I am a Labour voter, a Labour supporter and I do not regret my vote.

[CurlewKate]

However, I think that Starmer has been incredibly stupid and/or very badly advised over this expenses issue. He has done nothing wrong, but his behaviour is not what he led us to believe he would do, and I am incredibly exasperated and disappointed.

In my opinion, he should admit that he made a massive misjudgement, and agree to take no more freebies from now on.

Apart from anything else anything which allows people to say "They are all as bad as each other" (they aren't) is a distraction from the real issues the country faces. He should be laser focussed on repairing the damage caused by 14 years of Tory misrule. Not scrambling around dealing with peripheral stuff.
Starmer-say sorry. Don't do it again. And get back to work.

@iwishihadknownmore

Do you not understand what MPs actually do?
It's not just sitting in the House.
For a start

• attending to constituency matters
• sitting on select committees
• sitting on parliamentary groups
• preparing for debates
• preparing for constituency visits
• receiving/hosting visitors eg from constituency

If an MP is a secretary of state or holds another ministerial role they will spend a lot of time on departmental business

FYI
There are around 130 ministerial roles. If you don't hold one of those roles, you are more than likely to be sitting on one of the parliamentary committees

@BIossomtoes
@TizerorFizz

I'm 59, my dad was a milkman, my mum was amongst other things a dinner lady, my grandads were brickies or in the merchant navy.
We didn't have grammars where I lived, but I did go to a selective school and was the first in my family to go to university. I have been a civil servant most of my working life.
My roots are solid working class, I don't recall my background ever being an issue or subject of debate at school or later on life.

Yes, I don’t think attending a grammar when Starmer was a pupil was a sign of being middle class.

(Not that it matters to this thread, but it’s interesting IMO that grammars are on average more racially diverse than comps today.)

I suspect that Starmer has gilded the working class lilly a bit for Labour consumption - much like Blair’s affected glottal stops - but I don’t think it matters. There are bigger issues with Sir Keir and his premiership.

Oh yes..Blair's cockney sparra persona when he was raised in the north east. No northern twang there! Brilliant.

There is always the 'man of the people' Farage to vote for in just under 5 years time.

This is embarrassing. He didn't grow up in the north east. He grew up in Oxted, Surrey. Can I suggest you read his biography before spouting a load of nonsense?

Why is it such an issue that he was born working class? He was indeed and he has acheived a lot. I don't understand the obsession with his roots.

This is embarrassing. He lived in Durham from the age of five (thats in the north-east), went to Durham Choristers (in Durham) and Fettes (in Edinburgh) until 18. No south about him!

You're confusing him with Keir Starmer?

I think you guys have your wires crossed. One of you is talking about Starmer and the other about Blair.

Yes I think that's what she's done ✔️

Apologies, I thought it was still a Starmer character assassination as I read quickly on phone.Looks like you have move on to Blair. Need to keep up with your Labour PM assassinations. Must try harder.

I was replying to someone who mentioned Blair's glottal stop! Which I always thought was funny as he's from the north east.

Anyway, thanks for the apology.

You're welcome. Sorry I missed that. My brother went to Fettes and sounds exactly like Blair. I don't think he has ever professed to be anything other than upper middle class (Blair and my brother),

Because he keeps talking about it.Makes a big deal about it. Embroiders his working credentials. Politicians need to shut up really. It makes no difference to capability and just makes them look like wannabees. I don’t care where he came from and his mum was a nurse. That’s professional and was considered middle class 60 years ago. Grammar matters because it gave him the leg up to do well. He’s done well.

Isn’t is great when mn know more about your family than you do, Where we live, many didn’t want to be working class. My parents thought the working class were common. People actively sought to not be WC. It was something you wanted to escape. Many did and became MC. It’s only now WC is the big badge on the lapel.

Grammar matters because it gave him the leg up to do well.

Along with millions of other working class kids from the 50s, 60s and 70s. There’s nothing special about any of us.

Well exactly. So no need for him to speak with an affectation like glottal stop. We know what he is.

I don’t think it is an issue, or at least not much of one.

But it’s not his background that’s any issue at all. It’s whether he’s indulged in pretence about the humbleness of his origins. As I said, I don’t see this as much of an issue. It would be comical more than serious.

Figures on the left do sometimes go in for ‘proling’. I suppose they think that being ‘posh’ or coming from money would hold them
back in Labour politics.

Blair (who went to Scotland’s Eton) used to affect an estuary accent on occasion. But my favourite was always Tony Benn - i.e. The Viscount Stansgate - who was public school educated but took all that out of Who’s Who. He also used to make a point of drinking tea out of mugs, rather than cups, because he thought that projected the right working class image.

Well champagne socialists were laughed at. Still are. So you have to have those WC roots. However fanciful they might be. I guess that’s why loads of clothes for free is such an attraction too. When you never had anything……..

It is of course forgotten that Labour closed the grammar schools. All those millions of DC helped no more! Labour believed the WC dc went to the secondary moderns. Did they not? Or why get rid of an education system that benefitted millions of WC kids? It didn’t. That was a myth. Or so Labour said at the time.

It is of course forgotten that Labour closed the grammar schools. All those millions of DC helped no more! Labour believed the WC dc went to the secondary moderns. Did they not? Or why get rid of an education system that benefitted millions of WC kids? It didn’t. That was a myth. Or so Labour said at the time

As you say "a myth"

It was a Tory minister in 1963 that first talked about the unfairness of the grammar school system and it was Margaret Thatcher that closed or merged more GS for a comprehensive alternative than Labour ever did.

For most parents, GS aren't what they want & for good reason, it leaves the local Comp as a sink school, under funded and with children who feel they are failures.

You'll have to explain what a Champagne Socialist is & why you feel that people with left of centre views cannot be successful, without betraying their values.

Strange POV to be honest.

Obviously I’m biased because I was a grammar school girl but I think they did promote social mobility and getting rid of them was a mistake.

I was too and agree about the social mobility

My cousin passed the 11+ and went to Grammar School, her brother didn't, he is in his 70s now and still feels like he was classed as a failure.

Bright children should be catered for within the comprehensive system, not segregated off to different schools, with the dros left to their own devices in a crowded & underfunded system.

tbh Grammar schools are the ultimate in "Pull the ladder up jack......"

Few if any countries in Europe have a GS system, yet manage to educate their children perfectly well, via far more funding per pupil systems than the UK.

Germany, Austria and a number of East European countries have selective schools which are their equivalent of grammar schools.

Super selective grammar schools do not negatively impact local comprehensives. They allow the very brightest pupils to develop at a pace that is appropriate for them. As far as funding goes, grammar schools usually get less from the Government anyway.

Ideally you would want state schools that can cater well for all levels in streamed classes for most subjects (like a lot of private schools). And that pupils can move between the streams if required. So the brightest don't get held back and the ones that need more support get it. I suppose one day that might happen in all state schools if they are invested in.

I suppose one day that might happen in all state schools if they are invested in.

14 years of underinvestment hasn't helped