There are a few things I hate being called. Names, I know, should never hurt me, unlike sticks and stones, but they annoy me. My least favourites are Richard, being described as a Tory, Tory-lite or a red Tory and being patronised by the prime minister. Today I received multiple doses of the latter.
I heard most of Theresa May’s speech at the Conservative Party conference and what struck me was what a terrible public speaker she was. Not as bad as Jeremy Corbyn, I grant you, but all the coaching and all the cleverly prepared claptrap could not cover just how poor a performer she was. But it doesn’t matter because hardly anyone will have watched or listened live and most of the ones who listened won’t be influenced one way or another by the speech as a whole. But they could be by the content.
By describing the Labour Party as the new “nasty party” was an astute move by May, not least because it’s true, she then trampled across Labour territory, proclaiming the Tories as the party of “ordinary working class people.” It was all going so well, until then.
Actually it wasn’t going all that well at all, certainly not after May announced, “It was not the wealthy who made the biggest sacrifices after the financial crisis, it was ordinary working class families.” I was seething after this bit because who was it who decided “ordinary working class families” had to make the “biggest sacrifices after the financial crisis”? Why, it was Theresa May, who voted in parliament for every single measure that attacked the working poor as well as the sick and disabled. The Bedroom Tax, benefit sanctions, the proposed cuts to tax credits, the freezing of public sector wages and thousands of front-line jobs cuts were all measures she enthusiastically supported. And, of course, she supported cuts to Corporation Tax and cuts to the top rate of tax for the very wealthiest people in society.
As ever, the English language can be interpreted in a variety of different ways, but describing “working class people” as “ordinary” made me livid. Ordinary means “of no special quality or interest; commonplace; unexceptional.” And “plain or undistinguished.” Plus “somewhat inferior or below average; mediocre.” My immediate thought was this: how dare you? May might have meant “average” or “normal” whatever that mean, but I saw it exactly in the adjectives from the dictionary. She did not mean those wonderful middle and upper class people, applauding her every xenophobic, anti-immigrant rhetorical word. No. She demeaned the working class – that is to say a large swathe of society that has been left behind, particularly by the government she has been a member of for six years.
I do not regard people who work hard in their small businesses, or in vital frontline public services, often earning a pittance, as ordinary. Much of what they do is extraordinary, certainly when compared to the worthless lives of many politicians. This was the leader of the Conservative Party doing what the Conservative Party does best: looking down on and patronising the rest of us.
I happen to think that the terms working class, middle class and upper class have become blurred in recent times. For example, people brought up in lowly areas who escaped from their arranged lives on low pay and low expectations who went on to succeed in business, especially as a self-employed person, do not necessarily become middle class because they are deservedly better off. Some of them are my best friends. Rather, I saw May’s references to “ordinary working class people” as a definite reference to the working poor. She could not have meant anything else.
Everything about May’s speech was couched in politics with no hostages to fortune. The poor had paid the price of the financial crash, but there was no indication as to how they would now be treated, other than by platitudes. The lowly paid across society will not suddenly be reimbursed for a financial crash that had nothing to do with them. May is the continuity candidate, putting forward the same policies but with different words. She has not had a road to Damascus experience.
If Labour is now the nasty party, with its misogyny, antisemitism, bullying, abuse and threats being ignored by its woeful leader who, we hear, is currently on a walking holiday in the north of England (well, there’s nothing else going on, is there?), presumably preparing another UK tour next year to address his adoring cult following, then the Tory Party is the even nastier party, dumping on “ordinary working people” for six years and then cynically trying to grab their votes back with nothing more than empty words and vague promises.
May didn’t define what she regarded as an “ordinary working class person” because she probably wouldn’t know one if she met one. But she didn’t mean it in a nice way, of that you can be certain.
