Labour war on middle classes: let it rock

Posted on Wednesday 14 January, 2009
Filed Under New Labour

 


‘LABOUR war on middle classes’, proclaims the front page headline of the Daily Mail this morning. Sounds kinda serious, doesn’t it? Posterity will no doubt look back at the conflict that unexpectedly kicked off in early 2009 as one of the most brutal episodes in all of British history.

Our descendents will argue long and hard over whether the relentless carpet bombing of Primrose Hill in the first week of hostilities should be regarded as a war crime, and perhaps question the necessity for the string of concentration camps that opened up across the better parts of the Home Counties.

Who should be held morally responsible for the collateral damage after that stray artillery round hit that prep school in Buckinghamshire, taking out over Henry, Poppy, Chloe, Jasper and their unfortunate teacher? And should New Labour really have tried to excuse the atrocity by falsely suggesting that the Aylesbury branch of Hamas was holed up in the basement?

In scenes unparalleled since Stalingrad, bitter hand-to-hand fighting saw irregular partisan units of expensively-handbagged fashionistas doing their damnedest to prevent the First Jeremy Corbyn Armoured Divison’s reclamation of Canonbury, it will be recalled. It was to no avail; the summary executions of numerous leading barristers outside the Upper Street premises of Hotblack Desiato quelled the petit bourgeois insurrection in Islington once and for all.

On the other hand, things might not come to quite this pass. On reading the story, it turns out that the government is merely planning to extend existing laws against discrimination on grounds of race, age, gender, disability and sexuality to cover class as well. About bloody time, too.

Yet this simple proposal – which should be axiomatic for any political party purporting to base its appeal on the majority of the population – has generated apoplexy over at Associated Newspapers. Some bugger has nicked the office copy of the Daily Telegraph, but I’d imagine the broadsheet isn’t too chuffed with the policy, either.

Harriet Harman is perceived as the architect of the scheme, and comes in for no uncertain amount of stick. The Mail’s editorial even accuses her of possessing an ‘infantile Marxist view of the world’. Please. The poor love wouldn’t recognize a dialectical negation if it nicked her stab vest.

Yet the irony is that legislation to ‘enhance social mobility’ is unlikely to make much too much difference in practice. More than 30 years ago, legislation was passed granting women equal pay for equal work; I don’t have the stats to hand, but I seem to recall that the gap is still massive. Likewise, class discrimination will persist, whatever the law says.

This is because capitalism is inherently based on class division, and couldn’t exist without it. Efforts to give more ordinary kids a break in the professions are probably worthwhile, but will not challenge the reality of minority ownership and control of the means of production. That would take genuine socialism, something still a long way off Labour’s radar screen.


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Comments

7 Responses to “Labour war on middle classes: let it rock”

  1. Southpawpunch
    on January 14th, 2009 at 14:22

    It’s interesting, and part of the success of the Daily Mail, that it has written a story that appeals to most of its readership, although it shouldn’t.

    I know that many PAs, office managers and customer service managers think they are middle class. Whilst that class name is open to a wide interpretation (and very few of its members could possibly afford to send their kids to private school, as Dave’s article implies) they are almost all certainly working class, in a Marxist definition of same.

    It’d also be interested to see whether such anti-class discrimination legislation could /would work. I think many of these laws are widely ignored.

    I see that the BBC has pulled an old story out of the bag and run it again (which is fine). They arranged for various landlords in Bristol to contact rental agencies and say they only wanted white tenants; most were happy to oblige.

    I remember them doing it before in Bristol, when various black reporters were sent to view properties and got a usual response of “it’s just gone, love” and then white reporters, half an hour later, were offered to be shown the room.

    If such an anti-class discrimination law was created, I would be surprised if that detached bit of Surrey – Canary Wharf – would have anymore than the current minimal number of Cockneys (and non whites) working there despite being located in (former?) heartlands of both groups. Maybe some sussed son of costermonger from Canning Town could take some bank to the cleaners for cartloads of cash, like some high flown female executives are now taking some banks to court for millions for sexist behaviour, but I suspect things would generally go on as before for near all.

    I’m not opposed to such a law – it may be useful – but we should also fight for a law to outlaw political discrimination.

    As somebody who has been sacked for my out of work political activity (and by Labour activist types who couldn’t even see the hypocrisy that they did the same as I did, but of a different political colour); it would be useful to have that extra bit of ammunition, for an Employment Tribunal.

    But like the law supposedly protecting discrimination on the basis of trade union activity, the law would often be ignored such as was demonstrated by the sacking of Michael Gavan by Newham council for his TU work.

  2. Phil
    on January 14th, 2009 at 19:53

    I remember Peter Tatchell, no less, arguing for precisely this kind of extension of anti-discrimination legislation at a Socialist Society meeting some time in the early 90s. I thought his argument evinced confusion between the kind of goals that can be achieved by a liberal-democratic state & those that you really need socialism for – as you say, capitalism is inherently based on class division, and couldn’t exist without it. And now it’s government policy. I guess if you wait long enough Labour really do hoover up every idea that’s going round on the left (apart from a few big ones).

  3. Toodle Noodle
    on January 15th, 2009 at 00:28

    Political correctness is a confused project containing many contradictions. It is these contradictions which, if ripened, are most likely to kill off political correctness – and this turn of events may just achieve that.

    In truth, the dismantling of the class system (which any and every leftist should support) would need this kind of legislation – but only if aggressively pursued with a Maoist drive to really dismantle the system, rather than engage in some project the purpose of which is merely to save the already-existing system.

    Incidentally, on this point, the social democratic notion of “social mobility” is really truly disgusting. Assuming that a meritocratic system of genuine social mobility was even possible, then such a system would involve as much downward mobility as upward mobility. There are two problems here: first of all, the notion of social mobility only makes sense within an alread-existing class system, which presumably any truly just system of social mobility would end. (I assume here that social classes are reproduced through the family – the passing on of inheritance, cultural capital and so on.) So, in a sense, the moment a truly just system of social mobility is achieved is precisely the same moment when it disappears. But do social democrats really view it this way? I doubt it.

    Secondly, if we were really approaching such a “moment” (i.e. this strange moment when a just system of social mobility both appears and then immediately annuls the grounds of its existence), it really would be all-out class warfare. Again, social democrats (or the Decent Left or whatever they call themselves) are always so keen to dismiss violence – so are they kidding themselves, other people or both?

  4. Sean
    on January 15th, 2009 at 08:54

    You really are an 80′s dinosaur, oh and, of course, a stuck up rich kid leftie ponce.

  5. Letters From A Tory
    on January 15th, 2009 at 09:56

    “That would take genuine socialism, something still a long way off Labour’s radar screen.”

    Oh, I dunno, give it some time – look how far the party have moved to the Left in the past six months with their economic and social policies. Give all that another year and we could be back to the 1980s faster than you can say ‘class warfare’.

  6. Scratch
    on January 16th, 2009 at 01:02

    Coo, check the utter silence from the Tarquinista left in this post.

    They don’t like seeing their nepotic privileges questioned do they?

    After all, when when one puts away wevolutioawy sociawism one hardly wants bally oiks camped out in one’s alloted societal roles does one?

  7. MJW
    on January 22nd, 2009 at 11:07

    Class is a flimsy construct, and giving opportunity for social mobility does bugger all to provide social mobility if the internal cultures of the target groups reject such opportunities. That’s the “elephant in the room” for all the people who bang on about equal opportunities, just because you give people opportunities doesn’t mean they are even remotely interested in them.