to thank Emily Thornberry profusely

[longfingernails]

She has just shown how much Labour detest the aspirational working class, the swingiest of swing voters. Labour will be hit with this again and again and again; ever denial and denunciation will just bring Labour's true views to a wider audience. Fundamentally, it will only reinforce the undeniable fact that Miliband's centre of gravity is firmly ensconced in Islington.

She has made a Tory/UKIP coalition, perhaps the best possible electoral outcome, much more likely. Thank you Emily!

"AskBasil Great swathes of not very rich people (ie surely should be Labour voters?) hold exactly these views. But they get sneered at by the party that's supposed to represent them."

Why should they be labour voters? The sort of working class people who wanted to blame "othered" foreigners for all their problems, were never the constituency to which Labour appealed, they left them to the Blackshirts. The Labour party always focused its main appeal to the respectable working classes.

Labour's mistake with working class people isn't that it sneers at the small mindedness of some sections within the class or even that it doesn't sneer enough, like the Communist Party - it's that it seems to struggle with not approving of bigotry, while at the same time kowtowing to it to try desperately not to lose votes among a class that has no real reason to vote for it because it's not actually representing any real working class interests when it comes to standing up against corporate powers, the IMF, austerity etc. When the Labour Party appeared to broadly represent working class interests, it could sneer as much as it liked at the wackier edges of the class because the core voters recognised where their interests lay. They are fast losing their core vote because they are just another middle class party standing up for middle class interests with a few scraps thrown to the respectable working classes occasionally.

The solution isn't to kowtow the UKIP vision of the world though, it's to stand up for what's right and to actually start representing working class interests again. But I can't see that happening tbh.

It's not just the 'whackier edges' though is Basil? If you look at opinion polls immigration is a major issue for a lot of people. And it affects the working class most.

Take my own situation. Pre the EU ascension state immigration in 2004 my family was fairly financially stable. My husband worked in the construction industry and we could afford to clothe and house ourselves, maybe go out to the cinema once a month and pay our bills and save a very small amount each month, we would go away once a year, normally to a caravan somewhere like Skegvegas.

When the ascension states joined the Emily Thornberry's of this world crowed about how marvellous it was that they could get a cheap plumber. But it wasn't just highly paid plumbers whose wages dropped, it was labourers and slingers, and brickies and everybody else who was just earning a living wage. My husband's wages halved overnight, we've been on tax credits since then and we struggle to meet our day to day costs and a holiday or a trip to the cinema would be impossible without stiffing the gas bill. We had a living wage and now we don't. And that's been directly caused by immigration. Much of this was pre the economic downturn too so can't be blamed on that.

I don't hate Polish people or Bulgarians, they're my husband's colleagues and as a result we have many personal friends. But we also know that on the wages they get it's possible for Poles to come over for a few years, live in a caravan as single men with shared beds that are slept on in shifts and have a crappy life for a bit then go back to Poland with a good wedge in your pocket to enable you to have a decent family life.

If you are settled here and you have a family you don't have the option of living in a caravan with five other men for a bit then going and putting down a deposit on a house in Poland to get away. You're stuck in the reality of a low wage existence. British working class people are accused of being 'lazy' because they won't do certain low wage jobs which are hard and dirty for practically nothing but the reality is that they often can't afford to do these jobs but single people who come in from other countries and are prepared to live in really unpleasant circumstances for a while and work 0 hour contracts because they won't have kids to feed with no savings if a week doesn't have an hours can.

Housing is overstretched, council housing is extremely hard to get, the homes we live in are much smaller than pre-1997 and much more expensive.

Wages have fallen 8% in real terms since 2004. If you work in unionised jobs like construction, admin, retail, call centres or social care where you are in a race to the bottom in terms of wages because there are plenty of people who will come in and do hard, dirty work for practically no money.

And you can shout 'racist' and sneer as much as you want but when people like me can look at things in their lives that have become much, much harder because of levels of immigration it just doesn't wash. When I look in my purse and I know I'm going to struggle to buy an onion, a tin of tomatoes and a bag of pasta for tea and I know that wouldn't have happened in 2003 I am not being racist. I'm being realistic.

But hey, after years of studying at night, working in the day and getting a mountain of student debt in the process I'm going to qualify as a teacher soon and join the ranks of those who have jobs which haven't been affected by immigration and who have unions to protect them. Then maybe I'll be able to sit and sneer at people who are concerned about policies that have had a catastrophic effect on their lives too.

Oh the huge manatee, that was great class analysis there. I agree.

"That doesn't mean that to punish her for that interpretation is OK."

Miliband punished her because Labour ar terrified of the mesage getting out that that might be what its metroplitan elite think of ordinary working class people. Rachel Reeves, who is very good, was on the Sunday Politics and said it was right that Emily had to go.

It is unfortunate, but obviously Labour feel vulnerable to the accusation that that might be what some of their millionaire class think and that would be bad news for them as they claim to represent the working class.

Really? I thought it was quite barking.

The fundamental proposition that Labour must be in favour of low wages and job insecurity doesn't quite match their record of over a century fighting for secure jobs and decent wages, the introduction of NMW being a recent example.

PausingFlatly a historical record does not justify policies which are damaging for the working class in the here and now. Anybody who would vote on a historical record rather than current policies would be an idiot.

"I have just experienced the Scottish Referendum and many many many houses were far more 'decorated' than this - many in my village still are - in a deliberate manner to state political / racial allegiance."

Scottish flags are fine, but the liberal elite are fearful of English flags.

i find all of this disconcerting, and threatening

Claig I agree with you sort of. I don't think for a moment that she was punished because the Labour leadership disapproved of what she said or the message.

The way she reacted saying she had 'never seen anything like it' and she was a victim of prejudice for being from Islington was what caused the problem.

I think for Ed Miliband she had to go, because her ineptness at dealing with the press meant she was a liability. I don't think it had anything to do with disapproval of the message. Just a reaction to her incompetence in letting the mask slip.

I'm not suggesting it does, aermingers.

That was in response to JFR on Manatee's post, in which she claims Labour like an impoverished, insecure working class.

Though there definitely are groups who are extremely happy to have an impoverished, insecure working class. I wonder if you can think of any...

Everyone knows the labour elite would much prefer to have a Romanian family next door "think of the artisanal bread darling" than flag waving white van man. Which is fine - just be honest about it...

Yes, there is a valid perception that all politicians are out of touch and Labour are desperate to win the election and Rachel Reeves, whom I like a lot, and other Labour candidates are busting a gut trying to convince people that they are on their side and Farage is tearing up their lawns because he is a normal bloke with a fag and a pint who speaks their language.

So it is a disaster for Labour to have anything that in any way confirms the public perception that the millionaire class of London metropolitan elite luvvies in Labour might mock ordinary people.

BBC South East interviewed all his neighbours and they all thought it was disgusting and that Labour didn't care about the working class. So that is a perception that Miliband had to try and stop. He was between a rock and a hard place and some of his Northern MPs have had enough of the London metropolitan elite in Labour and are pressuring Miliband for a change in tone and language so that they can appeal to ordinary Northern voters because they are under threat from the People's Army which is tearing up everyone's lawns.

Lucy Powell, who is Labour's campaign manager, I think, did very well on TV and Miliband's circle thought he had to stop this impression spreading to ordinary Labour voters. It shows how worried Labour are and how widespread that impression may already be among potential Labour voters.

Now we are told that critics say Miliband overreacted and handled it wrong. But the poor bloke and his team and Labour's chances of winning are hanging on a thread and they can't afford any slip-ups such as disrespecting the people they want to vote for them.

It is very unfortunate all round. It is a gift to Cameron and got him off the hook for a humiliating defeat by the People' Army when he had thrown the kitchen sink at it.

Miliband couldn't just try to ignore it because the Sun have been stirring things up and would have kept it going and going doing damage to Labour's vote.

Unfortunately for Labour, it has already done damage and will probably be brought up by Labour's opponents again nearer the election.

PausingFlatly in my perception at least Labour since 1997 have completely favoured a servile dependent working class who need benefits because it gets them votes.

I see it every day on here. Mumsnet is very much left wing dominated. And the general consensus on threads on here seems to be that if you tell a benefit claimant who has never worked that they might get 50p a week less or their children might share a bedroom all hell will break loose. But people on the left wing feel very comfortable telling poor people who work that they should sleep on the living room floor if they can't afford a second bedroom because they're frivolous enough to get pregnant.

The welfare dependant have been subsituted for the working class in Labour's narrative.

You quite blatantly have quite an agenda there aermingers!
To blame 'immigrants' for the decline in living standards since '2003' is craziness- try taking a look at the global economy, the way wealth works these days, the tax evasion, the growing inequality, the race to the bottom for us and the ever increasing wealth of those in the top 1%. Blaming immigration is barking up the wrong tree completely.

I hadn't even heard of this Emily Thornberry before the tweet. But labour is always going on about housing shortages and wicked Tories selling off Council houses to even wickeder landlords. But lo and behold this ET has bought an ex council house worth £500K to add to her little property empire. I mean how can anyone take these people seriously.

Springheeled what you are failing to acknowledge is that part of the reason why the 1% is getting richer is because they get away with paying lower and lower wages to their employees. Wealth is not trickling down because ordinary people's wages are falling and wealth is moving upwards into the hands of the very rich instead.

Immigration has been a very effective method of suppressing wages and rerouting wealth into the hands of the 1%.

And people like you will argue again and again that lower wages and worse conditions for the working class as a result of importing cheaper labour is somehow the epitome of left wing thinking.

And on a personal note, you cannot tell me that the fact that my families income changed overnight after the ascension of the new EU states is not because of immigration. Can you tell me why else it was? I will agree with you that what happened to my family diverted wealth to the 1%, but what enabled the 1% to do that was immigration.

aermingers for PM! Also, do those that consider anyone who hangs out an English flag a racist also consider people who hang out a Turkish flag or a French flag or a Spanish flag racist too? If you go on holiday to Spain or France or Turkey you would see lots of flags of those countries. Presumably all the citizens of those countries are also racist bigots, no?

i came to this country to work. it hadn't occurred to me that my employer could and would pay me significantly less than colleagues with poorer qualifications and less experience.

when i found out it was too late, i was here with a a work visa for that job only, and i had spent a lot of my savings to get here

at no point living in my shitty bedsit did i think, great, my plan to undercut native workers is going brilliantly. i had no recourse to benefits of any kind, so i economised by not eating at times.

i eventually became a citizen.

i feel like i have worked hard and played by all the (ever changing) rules, only to continue to feel insecure, and my presence here conditional. for me,ukip wins mean scapegoating people like me, as everyone falls all over themselves to see who can be toughest on immigration

aermingers I agree with you totally.

aermingers, also to add insult to injury, the taxes of all those workers who have seen their wages decline since ascension are now being used to pay in-work benefits to their low paid colleagues because employers won't pay a living wage. So those on low pay just above the cutoff for benefits not only see their taxes subsidising those they are competing with for work but they also have to compete with them for housing since those on benefits can get housing subsidies which push up rents for all.

Likewise, Brown's introduction of tax credits means people try and work part-time because working full time means they will lose their benefits and pay more tax. The whole Labour take on the economy now seems to be an economy based on low pay, insecure part time work that has to be heavily topped up by benefits (which of course are mainly subsidies to business and landlords).

But Killers that's how the "elite" control the plebs: keep them in debt, make them reliant on benefits, make jobs low paid so it keeps them busy
It makes me laugh how the Labour Party has to scrabble around their shadow cabinet trying to find someone whose actually ever done a manual job. The irony is that they are called the Labour Party.

Aermingers you are objecting to globalisation and instead of blaming the politicians and business leaders who are ALL in favour of it, you're blaming the workers who take advantage of the free movement of labour.

I actually agree that immigration has always been used as a means to depress wages. But you can't blame immigrants for that.

And do you honestly think that UKIP will stand up against the IMF and the World Bank and tell them that we're going to introduce protectionist measures and repatriation?

Because they're not you know. They have nothing but contempt for the white English working class as well as every other working class.

And Nigel Farrage would be perfectly happy if English builders lived in caravans as well.

Honestly this makes me laugh, people pissed off with the labour party for being middle class. Yes, they are, but FGS, so are the Tories, the Greens, the UKIP and nearly everyone else.

The idea that UKIP is some kind of haven for English working class people is hilarious.