This post nails it about left wing voters on Mumsnet over the last two days

[ProudAmberTurtle]

It's by an ex-academic on X, about posts on Reddit over the last 48 hours but is equally applicable to Mumsnet, where I can seeing posts stating things like:

"How stupid are Reform voters? Don't they realise they'll get fewer benefits?!"

The irony is of course that it's those posters who need to be educated, not the working class voters they mock because they think they're thick.

Here you go:

Reading through Reddit threads in which leftists/progressives express their bewilderment/confusion/fury at working class English voters for casting their lot in with Reform, one of the things I'm starting to understand is this:

They simply do not understand how a government could help working-class people in any other way besides giving them benefits, handouts, and other free things.

Their entire mental architecture is premised upon the premises that

1. Working class people are poor
2. The only way for them to not be poor is for the state to give them free stuff
3. So left-wing parties need to promise them lots of free stuff

Then, when these working-class voters instead vote for right-of-centre parties who instead promise an economy in which they can build a career, start their own business, make a financial success of themselves and start a family, they're confused.

Because, again, in their mental architecture, what the working class are supposed to want is free benefits from the state.

But what they actually want is a fair shake at making their own way in the world, making money, getting on in life.

And the left simply doesn't understand that what these voters want from the state is an economy in which they can actually do this.

x.com/i/status/2053073719086469193

I would agree that it’s not only an economic vote but an identity vote for many.

Yep, your ancestors built a civilisation that many others aspire to live in and be a part of. It's okay to take pride in that, as many other nationalities and cultures are proud of their heritage. It's more than just coordinates on a map.

I flag for me is something we hang outside our national buildings, on at George's day, bunting on street parties where people come together. It's not something to hang as banner to say go home....that's so clearly not cohesive. Please also consider the people who find this use utterly offensive, because quite frankly if someone hangs a flag outside my house for the reason of pushing their views down my throat then I take offence.

I have no problem with celebrations and bunting and days of national unity and pride and that may include well dressings, celebrations of Christian or any other faith, days celebrating diversity or sexuality....this is what makes our country so great. We are meant be to civil and polite and welcoming to strangers.

This is not what I see from people drapped in a flag standing outside a hotel that's a temporary home to immigrants.

It does appear to be the norm rather than the exception that far right folk seem to have an admiration for the authoritarian CPC and their methods.

There are some left wing shills too ( George Galloway for example), but most are firmly right wing. Trump fans and Brexit/Reform types. I am not saying you are a shill of course.

I suspect that is the Overton horseshoe in action. The same is seen re Putin. Authoritarians just like other authoritarians, no matter their ideology.

Rubio does sort of stand out as different though. Right wing, but firmly anti-communist.

I think the only thing that’s going to make ‘the working classes’ realise that Reform are not actually representing them is to put them in power and watch them not represent them. If Brexit didn’t do it however then I’m not sure what will. We are in for strange times.

Or maybe it will need many people who think they are middle class to realise that they are actually working class.

I have no idea how Farage and his pals define it.

What Red said.

I recall it was a Thatcher thing. To change the working class masses into self identifying as being middle class. By selling the council houses and state owned utilities/ companies.

People identifying as middle class are more likely to vote Tory after all. It was really social engineering.

I think you can see it in some pre Thatcher TV output. Dads Army for example. Hodges the Greengrocer and Jones the Butcher were working class. Manwaring was middle. Wilson was lower upper. Thatcher changed that. Now near all the Characters would be middle. Walker would be a middle class entrepreneur.

@RottenApplesSpoilTheLot whilst I get that, I will personally take a free NHS over any amount of flags-I think Reform needs to be very upfront about this- in Germany state health insurance is 380 euros a month each - and pensioners pay in full too. Employers pay 50% ( that should kill off a few smaller companies who like to blame Rachel Reeves employers NI extra 2%) but the public at minimum are still personally paying 190 euros each and tough shit on paying in full if you don’t have an employer.

I suspect he’s going to fudge it and say details not decided yet -right till after an election.

I suspect most ordinary people just think - of that will be an extra £70 or so and NI will go down- I doubt it very much . That’s not the figures I’m seeing in Europe where they have ‘paid in/insurance based and they have higher tax than uk too - you cannot have it all ways.

I doubt very much Farage has found a magic formula that won’t mean the public are hugely out of pocket or employers are, and probably both

Lots of working class people in the South were Tories or at least floating voters. My family were. Not everyone working class supports Labour, many people are socially conservative or aspirational towards things Labour disapproves of. Who do you think traditionally read the Sun?

I never said all working class were labour supporters. The gist of my post was that Thatcher done social engineering, and that increased the Tory base.

Many people who now identify as middle class would have been considered working class pre Thatcher. Do you agree with that statement ?

I don’t think all the people you’re claiming identify as middle class rather than working class.

I have no admiration for the government. It was a simple observation of one of the admirable qualities of the people. I sort of have the equivalent of Xi Derangement Syndrome, I miss the freer hand of the Hu-Wen era—didn’t have to go this way either.

Wasn’t Wilson a teacher? So not any sort of upper class-solidly middle class. Just with an unexpectedly posh accent.

No idea. But I thought teacher was middle class then ? But maybe not in the comprehensives ?

I take all that back-I am so wrong! Google tells me his uncle was a peer and his father was in the city. So upper middle class or lower upper. He was also a Captain in the proper Army in WW1-which is presumably why Mainwaring was so insecure!

I think teachers have always been middle class.

Ha ha. I thought you meant Harld Wilson :-)

But yup. Sgt Wilson was a lower level upper class. An "Honorable". That's what a big part of the series was about.

The Vicar was defo middle class.

Sgt Wilson worked in the bank, alongside and under bank manager Mainwaring. Not a high-ranking position - he had a chance to move on and become branch manager but a German bomb destroyed the bank he was about to move to, and Mainwaring was kind-hearted enough to take him back.

You could argue that Labour in the 60s did a bit of welcome social engineering in eliminating class deference.

For sure. If not for social engineering, we would still be Dickensian.

There's a lot of assumptions in this post. So really no better than all the assumptions the left allegedly make, really.

Personally I think Farage is a charlatan - but I also think he and Reform have played a blinder in terms of understanding the concerns of many voters, and showing empathy with those concerns - and claiming they can solve the problems voters are concerned about. Labour has spent too long effectively saying "those aren't the things you SHOULD be concerned about".

I had high hopes for Starmer - but he really has been a wet lettuce- I just hope he is replaced by someone who can turn this around. Please dear god, not Angela Rayner......🤢

First, that seems simplistic and untrue.

Second, does anyone else think it's odd that he posts that on X instead of Reddit, since it's about Reddit?

It's a potentially sexist analogy, but Reform are like the woman who lifts up her skirt to show a bit of leg for your hubby. It's not so much that she fancies your hubby - she fancies your house. And knows what buttons to push to get it.

They'll say the things that they think people want to hear, to get elected. And they'll make the single, only issue. 'You want sex? Here comes sex...'