which in your example it clearly isn’t, then it’s …. ?

I live in a leafy suburb and plenty of my neighbours are plumbers and builders etc.
Meanwhile I know university lecturers and lawyers who have very precarious finances.

I would say working class is the in work benefit claimants and also the "in work and privately renting /living in a shared ownership home". It possibly even extends to people in work with a sizeable mortgage for a modest house.

This is like trying to describe what a woman is. Nearly impossible!

It’s like a memory of a smell, a trail of a moonbeam on a summers evening. The merest hint of a thought in a dream that was whispered by the wind in a Victorian fairy tale. Alas we may never be able to describe it.

No, there are some very solid definitions of working class. One is anyone who works.for a living (in other words who makes the majority of their income from money earned through labour rather than passive income). The UK has a complicated class system on top of that in which working class and large parts of middle class would both fit the previous description of "working for their living" but are differentiated by types of job and subtle social signifiers. There were also the categories created by early sociologist Booth which were more detailed still and included a description of a non-working underclass and many layers of working class.

All of those are accepted definitions in different situations. I would argue the first is the most useful today. However, under all those definitions Burnhams background would be considered working class. That doesn't automatically make him good/bad. It just means describing him as such is not some great deceptions because he is not a coal miner/needing his income topped up by benefits. Which are definitions you came up with and then complained about.

I think his initial thing with a Number 10 of the north was a mistake, and quite alienating to most, as it was the first idea he ran with on getting the job - the first optics are not great.

Has he said anything more generally about the jobs crisis yet? I wondered if the government could set up a scheme to incentivise companies to minimise offshoring and employ workers from this country. Is that legally possible?

The only way to discourage UK based companies offshoring jobs would be through tax I would think. The problem with that is it would be interpreted as "punishment" and possibly risk companies moving their headquarters altogether. Or you can offer tax breaks to companies to open their factories etc on UK soil but TBH we do that already.

You stated in the post I quoted that working class means not working and receiving benefits. “so I think working class are now non working benefit claimants which is pretty ironic.”
This was what I was referring to. Working class doesn’t mean not working and getting benefits. Clear now?
I may be an “outsider” but have lived here for decades. It has nothing to do with history but seeing it now. The class system in Britain is much more defined than in other European countries. People who were born here may not notice it because they have known it the whole life. Even here on MN I have seen treads with questions like “ What makes a person middle class”
Or people mentioning “ I come from working class background”.

It is not something I would hear in my country for example.
It does not mean there is no class mobility, but classes do exist.

I was referring to the kind of leafy suburbs where house prices start at several millions. I don’t think in those places majority of residents would be plumbers.

Well we have been told to expect an attack from Putin ,what form that will take who know but I think this is the first thing he needs to reassure us about esp as we all know our defence budget is wrecked.

I couldn’t care less what his parents did for a living which is one of the reductive signifiers of a class system of yesteryear. The man is an elite liberterian with the privilege of a world class education alongside the privilege being white and male give him, and I’m not feeding into the rhetoric for one moment that he’s a man of the people who give a shiny shit about the communities he and his party dump HMOs of migrants into daily.

I think all the houses on my street are worth over a million now , not several millions no but that's straying into upper middle class territory

Yes and after the ‘toolmaker’s son’ line failed to see that leader through a term Labour might want to sell on something else.

@Violetdeparmagood point on the defence budget given Healey resigning at one point.

The new PM seems out of his depth and looks like his about to cry everytime I see him on tv.
Once he is back properly, he’ll be finding it tough going. I don’t envy him at all.

I have a memory of watching a video where they had put together a montage of Keir repeating that anecdote to be relatable over and over again 🙈. It’s just so cliche and cringe.

Income-wise - much better off than your average teacher or nurse I would imagine.