Do you think that this country will have a working class PM?

[EddyF]

Do you think it’s possible and likely? someone who has gone to a bog-standard school; rented or grow up in council stock, or just someone who has lead a ordinary life like the majority in the U.K?

I don’t understand how people can only vote for the elite despite what the ordinary man and woman goes through in this country. The problems aren’t new with the NHS/benefit system/classism/immigration/no funding for society to actually run effectively. But they keep being voted in. Why? Twice this week people have told me they would rather vote Tories again as long as its not Labour. One with MH and can't get the proper help and the other one who is still working at senior age.

These issues haven’t just started and have been a sore point for a long time under the tories. Which begs the question, why do people vote for them? What vetted interest would the ordinary person have to vote the same party all of the time? It can’t just be about immigration ( what have the tories sorted out effectively regarding immagration?). I am not white but I have worked with white working class service users with very little in life but follow the rhetoric of the conservatives. Knowing damn well they will never reach the lifestyle of the party they're voting.

How did The Sun manage to get a large number of their readership to vote for tories? time and time again. First time might make sense as people desire change, but over and over again? Even if it is about immigration, don’t they have children and families who they can see struggle with these policies?

I get why businesses may vote the way they do, but the people in this country confuse me. Why not vote Conservative and if you're not happy with them in the next election, you don't touch them? why stick with them?

I was born in the U.K. My primary education was in France and we lived in the USA for some time. All childhood holidays in Africa mainly. With all of the faults with the American system (especially for non-white people/margainlised groups), it is more fluid in getting yourself out of poverty/access to social mobility.

All my International friends from Africa to the US are doing better than me, despite us all studying/holding same qualifications. It feels impossible buying a property here despite earning on paper a very decent salary and being a professional. My friends/family abroad all seem to own/build even if they earn less/same.

Once you're paying approx 2K in rent in London (yes you can move out but most people have family/work/community built there),how can you save for a significant deposit with rent, bills, car-note etc? wouldn't most government/policy makers want to help the youth in prosperity since the western world have essentially the systems to make a society less unfair/workable?

I am not saying everyone is poor in this country. It's just a lot of people are suffering needlessly due to mismanagementof the country where only a smaller number get to enjoy life like how it should be.

I actually think it's better to abstain voting than voting the same people/party that have communicated verbally and non-verbally that they do not give a fuck.

If you knew anything about economics you'd know that funding for SEN children to be able to access education is a drop in the ocean and in no universe has it got anything to do with the UK's economic problems or how to fix them. If the funding for it was withdrawn in its entirety tomorrow it would make no measurable difference to the UK's economic position whatsoever, given how low the funding for it is to begin with.

Interested therefore to know why you introduced this randomly into the conversation and think that this has any relevance to solving the problems?

I thought so but I didn’t mention SEN so wondered why the poster mentioned it as something that should not receive extra help @OrangeCrayon .

Is that so controversial? Is SEN education our top national priority? I do know that it's a BIG MN topic. I would favour giving white working class boys a much better educational experience.

You and me both. Bizarre. To want to target the most vulnerable people in society, and also to pick an area of funding that is miniscule in relation to the national budget and has nothing to do with the underlying problems of a lack of growth in productivity and the huge trade deficit that is devaluing GBP and ramping up inflation and the "moron premium" on UK interest rates.

Yeah, chuck disabled kids under a bus.

Did it occur to you that some of them might be white working class white boys?

And what the hell has any of this got to do with anything, when we are spending more on debt interest now than on the entire education budget, and are losing nearly double the entire education budget per year in lost tax revenue due to Brexit?

If you wish to "grow the pie" then withdrawing educational access for disabled children isn't the place any economist would begin.

I do think children with additional needs should get additional funding.

Strange: your comments implied the exact opposite.

But the problematic cohort is white working class boys. That is the largest failure cohort and it is 100x larger than those with SEN needs, even though there's an overlap.

No, it isn't. The percentage of disabled people employed full time in the UK is 50%. This group are highly overrepresented on every poverty statistic and indicator.

And, as I've said above, none of the choices the UK faces involve cutting the miniscule support to either of the groups you mention because it is a drop in the ocean. There is certainly no need to cut from one to give to the other and it's bizarre to suggest so. In funding terms, an absolute irrelevancy given the enormous waste elsewhere.

If you wanted a growing pie you'd be focused on reform of industrial policy, trade policy, tax code: growing productivity. That is the only sustainable way to raise living standards. A coherent plan to address failing infrastructure, dysfunctional state pension ponzi schemes, reform of healthcare, all of which are destroying any prospect of growth. And actually redirecting that money into tripling the education budget. Not posing a false dichotomoy about which vulnerable group to target next for cuts.

Gordon Brown's father was a Church of Scotland minister. GB referred to being 'a child of the manse' more than once.
There are working class and middle class people in Scotland.

"Gordon Brown's father was a Church of Scotland minister. GB referred to being 'a child of the manse' more than once.
There are working class and middle class people in Scotland."

Yes. And Gordon Brown is a middle class person. My point exactly.

Your post read like you were saying that Scottish people were 'Scottish' not 'working class' or 'middle class'.

@FayCarew "Your post read like you were saying that Scottish people were 'Scottish' not 'working class' or 'middle class'."

Sorry. Sarcasm doesn't come across in texts. There is plenty of evidence on this thread to suggest that many posters think "non Standard English accent" is an indicator of being working class.

How ignorant. Have you lived a very sheltered life. You don’t sound very well informed yourself.

The way you've phrased that suggests you think the problem with underattainment in white working class boys lies with the education system. I'm much more inclined to think it's a far wider problem. Why is it so hard for white working class boys to settle down in the classroom, work hard and achieve, while all around them white working class girls and boys and girls of other ethnicities just get on with it and get the qualifications they need to go on and get good jobs? It certainly isn't just failings in their teaching.

No, @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g , I really don't think it's the education system or the teaching that are the problem.

When I did my PGCE (2009-10), I felt that the reluctance to engage came from within the boys. So many seemed to believe that they were already written off by a post-industrial economy therefore there was no incentive for them to bother with school. Ordinary work didn't pay, because they could see their dads, uncles and cousins unable to get on and out of dead-end jobs. School was boring. Unless you were a Premier League star earning squilions, you were a failure. It was immensely sad, but I haven't seen or read of any promising solutions. Austerity clearly hasn't helped, and nor did Covid/lockdowns. I haven't any answers, sadly; I wish I had.

And yes extremely poor immigrant families manage to raise children who value education, even if they are in menial jobs themselves. Their children are often some of the highest achievers. And it used to be that white working class people had great routes out of poverty through grammar schools and proper apprenticeships. The loss of both is a huge factor in the lack of social mobility now. But it still doesn't explain why now the families of the boys you refer to can't raise their boys to aim higher when others in similar financial circumstances do. They go to the same schools, so the changes that need to be made are clearly down to parenting and family ethos, not school.

Whereas with SEN needs the problem usually is the school environment and needing that to be adjusted or additional support to cope with it as it's totally inappropriate for children with certain needs. So I'm not sure how you could equate one to the other given there's nothing schools can realistically do about the former - it needs parents to change how they raise their children - whereas the latter is absolutely the schools' responsibility because their environment and the way they structure it is the cause of the problem.

@tootallfortheshelf , presumably you see yourself as working class.

It's invidious to be asked to define working class because obviously EVERYONE who depends on being paid for their labour/effort is working. A regional accent can disguise a very keen intellect, and often provokes the condescending crowd who think RP adds 20 IQ points automatically. David Hockney, who still speaks with the notes of Bradford in his voice, despite years in Los Angeles, London and France, and has an OM and is regarded as one of the UK's national treasures... where would he fit?

Not sure why you used the term invidious.

Here's a dictionary definition:

There is social mobility. As mentioned, immigrant families who start from nothing but whose children use opportunities to better their circumstances. These children are often in poor neighbourhoods with schools that are average or below. One or two generations on, and they have professional qualifications, and solid incomes. It comes from home, family, possibly peer group, or if they’re very lucky a teacher who recognises effort and ability.

It happens in white British families too, boomers (as we’re referred to) in mundane jobs, who saw chances for the next generation and encouraged their children to take them. Many of those now middle aged children are now living in better circumstances than previous generations of their families, and their children and grandchildren are benefitting.

It's important to remember that many immigrant families in the UK are having to start again here but are from educated middle class backgrounds. They are also, by definition, often people who are motivated and confident.

I don't know how I managed to post the wrong link.

working class
belonging to a social group that consists of people who earn less than other groups, often being paid only for the hours or days that they work, and who usually do physical work rather than work for which you need an advanced education