I have long criticised Labour's (or at least Starmer's and Reeves') perpetual reference to 'working people'. I object to 'hard-working people' even more.
I have always said that using that statement was exclusionary. After all, many people cannot work because they are too young, too old, are students, are sick or have disabilities that prevent them from doing so, and maybe simply do not have the opportunity to do so available to them in the area where they live. This term has always been politically incoherent and a hostage to fortune, seeming to make it clear that no one but those at work matter.
But now, apparently, Labour cannot even decide who of those at work matter to them.
If you have investment income as well as income from work, are you a working person? The distinction matters: about twenty per cent of the population have enough investment income to notice it.
And if you employ someone, are you then disqualified as a working person? If so, I would have been for almost the whole of my working life. It seems possible that Labour thinks this is the case.
And what if you earn more than twice the median wage? Are you then working? Or is it something else that you're doing?
It is very clear that Labour cannot answer these questions. Even this morning, Pat McFadden, whose high status in Labour is exceptionally difficult to explain, has been quite unable to answer these questions when on the morning interview round that ministers are sent out to do with the aim of explaining Labour's position.
We have to come to some conclusions in that case.
The first is that Labour picked a description of those in whose interests it is acting that makes no sense.
Second, they never had the intellectual curiosity to define the term they used.
Third, they did not have the imagination to think that others might want to explore this issue.
Fourth, they never imagined themselves walking into a trap of their own making as a result and so never prepared a defence for what they were claiming to do.
Fifth, this indicates arrogance, stupidity, or both permeates their thinking.
Sixth, if it is fair to ask, as a result, if they are really up to the job they are doing because this failure to define the most basic of terms that they chose to use suggests that they are not.
And you wonder why I despair?
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My despair is such that I don’t watch the morning round when monsters are sent out to explain Labour’s position. I read your blog instead. But if I knew that the Gruffalo was going to appear I might make the effort. If it’s any comfort I, and I’m sure, many others are grateful that you make the effort for us. We learn a lot and try and share your wisdom around.
Thanks
And the ‘monster’ typo for ‘minister’ has now been corrected
Mind you Richard, often the term ‘monster’ seems more than appropriate especially those in the ‘Westmonster’ parliament!
I prefer the term “monster”.
🙂
I was told I had to correct it this morning – but my #1 editor
“Working people” are just people, aren’t they. A Govt. should direct its policies towards people, whoever they are and whatever their circumstances. All that matters is that all People are looked after, and policies are directed to make this happen.
That is how it should be, but as used by LINO the term is in fact designed to exclude many people: those listed by Professor Murphy at the start of his article. LINO made this clear as soon as it took office, with its vicious attack on Pensioners (many of whom, like me, still work to make ends work) and on families with more than two children. And then there is its sinister support for assisted dying….
Reflecting on this, this is an example of how ideology minces up words. The term ‘working people’ was first used by the Tories to I think differentiate those working against those who were not or could not in their war on benefits – culture wars, division and all that.
Now with Labour, it is used as propaganda to try to tell people that they are our side even though their polices are clearly not as they deliver the continuity the political funding culture in this country wants delivered.
What is most worrying for me is that just as we need cogent structures, plans, budgets etc., of the State to address a whole slew of problems, it has been ‘decided’ that the State does not have capability to solve them and that only the market can deliver.
It is a recipe for disaster. They will deliver nothing – look at the recent carbon capture initiative – all they will do is gouge out as much value as they can and leave us with next to nothing and the same problems.
And then the State will get the blame again – probably rightly – and the whole bloody circus will keep going until the planet make us stop. Which I think it will.
The Tories loved the terms “hard working families” and “striving families”.
Labour government members are really extremely stupid.
But of course they know what’s best for the UK. The ending in tears has already started.
Now is not the time to be old, ill, unemployed, on benefits or not a hard working person.
Labour’s manifesto plainly said they wouldn’t raise the rate of national insurance contributions. To quote: “we will not increase National Insurance, the basic, higher, or additional rates of Income Tax, or VAT. ”
If they do, they have broken a manifesto commitment. And it is plain that the cost of employer NICs reduces earnings.
An employee on median earnings, about £35,000, pays basic rate income tax and 8% employee NIC (reduced to 6% NIC if self employed). By definition the median is the half way point.
An income of twice the median, about £70k, is about 75% up the distribution so better off than three out of four, and paying 40% income tax and 2% NIC. By three times median earnings, about £105k, you are in the top 10% but still paying 40% and 2%. And four times median, £140,000, gets you into the top 5%, and into the 45% income tax rate plus 2% NICs.
Or of course if you are lucky enough to hold substantial assets, you could be one of about 370,000 people paying CGT at 10% or 20%.
By the way, an MP’s salary is over £90,000. Are they “working people”?
For me, this trend started with that dreadful Corbyn slogan ‘for the many, not the few’. I want a Labour party that is ‘for *everyone*, not the few’. It is high time we stopped seeking to divide citizens into them and us, whatever criterion may be used for the division. ‘Working people’ is just the latest crass attempt to get people to see themselves as ‘in’, and see others as ‘out’.
(For the avoidance of doubt, of course I accept that there are some who should lose out if we adopt equitable social policies, but that doesn’t make them ‘other’, it’s just bringing them back into the fold.)
I neat way of looking at things
It could be worse – at least we no longer have “hard working families” every other sentence.
It is the total absence of conscious awareness of those using these terms. If asked they’d struggle to explain what distinguishes a ‘hard-working’ from a ‘working’ or a ‘soft-working’ person, let alone define anyone who in some way isn’t working. As Richard pointed out in a recent video, many people have simply a job working to apply for paid work! And as others have indicated are those people who are not in ‘waged’ work not working?! I am furious with the laziness of thinking and speaking of so many politicians using words and phrases that they have no idea of their meaning.
Thanks
Hard working families are, presumably, those who send their children up chimneys.
The term Middle Class has a specific meaning in the US different to that here.
Perhaps in the same way we need a similar term here which is understood to mean something that will benefit the bulk of the population ie not a tax cut for the top 5% or so.
While I dont think its perfect Corbyns slogan ‘For the Many not the Few’ included everyone, working or not and was easy to understand
I was listening to Shelagh Fogarty on LBC on Friday. the discussion was around “what is a working person?” and Labour’s plans to ensure that they are taxed fairly.
Cursed as I am with some knowledge of the tax system, I ended up shouting at the radio… I am becoming sick and tired of those who perpetuate the ill-informed myths about tax and money in this country.
The UK does not, and never has, tax people. The legislation determines who is a Person for the purposes of any given tax (individuals, companies, partnerships, trusts and so on), but tax is charged in income, profits and gains. We don’t need to identify whether or not someone is “working” or “hard working” or “sponging off the state” or “wringing the people dry by extracting rents” or any other category. It’s irrelevant.
Identify the source of the income/profits/gains. Apply whatever legislation charges it to whatever tax. Determine the amount to be charged. Charge at the appropriate rate. The legislation will identify who is liable to that tax.
Any more than that is troublemaking, emotive bulls**t that will only get in the way of effective tax policy.
And if I shouted at the radio for focussing on irrelevant dead cats like that, imagine the roar every time someone who purported to be in a position of responsibility said “We need to tax to get the money to pay for…” – my tolerance for that lie from the lips of those in authority is wearing tissue thin.
There is a video coming on this subject
I haven’t, recently, heard “pensioners who have worked hard all their lives”.
I am not sure if that is because they have belatedly realised that a pensioner can have spent their entire lifetime on state benefits and still receive the same state pension as everyone else (rightly so). Or because they have no intention of supporting pensioners.
Sky News had an interesting Vox Pop from Preston Market. One bemused voter responded to the interviewer’s question about what Labour have done, by observing a feeling he believed was widely shared: ‘We didn’t vote for this. I’m not sure what we voted for, to be perfectly honest’.
I respect the Preston Oracle’s candour, because the truth is, the Labour politicians haven’t the slightest idea what they were elected to do; and if they were perfectly honest about themselves they would admit the wouldn’t actually know what to do, and are ill equipped to function effectively, even if they did know what was expected of them.
In short, they are completey lost. They are bigger promoters of hope for the holed-below-the-waterline Conservative Party, than Badenoch and Jenrick are likely ever to achieve, or even dream from their own efforts.
Yes I despair – I now look forward to my next exciting meal rather than listen to the numpties in Government. I have a feeling that Sir would not classify me as a working person – odd that – I spend a lot of my time working on environmental land management (unpaid). I was thinking of setting up a PR business – Labour might need to hire one!!
🙂
I recall not too long ago, in the lead up to this year’s election, many of us who questioned the lack of a coherent manifesto, and expressed concern about the apparent vacuum at the centre of Labour’s programme, were roundly denounced as Tory enablers, and told to wait until after the election. Lately we have been told to wait for the budget, that we shouldn’t expect overnight change, that there is a black hole in the finances, and a decade of Tory mismanagement… and so on infinitum.
Where are they now, all those apologists on the right of the party? Looking for more lame excuses to cover their ineptitude and worse. Sigh.
But people on social media keep criticising me for attacking Starmer. Are they deluded?
Yes – they are deluded, or they are easily satisfied because they just wanted the Tories out – so much for ‘ambition’?!
And the lack of ambition here from Labour is simply not acceptable.
If you are on a low wage, taking the bus to work five, maybe 6 days a week, it is going to cost you an extra pound a day, which could be an extra £20-£26 a month, with Liz Kendall going on about how the current bus fare cap was ‘unsustainable’. And that is if you have ONE job!!
I detect a certain amount of ignorance in all this – I don’t think Laboured have any idea what ordinary people’s lives are like. Their job was to be different. Now they are tinkering and not being much different at all. Bad news.
Possibly not deluded, but certainly stupid.
Attacking Starmer?
Critiquing Starmer’s performance and apparent intentions and ineptitude maybe. But ‘attacking’..?
Possibly ‘defending against’ at the strongest. Somebody needs to or we might as well all have voted Tory or Reform for more of the same when in the event we were promised ‘change’. Not much ‘change’ in evidence so far. Not even a feeling of change of direction.
Harumph!.
People complain about your critique of Starmer and Co presumably because they’re Labour diehards and are triggered by your truth-telling (since way before the election)! Now, they’re not so much deluded as suffering buyer’s remorse and cognitive dissonance. Some will ‘keep drinking the Koolaid’. Others, we have to hope, will discover the harsh light – not of ‘fiscal reality’ (what an expression, based on such ignorance!) – but that they were deceived; their erstwhile ‘betters’ were NOT in the business to serve (or only to serve themselves and their paymasters); and that It Doesn’t Have To Be Like This. How many see the light, when, and what they can then do, remains to be seen; but could be critical to our future.
It’s clear, or at least it should be, by now that whereas Blair and co were ready for office, in that they had sufficient expertise from Labours old guard that they could start out without falling on their proverbial ‘at least’ once a week, this lot by contrast are not. Blair/Brown were just as inept at dealing with the problems created by Thatcher as their predecessor, but that revelation was yet to come.
Starmer and co, by contrast, have nothing in the locker. Despite the poll leads, despite the bluster, despite the often repugnant rhetoric, they really had nothing. Reeves and Starmer come out with the same depressing Tory rubbish, right down to the useless Freeports being expanded. Streeting is simply a wind up toy that buzzes around repeating Milburn and David Miliband’s rhetoric – and for the same reason. Cooper bangs on about immigration in her best Braverman voice, while Kendall is a horrifyingly accurate copy of Duncan-Smith.
Unfortunately, if you steal anothers rhetoric, ‘hard working tax payers’, ‘rewarding job creators’, ‘cracking down on scroungers’, ‘stopping the boats’ none of which means anything to anyone bar Daily Mail readers, you need to define what it means to ‘you’. Interestingly, the press were never that interested in what any of these slogans meant when Tory ministers trotted them out, but then holding the Conservatives to account is (all too clearly) not the medias job.
Labour need more than, as the Libs keep saying, pearl clutching to the fore, ‘better pr management’, they need an actual plan. Blair had the luxury of simply copying Major for four years before any hard decisions had to be made. Starmer doesn’t have that opportunity, he needs to be bold, decisive, and most of all progressive. All of which is an anathema to the new Grey man…
Many sensible and rightfully enraged comments from readers. The question, I always ask myself is – “What did you really expect?!”
Everyone knew that Starmer and his team are rather bland and non-descript. They are certainly not radical and the anti-thesis of what came before them. Anyone who has followed Politics over the last two decades can observe that there are no longer any characters, great intellects or personalities in Modern Politics both inside and outside of Westminster. It is the tragedy of our era that intelligent, authentic “hard-working people” no longer go into politics. The few real characters who exist inside the Westminster bubble either leave by choice, sit quietly on the bank benches, get de-selected for telling the truth or are tragically killed…
Many on here will have pilloried Blair’s Nu Labour and scorned their achievements. Whether we liked them or not the first two Blair administrations had serious characters with force of personality and genuine ideas. In all honesty, I recall it being a relatively easy government to be part of at the beginning, after 18 years of Tory torture and venality! Nu Labour underachieved as they were ever so cautious after repeated election defeats and coruscating attacks from the rabid media who still venerated Thatcher and her acolytes.
However, Nu Labour had serious ‘Big Beasts’ who could articulate their ideas and speak extemporaneously without notes. Even the ones who were clearly media coached sounded like politicians rather than the bumbling idiots of today. Very few modern politicians can speak naturally or intersperse their politico speech with genuine wit or humour. The hegemony of the 24/7 News Cycle and Social Media with absurd soundbites and memes has resulted in a totally dumbed down, coarsened style of communication. Just think how bland Ed Miliband sounded 10 years ago and how bizarre Mary Elizabeth Truss sounded (and still sounds) despite being repeatedly promoted by Gideon and Dave for being consistently “on message”… Political communication is total scam. Surely, everyone sentient knows this already and they/’we’ avoid trying to analyse what has been said (or been reported to have been said) on TV and the radio?! I am not saying that we should stop watching or listening to the News. However, I seriously question the veracity of dissecting what has been said when the vast majority of the time there has been deliberate obfuscation either due to ignorance on the part of the politician, or the truth being a too bitter pill for people to hear.
There are a handful of articulate, less wooden media performers in Parliament and they tend to be the ones who are repeatedly called forward for the cameras and put into the most senior posts. However, it is irrelevant what they say as even Ministers are all centrally controlled on what they can and cannot say!!
I have never voted Labour, Nu Labour or ‘Changed Labour’ so have no skin in the game. I have very little expectations of the new government as the situation they inherited is beyond comically bad and absolutely toxic. Even the General Election happened four months earlier than absolutely everyone except 5 people around Sunak and Dowden had expected!! Downing Street had gone around persuading every Tom, Rachel & Harriet that the GE would be in the Autumn. That is a quickly forgotten Fact. The Treasury and OBR were certainly not ready for the GE in July; which is the REAL reason why this Budget has been delayed. [DOI – I work in the public sector but have family members in small business and in the Civil Service.]
Changed Labour do not appear to have a central ideology apart from not being ‘The Tories’.
The World is more complex and interconnected than ever before after the rise of the Internet. Crises are now transnational and transcontinental with a rapid spread of problems fuelled by economic lability, armed conflicts and political instability. The general populations invest far too much hope in democratically elected politicians to somehow magic problems away with a wand of decency. Clearly, it appears impossible for a normal person to effect any meaningful changes, so we are stuck with the ‘Strong Man’ theory or dictators to clean up “the swamp”. Educated, well-read, comfortably off people have the same sense of despondency as their less fortunate and less educated fellow citizens. Nationalism and Fascism is in the ascendancy. This sounds like the 1930’s all over again
It is a rather sad indictment of the state of Politics that there are no leaders out there who can articulate a coherent message let alone bring new ideas and a clear vision to the table. Maybe there are sensible leaders amongst us, but they choose not to stick their head above the parapet…
My sincere view is that we all need to wait for The Budget, and the majority of us go back to our day jobs rather than fretting about things that we cannot really influence.
Dear Richard
You may be interested in this chat I had recently with ChatGPT.
https://chatgpt.com/share/6720d2b0-38a8-800c-bd40-92dac41d449e
The last response is interesting…
Thank you for your consistently interesting, educative and humane view of the world; I admire your choice to continue with this full time. I also like the message that we need a better song, a better story…
Kind regards
Richard Boulton