Am I a real working person?

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Now, that is the real question for all of us. Keir Starmer’s Labour party has come up with this new form of chosen people. These are the elect, the good guys, the ones to whom no harm must be seen to be done (though it is obviously OK if no one notices). They are the working people of Britain and the good news is that the Labour government is here for them.

But come off it. Are you really one of the chosen? Sitting there with your croissant and Nespresso, maybe eating an avo on toast while you listen to The Rest Is Politics. So what if you work and you’re a person? In what way is that a qualification? You’re not a real working person like a public-sector trade union official. I bet you can even afford to buy your own suits. So jog on, pal.

Still, this is a worry, and not just because of this week’s Budget. Labour has kept the definition rather vague. But if the service of working people is this government’s lodestar, then not being one of them means it is coming for the cash you obviously don’t deserve to have.

I know investment bankers and corporate lawyers who work far more hours and under much greater pressure than me. They have no inherited income, come from ordinary backgrounds and their wealth is entirely down to their salary. But that salary is simply too large for them to count as working people. In any case, I’ve watched several episodes of Industry, and they are patently the wrong type of working people. And what’s more, they are having way too much sex, although Starmer has not quantified how much coupling working people are allowed.

You see, doing some kinds of work means you just aren’t one of the good working people. If you own a small business, have a couple of employees, make a small profit, well, sorry. And god forbid you have some income from shares or a property you rent out. You might as well live in Downton Abbey. Frankly, you should count yourself lucky. If Stalin were here, he’d have had you shot.

This is going to be a hard pill for some of you to swallow. The heart bleeds for all those Instagram influencers, stranded in Dubai, cut adrift by Keir without so much as a Like for their latest scented-candle recommendation.

Starmer’s two primary definitions for what constitutes a working person are that your income comes entirely from your earnings (hooray, that’s one tick for me) and that you do not have enough in savings to be able to “write a cheque” when some unexpected bill comes in (damn, for a minute I thought I was in there). The point is clear. No significant savings, no “unearned income”. Working people need to be clinging on by their fingernails.

In other words, if your washing machine breaks, it must be a problem for you to replace it. In fact, it would be better if you couldn’t afford a washing machine at all. What’s wrong with a basin and a mangle, you overprivileged bastard?

Joining the chosen will involve some sacrifices. For one thing, ditch the electric vehicle. It may be government policy to expand their use, but can working people really afford them? Heat pump? Real working people make do with a two-bar fire with no element, just an empty tube of Smarties they’ve coloured orange.

Previous leaders have called this cohort the “just about managings” or Jams, an idea most understand. But there is, in Starmer’s faltering efforts to describe this cohort, some form of pre-Thatcher nostalgia for a working class that had little agency of its own and who always hear the strains of Dvořák’s New World as they walk home up cobbled streets clutching a loaf of Hovis.

Anyway, all this presents certain problems for those of us who have always considered ourselves working people but who prefer a nice sourdough. The taxonomy is confusing. Nurse and teachers: good working people. Headmasters or surgeons: bad working people.

But worry not, the FT is here with a little test to help. Own more than a handful of shares? You’re out. I’m sorry. I don’t care that they came from a sharesave at the place you worked. Kids at private school? No way, José. And no, a scholarship doesn’t get you off the hook. Trying to leave some money to your kids? You capitalist running dog. Tickets to all the best concerts? You’re not already in the cabinet are you?

Email Robert at [email protected]

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