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.

Its not exactly a Labour stronghold. Until fairly recently Hallam was first Conservative, then Lib Dem. Nick Clegg lost to a real working class hero who was first suspended by the Labour party, and is currently in prison for fraudulent expense claims. The current MP scraped in by less than 1000 votes.

Higher taxes help the poor. If I increase my income by £10k but only have a 10% tax, and you increase your income by £1 and you only have a 10% tax, then you have become far poorer relative to me. If I am middle income that's not so bad as it's likely the money I spend will go back into the economy when I t consumer goods and support local businesses. However the very rich buy up assets with their spare cash and this jacks up the price of assets including housing which makes life worse for the poor. This also squeezes the middle class.

That's why there isn't really a middle class anymore (just people from middle class backgrounds which is a different thing). They are the cultural middle class rather than middle class (in income terms). Cos that concept is just a bit outdated now- having a median income today actually means you are poor in relative terms today aka the famous squeezed middle which is a nice way of saying you are poor using yesterday's standards but politicians want to give you some dignity.

There is the rich (top 1% in PAYE income and those with at least £3 million in liquid assets I.e. excluding residential home) and the poor. Poor can be divided into two categories - the just managing poor (people with 6 figure incomes but below £200k and there is probably a lower threshold for cheaper parts of the country.) and the poor (the poor who really struggle).

I place the Tories responsible for this. It is a global problem but we have one of the worst economic performances in the OECD which is responsible for a big chunk of this fall in living standards for the majority.

Even the ones who claim to be ‘just like us’ aren’t. Blair, Abbott, Corbyn, Harman all sent their kids to selective/private schools.

Alan Johnson was the first MP I thought of, he had a very hard early life after being orphaned at 13. He worked for Tesco and then Royal Mail before becoming a trade union official.

@Wsmi "The toolmaker story sounded like BS from the start. Did Starmer’s father live in the Bronze Age or something." I'm assuming this is a joke- unless you really don't know what a toolmaker is?

Since 1964 we have had 12 Prime Ministers.
8 went to state schools and 4 to fee-paying schools (Blair, Cameron, Johnson, Sunak)
1 went to Edinburgh University (Brown), 2 did not go to University (Callaghan, Major) and the other 9 all went to Oxford.

Several were born into working class families, but none of them were by the time they became Prime Minister, and this will remain the case. In recent years, John Prescott was probably closest to remaining working class - ironic that he now sits in the Lords! Angela Rayner was working class, but if Starmer becomes PM and retains her as deputy, she will be earning over £150,000 with use of grace and favour homes etc. - ie. not very working class.

"Keir Starmer is not working class - his father owned the factory he was a toolmaker in."

Pretty sure that's not true-but happy to be proved wrong.

Margaret Thatcher was not working class-except maybe by the standards of the Oxford of her day.

Wes Streeting-who I predict will be the next but one PM is solidly working class. As is Angela Rayner, who is incredibly articulate and sharp as a tack. Just for those at the back-you can be articulate and sharp as a tack in any accent.

Keir Starmer is now a millionaire. He's so far removed from his working class roots that he can't possibly be regarded as working class.

We have had several working class Prime Ministers in my lifetime. Ted Heath, Jim Callaghan & particularly John Major came from working class backgrounds. Margaret Thatcher’s background was perhaps best described as lower middle class. Her parents owned & ran a grocer’s shop in Grantham.

Major, in particular, had a difficult upbringing. His parents’ small business went bust & they were so skint at one point & they ended up living in a grotty rented bed sit in Brixton, which was then a very rough area. He didn’t go to university and was on the dole for a period. Later, he got a clerical job at Standard Chartered bank, passed his banking exams & rose to a senior position despite his background.

"Keir Starmer is now a millionaire. He's so far removed from his working class roots that he can't possibly be regarded as working class."
Well, becoming a lawyer rather than earning a lot of money means he isn't actually working class any more, regardless of anything else. Personally, I'd settle for a prime minister who had a reasonably ordinary background, regardless of current wealth.

When Thatcher was PM, many writers & snobby people in the Arts establishment looked down their noses & sneered at her. As well as her policies, they hated her fake, over-elocuted accent, her M&S clothes, her obvious philistinism and the new-build Barrett type house in Dulwich she & Dennis moved to after they left Number 10.

Have a good chuckle at the assertion that Angela Raynor would be an embarrassment on the international stage because she isn't plummy enough, when, in just the past three years, we've had a PM who is a serial liar and racist, who caused diplomatic gaff after gaff thanks to being an utter buffoon promoted way above his ability, an utter imbecile who completely tanked the economy in little over a month, and a man so out of touch with reality that he has no idea how to fill a car at a petrol pump, or use a debit card, and clearly uses the position of PM for no other purpose than to inflate his, and his cronies' already vast wealth.

We're way past the point of 'embarrassment' already. You only need to look at our neighbours' print media to see that we're a worldwide laughing-stock because of the abysmal excuses for human beings we've had running the UK in recent times.

I don't care about the background of any potential PM as long as they have integrity; an intelligent and far-reaching grasp of what needs to be done to repair the fucked-up husk that this government has reduced us to, and the political skills to deliver sensible, compassionate, fair and sustainable policies to a country that needs them so badly.

So why on Earth would we want to compound this by appointing yet more embarrassing dimwits?

There is nobody currently in the HoC who merits the position of PM.

You're right. We should just avoid having a government altogether.

We can only elect those who chose to stand, and while I do not accept that Angela Raynor is an 'embarrassing dimwit' or anything close, I'd still far rather be governed by reasonably honest incompetents, than venal, self-serving, criminal incompetents.

I think you mean pauper.. and I grew up in a mining village and the miners were not living like paupers. Especially after the pit shut

I'm not sure many of us were competing for work with migrants either . I worked in a nursing home for bupa 15 years ago and they were having to bring people into the country from all over the world because they couldn't get enough carers. Things haven't changed since then either

Major is fairly recent and definitely working class. He was interviewed on the Leading podcast recently and talked at length about his upbringing.

For all the posh Tory image they seem to have done better than Labour at having working class members take high office.

I think you have fallen for the hype. I don't know anyone who has had to fund their own cancer treatment. In fact I know someone who is clearly well off, house and land valued at £2m lots of disposable income, who is being treated within days of diagnosis on the NHS...as is right

I hope that was a joke? Arrghhh !

My DH just paid £100 to see a neurologist (rest paid for by employee health insurance). Waiting list for a NHS neurologist would have been 6 months.

I paid £200 to see a GP and medication (thankfully GP consultation covered by employer). See the common theme- all covered by employer. Haven't been able to access a GP in 5 years so been basically reliant on private healthcare. This is not at all abnormal in the UK, go read the articles and numerous Mumsnet threads. However most serious illness occurs when you are retired not when you are a working adult.
This is not hype, this is my lived experience. I can't even access a GP, DH hasn't used the NHS for about 7 years, tried to get an operation on the NHS (simple abscess removal) and they told him they had no capacity. He paid £200 and claimed the rest from insurance and had it in a private hospital.

I will link below but there was a kings counsel who got cancer and went private and then Bupa increased his premium by over £100k. The NHS can't even handle gp appointments, the waiting list now numbers 10 million, why would I not think I have to fund future private medical treatment when I am old when this has been my lived experience in my 20s and 30s. Please do not gaslight my experiences.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bupa-doubles-premium-of-kc-fighting-cancer-to-163-000-9dq02n8jk

The funny thing is that I found this article as it was being shared by a very avid Tory voter who was demanding Bupa refund her premiums for the last 10 years if that was the kind of tricks they were going to resort to!

Even some Tories have woken up.

Yes. See also: women.

The NHS is funded by our taxes. The government sets taxations levels, funds HMRC to collect them and chase up non-payers and decides what to spend the taxation on. At every single point in that process, the Tories have failed to do what is needed to fund the NHS properly. They have also failed to grasp the nettle and look at ways to reform the NHS to make it affordable and efficient for the longer term. Far too busy on Brexit, of course.

Now we have a horrific staffing crisis in the NHS, the care sector and schools. Entirely predictable given the hostile rhetoric to immigrants, without whom the NHS and the care sector can't function, and the constant undermining of these highly skilled and badly underpaid public servants.

Let's not blame the NHS for its own deficiencies. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. I blame the Tories and this above all is why they need to be voted out at the next election. I just wish I had more confidence in the competence and vision of the Labour party to do a better job.

Speaking as someone who is from a working class background...the reasons I'm a Tory are as follows:
Socialism stifles self development and progress...all those mining towns where no one was allowed "to get above themselves ' so they all lived like porpers, despite being the best paid manual workers in the country

My Dh grew up in a mining town. His family worked in the mines. He doesn’t recognise what you are talking about. And it’s pauper, not ‘porper’

She's not wrong though if you look at the behaviour. In my book, anyone who steals from someone more vulnerable, especially when in a position of trust, is scum. I don't give shit if they are taking from their Granny, or stealing from the country e.g baroness Mone, or not paying their fair share in taxes by using avoidance schemes. They and those who facilitate it are scum.

They like women and minorities to do the dirty work and implement extreme policies. Hence why the white Tory men bow out during times of strife i.e. when UK was plagued by strikes and inflation, post brexit and post truss/high inflation