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.

I'd vote for a political party that didn't make extravagant promises but aimed for general competence on, as @LlynTegid says, the admin stuff that should be outside politics.

However, as soon as there's any mention of the NHS, and the % of public spending it should receive, it becomes extremely political. The NHS is the most divisive issue of all, because how much and how it's spent is polarising.

And this is also why I'm unimpressed by the current Labour offering. You have someone like Starmer who - by virtue of having been a successful lawyer and clearly intelligent - seems to be pandering to pressure groups rather than having an overall vision and joined-up evidence-based approach to policy making, understanding how many of the issues are interlinked. I had high hopes for him but so far have found him rather disappointing in this regard. And lacking the courage of his convictions, being scared to say things that will upset people and treat the electorate like adults when in many cases it is obvious what needs to be done to start to repair the total mess in the UK.

Rachel Reeves who with her background should be able to suggest policies that will actually start to fix the UK's chronic productivity issues, but is suggesting nothing of the sort. Again, disappointing as I thought she would be far better. Again, seems to be pandering to what will be popular rather than what needs to be done.

Then the likes of Rayner, who seems so ideological that she can't see the wood for the trees, like she's on some sort of angry crusade to score political points rather than weighing up evidence and understanding nuance and interested in policy solutions that will actually work.

It's all very depressing, given that we have the most horrific Government in living memory who have absolutely trashed pretty much every area of life that falls under Government remit, so it's not exactly hard to see ways to improve things from here! And yet, the alternative offer is so underwhelming. We simply do not get the right quality of people going into politics now, which is understandable given the relatively poor salaries for the level of responsibility, instability/ short term contracts plus intrusion into your personal life. I don't think many people would be prepared to do such a thankless task on a short-term contract for such relatively poor pay, unless they were doing so as a stepping stone for personal gain later on off the back of having it on their CV.... or are simply power-hungry ego maniacs.

And therein lies the problem.

A definition of working class?
This is not a dictionary definition but when I hear the phrase 'working class' I think of someone whose levels of literacy and numeracy are not particularly high and who is therefore easy to fool and subordinate.

Just an opinion, but if a person thinks that an ordinary MP is well paid (despite all the drawbacks pointed out by @OrangeCrayon) then I think you are generally describing someone of limited education and ambition. Most of the good tradesmen I know are earning over £87k pa, by definition, because they have had to register for VAT. Which is more than an MP.

This is why proportional representation systems that result in coalitions generally have better outcomes. They are not without their problems of course, but they mean that politicians have to cooperate and look at evidence and generally therefore make more evidence-based policy decisions that actually work. Rather than spending their time on political point scoring and soundbites and ideological nonsense. And it also means that stuff gets done because a sensible policy programme agreed between various parties will likely be continued from one term to another, with people focusing on tweaking and improving it, rather than throwing the whole thing out and deciding to do the complete opposite, meaning billions spent on pet projects that never go anywhere or make any tangible difference. Focusing all the time on optics and getting reelected because it's all or nothing, sticking to the party line even if extreme, rather than having any long-term vision for the future.

Pretty much all of the UK's current problems are because of this short-termism and lack of long-term planning, even for entirely foreseeable (and foreseen) problems. And our political system actively encourages this.

Yes. And people aren't going to give up businesses/ stable professional roles to put themselves forward for a role that they may or may not even get! (most people are put in unwinnable constituencies first time they run, anyway) and then even if they do, it will only be a 5 year contract, plus long and unsociable hours and abuse and press intrusion and risk to their families...

Interestingly the salaries for MPs in many comparable countries are 3-4 times what we pay. And for our population size we have 3-4 times as many of them. So an obvious solution is to cut their number to 25% and quadruple the pay. And then we'd get a much higher calibre of person. It's astonishing to have people running departments who'd never even get a middle management job in those departments, because they simply don't have the skills or expertise or experience.

Another huge problem we have is lobbying and both of our major parties being highly influenced by vested interests who have a large impact on policy. This contravenes the MPs' code of conduct and the basic principles of democracy. MPs are required to make their decisions in the best interests of all of their constituents. Not party members and not lobbyists or funders. But they don't.

We should as a bare minimum fund political parties from tax money and ban all external funding/ influence/ lobbying. The cost would be a drop in the ocean of the national budget and far cheaper than the damage being done by the current system.

There should also be much stricter requirements where for every policy a proper and rigorous analysis of the expected effects conducted by independent economists and experts in the relevant field should have to be published for all citizens to access before MPs vote on it, so that the electorate can hold them to account for what they are voting for and their defence of ignorance of the expected outcomes is removed.

Fewer MPs of higher calibre, properly paid, would definitely be welcome. And a broad cross-party consensus on matters like education, health and social care where the demographic trends are visible from afar would be so much better than abrupt changes of direction with every reshuffle.

Yep, education, social care, pensions, health, industrial policy, international policy, climate change, food and energy security, infrastructure, defence... almost every area of Government responsibility requires long-term planning and policy implementation across decades not 5 or 10 years in office. Cohesive and joined-up plans with proper impact assessments and technical, detailed implementation plans, informed by expert analysis of data and evidence for each area.

There is an obvious reason why the UK is a mess!

Don't forget we had John Prescott as Deputy PM for 10 years.

Didn't even pass the 11 plus and go to Grammar School like Thatcher/Major/Starmer but went to a secondary modern school then joined the merchant navy.

Son of a railway signalman, grandson of a coal miner.

He was the Angela Rayner of the Blair years.

Didn't he once punch someone in the face for egging him? Is that what it takes to qualify as "proper" working class? 🤣

Yes, a chap called Craig Evans, in Rhyl IIRC. Prescott was born in Prestatyn, which is right next to Rhyl.
Prescott punch

What a snobby and dismissive way of viewing the world. My maternal grandparents, born in the first decade of the 20th century, were both working class, i.e. from poor families with fathers engaged in manual labour, and had to leave school and start working at the minimum leaving age. They had both learned to read and write to a good standard, and continued to read for pleasure and information all their lives. Their numeracy was excellent. Those were the days when Scottish education was amongst the best in the world, highly valued and seen as the way out of poverty. They were also not by any stretch of the imagination easy to fool and subordinate. They made sure that their daughters stayed on at school to get qualifications and go into white collar jobs. They were absolutely delighted to hear that I was going to university, first in the family (and not the last, my brother went too).

Yes, they had just egged him in a crowd though. I could kind of see why he might have reacted like that in the heat of the moment although don't condone the behaviour of either.

Unfortunately for the egg guy Prescott boxed as a younger man.

This incident has nothing to do with his socioeconomic status though.

Quite. Buzz Aldrin once decked a moon landing denier who was provoking him. He wasn’t working class.

tootallfortheshelf · Today 13:24
A definition of working class?
This is not a dictionary definition but when I hear the phrase 'working class' I think of someone whose levels of literacy and numeracy are not particularly high and who is therefore easy to fool and subordinate.

I don't believe you!

I can remember 'two jags Prescot', who was later called 'two jabs Prescott' apparently for getting into fights....

It wasn't fights, it was one incident where he punched someone who had thrown an egg at him at very close range. He didn't know what it was and thought the yolk running down his neck was his own blood. It was a reaction in the moment not a bar brawl.

Agreed.

Thick as a brick and just as useless.

(But Angela Rayner has better legs.)

https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/16/18-years-since-john-prescott-punched-man-egged-9567735/

How does someone who is “thick as a brick” become the Deputy Prime Minister?

Answer - He’s not thick as a brick.

It’s the same as Trump (who I abhor, and who I’m in no way comparing to Prescott). Whatever you think about him, he’s not stupid. He’s a canny operator, who knows what works for him and how to mobilise a large body of support. He’s even using his latest troubles to increase support with the “persecution” narrative.

David Lamy won a scholarship to a good school I think. Humble beginnings though.

Penny Mordaunt's father was a soldier, mother a teacher. Not silver spoon world was it?

Trump is stupid, stupid like a fox

Haven’t read the whole thread but surely John Major fits this description. One roomed council flat, absent Dad, left secondary modern school at 16.

Think Harold Wilson was from a working class background too