To not really know what a toolmaker is

[Gabbsters]

Well, I know what the words mean but Keir Starmer keeps saying it like it’s a well known job and I’ve never heard of it. What does it mean? Did he work in a hammer factory?

https://www.paragontoolmaking.com/news/toolmaking-explained-what-is-it-and-why-might-you-need-our-specialist-skills

It's a skilled engineering job

It's a really skilled engineering trade.

It's whatever a toolmaker did in 1960s-1980s, though.

I suppose it's short hand for "skilled manual worker"
And his mum was a nurse prior to her illness, in days when that was a hands-on not university degree job, too. More like an HCA than today's kind of nurse.

https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/threads/turner-brothers-toolmakers.7260/page-8 has some info

Thank you. Much fancier than I had imagined.

Didn't his Dad own the actual factory?

No his Dad didn’t own the factory. People have been saying that but there is no proof, and there would be, tax records etc

As a sole trader no? Which is something to be celebrated I would have thought.

My godfather and my OH's grandfather were both toolmakers (at the same plant as it happens).
A very skilled job which had (in those days) a 4-5 year apprenticeship and you really had to work as it was all to easy to fail and sent off to do unskilled or semiskilled manual work.

In our case they both worked in a car factory and they made the formers that went into giant presses that took a flat sheet of steel and made it into different car body panels. Obviously absolute accuracy was required and this was back in the days before computed controlled machine tools, it was all down to accurate drawings, measurements and skilled use of the tools.

My dad was a toolmaker, 3 year apprenticeship. Very skilled job. Unfortunately the company went under in the 70's 3 day week period.

It’s nonsense by Keir Starmer basically. His dad basically owned or worked in a factory. Like millions did it do.

by using the term toolmaker, he’s trying to show how he and his family are the salt of the earth types. Some kind of 17th century artisans, making things by hand, milking cows every morning and sending their children to harvest crops every late summer.

It’s pathetic. It shows what happens when you have no real ideas. Fortunately for him, his opponent is even more hopeless.

Such bullshit. Keir Starmer will be the most genuinely working class PM we have had for decades.

He says his dad was a toolmaker because that was literally his job title.

I think it is a well known trade but like everything unless you know it from working in any factory, industry, trains, family member who is one you aren’t likely to randomly come across it.

And his mum was a nurse prior to her illness, in days when that was a hands-on not university degree job, too. More like an HCA than today's kind of nurse.

@lljkk I think the old SRN (State Registered Nurse) was a pretty similar qualification to a degree. Three years of study consisting of a combination of lecture based academic study and experience on wards. The ward experience taking in quite a few different specialisms.

There were other nursing qualifications that were more hands on and involved less academic study. I think SEN (State Enrolled Nurse) was a two year course. There was also a Nursing Auxiliary role which was probably similar to HCA.

Its a precision skilled job and part of loads of manufacturing processes.

Its just the job title. He's not being weird about this at all.

What does being working class have to do with being good at being a PM.

It’s this kind of identity politics nonsense that got us where we are with rampant mediocrity in politics. Doesn’t matter whether he is working class or whatever ethnicity.

He will still be a shit PM. Like all the politicians playing the intersectionality games.

My grandad was a toolmaker (funnily enough my Nan was also a nurse). They were a thoroughly middle-class family. A toolmaker is a very highly-skilled engineer. He collaborated on inventions in aviation. It’s not a bog-standard factory floor worker like Keir Starmer makes out.

Hyperbole. He came from a hardworking not particularly privileged family. Try doing some actual research.

No, what got us into the shit we have today was the electorate being swayed by populist figures like Johnson. Before that there was Cameron trying to appease the ERG and running away when it went tits up.

I see no reason to believe that Starmer will be a shit PM. It will be a pleasant change to have a grown up in charge. He might lack charisma but competent and a bit dull might be beneficial.

What’s that got to do with the price of fish.

Bring working class does not make you virtuous or competent. Or a good PM.

He may have been a good civil servant, he may even be a good guy even though he comes across as a bit dim). The country doesn’t need any of those things right now.

All of this country’s problem are rooted in slow or no economic growth. The country needs someone who knows how to create wealth. And there is no one in any of the main main parties who has any experience of business and wealth creation. Not even the current PM, I hasten to add.

He’s not working class now

I think he's far from "dim". You don't have the career he's had without brains and hard work.

It's like being Head of New Media Engagement Outreach and Strategy Development. But the 'deliverable' is more tangible, and people would actually notice if you didn't turn up.

Well I’d rather have the son of a toolmaker, than an actual vampire disaster capitalist financier profiting from the collapse of a huge bank in this country, at taxpayer expense.

This is what Rishi did:

The more I hear clips of Starmer saying toolmaker, the odder the word sounds.

Possibly doesn't help that up here, they pronounce tool as toowull rather than tull

@ll09sm I don't think you know what "identity politics" and "intersectionality" mean. And you are a bad judge of character. Just my opinion.