Horny-handed sons of toil are needed – now

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Labour

By Alan Giles

At the 1998 Labour Party Confrence – the first in government since 1978 – there was a union proposal that working-class candidates ought to be fast-tracked to become PPCs for New Labour. Peter (now Lord) Mandelson was outraged and in a speech against the motion said “Horny-handed sons of toil are definitely not needed”. The motion was defeated. Overwhelmingly.

Well, 13 years later, with a succession of New Labour lawyers, barristers, privately-educated Oxbridge media types and spouses of millionaires leaving Parliament, many in the wake of the revelations of their profligate expenses, I wonder if Lord Mandelson ever thinks back with regret at his casual dismissal of so many potential honest recruits?. I doubt it, for whatever qualities he has, self doubt or retrospection are not among them.

We now see so many people – ordinary voters, party workers – disenchanted by what they see going on in the PLP. The truth is, in my opinion, that there are so many high flyers in the PLP that most of them have no conception of what life is really like for the average person, let alone those unfortunate enough to be ill or disabled or disadvantaged in some way.

At one time many Labour MPs had come from the collieries of Wales, or the factory floors of Birmingham, or some other “humble” background. They didn’t have expensive private education or university degrees, but they had something money can’t buy, and that is first hand experience of what life is like for the ordinary person. They lived among them and knew their problems. Indeed, many was the time I saw the late Tony Banks, an East London MP, on the Shenfield-Liverpool Street train line in the ’90s – no first class compartment for him. He would stand with everyone else. I had a few conversations with him, often about fox hunting, of which he was a passionate opponent. Mr Banks didn’t have a cut-glass accent, but he was 100% genuine in his beliefs and principles.

I am not suggesting we reopen the mines, or try to resurrect massive factories to recruit a new generation of Labour MPs, but what I am suggesting is that instead of Lord Mandelson’s patent distaste towards candidates from ordinary backgrounds, if Labour want to build bridges and engage again with its natural supporters, they should be looking at people with real life experience, whether that experience has been gained working in Tesco’s, a factory, driving a bus, the army, nursing or any other walk of life that has equipped the person to have an understanding of everyday life and a real rapport with ordinary men and women.

The problem with living in an ivory tower is that you get cut off from the concerns and worries that affect most people, and in the case of many MPs and ministers (the latter driven everywhere in ministerial cars, and visits to schools and hospitals, etc, being carefully stage managed), they are implementing laws which can have an adverse affect on the lives of the less advantaged (a case in point is the Freud welfare reforms, so enthusiastically endorsed by ex-minister James Purnell, not to mention the Conservative Party, of which Freud is now a member and life peer).

I know of somebody who has suffered all his life from uncontrolled epilepsy, and also has slight cerebral palsy. He never knows when he is going to be ill, but can have good days – though those good days have been much reduced by the fear of a letter arriving from ATOS or the DWP. Many people suffering from terminal illness or undgoing chenmotherapy have been refused Employment and Support Allowance and put on Jobseekers’ Allowance. It’s not just the question that it pays less, but the onus on the recipient of JSA is to look for work. With unemployment high among the able-bodied, this extra burden on the ill is intolerable. Anyway, for better of worse that is Mr Purnell’s legacy.

All those years ago, Lord Mandelson didn’t want “ordinary” people to be Labour MPs; he wanted the media or lawyer or privately educated circle. The problem is most of us are ordinary. The majority of us did not go to public school, and we have to pay our own bills. As is seen time and again the “ordinary” British person is the most generous and good natured of people – witness the numerous donations to charity and in the wake of natural disaster, such as that in Chile a few weeks ago. They are amongst the most forgiving and tolerant of people (just as well when you consider some of the Whitehall farce they have had to endure for the past year).

Let me say to anyone who might think I am “envious” of the privately educated, that I am not. I went to a Secondary Modern School and left at 15, so I had to learn how to get on with all sorts of different people from an early age. I doubt that I would have been able to do so as easily had I been at Fettes or Eton – and I am grateful for it. Back in those days there were things called Technical Colleges where the less “clever” of us academically, were able to learn useful skills and compete with our friends who went to grammar school or university.

We need lawyers, we need barristers, judges, and even media types (if only to dream up the next variation on TV dancing shows); they are all part of British life. But we also need ordinary people and we need some of them on the green benches – so their input and experience on everyday life gets heard loud and clear. They are part of British life, too.

I am not putting myself forward; I am far too old. But the tragedy is, unless we are very careful, younger, talented people will be overlooked in favour of yet another Oxbridge candidate.

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