What About The Workers?

Britain is experiencing a crisis of working-class political and cultural representation.

In eight years on the Governing Body of a primary school serving the highly mixed country town where I live, and in eight on that of a comprehensive school which happens to be here but which serves a much larger and overwhelmingly working-class catchment area, I was privileged to serve with very many first-rate people.

But, with a handful of exceptions, the composition was of the unassailable middle-classness that can only be pulled off with a straight face by the Labour Party and by the churches.

I should take a very great deal of persuading that things were any different in relation to the ostensibly public accountability of health, social services, housing, policing (in which I have recently become involved), or anything else.

The powers of local government demand to be restored as far as possible to the form that they took in 1978. Each local authority should comprise an equal number of Councillors and Aldermen. Councillors would continue to be elected on a Ward basis, with each Ward electing two Councillors, each voter voting for one candidate, and the top two getting in.

Two Aldermen would be elected by and from among each designated Area’s voters with incomes below one third of the national median, two by those with incomes at or above one third of the national median but below two thirds of it, and two by and from among those with incomes at or above two thirds of the national median. Again, each voter would vote for one candidate by means of an X, with the two highest scorers declared elected at the end. Each Area would cover three Wards.

The proper committee system needs to be restored, as Eric Pickles has permitted but which Labour ought to require, with each committee containing an equal number of Councillors and Aldermen, and an equal number of Aldermen from each of the two categories. Committee Chairmanships and Vice-Chairmanships ought to be allocated by similar means.

The number of a local authority’s nominees to any body dealing with education (including any school’s governing body), health, transport, housing, policing or any other matter should be three or a multiple of three, with mandatory equal representation for the three income groups.

We need to guarantee equal numbers of people from the three income groups on each jury and on each bench of magistrates, unless the defendant exercised a statutory right to insist on a jury or bench drown from one income group only.

Trade union money ought to be used, at least in part, to develop and deliver a recognised qualification for “non-graduates” with life and work experience who aspire to become MPs.

If that could be done in partnership with local government, then so much the better. Certainly, central government’s withdrawal of funding from many institutions and courses provides a perfect opportunity for local government to step into the breach and reassert its historic role in tertiary education.

The whole idea of the EU is founded on that of an elite culture, in the worst sense of that term. The EU’s institutions range from the sham-democratic to those overtly expressive of contempt for the popular will.

Anything tending to downplay Britishness in favour of any of its constituent parts always increases yet further the wealth and power of those best able to present themselves as embodying the soul of one part or another: the public schools, Oxbridge, the English Bar, and the upper echelons of the Church of England; the Scottish Bar and academocracy, which latter includes the upper echelons of the Church of Scotland; the Welsh-speaking oligarchy; the DUP or Sinn Féin.

Any erosion of the position of the monarchy would be greatly to the detriment of the working class. The office of an elected British Head of State would invariably be occupied by a member of the metropolitan upper middle class. Its creation would constitute that class’s supreme triumph over all others.

Furthermore, black and white working-class people are more likely to have family connections to those Commonwealth countries retaining the monarchy.

Whereas the partial or, potentially, total subversion of the Crown would and does express the Chiantishire and Cape Cod crowd’s closer affinity with rich and ruling-class Continental Europe, and with the rich and ruling-class United States.

The new character of Mick Carter in EastEnders is played by Danny Dyer, who was born, as I was, in 1977. But Carter is essentially and effectively Alf Garnett, except written and played entirely straight. This is supposed to be working-class life in 2014.

In this twentieth anniversary year of The Vicar of Dibley, the depiction of rural life is if anything even worse. Huge areas of the country seldom or never appear on national television; broadly, that means everywhere outside London and a generic “North” defined as Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire.

How about an annual competition to find the best idea for a one-off drama, and the best idea for a one-off documentary, from within the working class in the area covered by each of the 12 ITV regions? It is just a pity that there is only one ITV region in Wales.

The winners would be broadcast in two regular primetime spots, one for drama and one for documentaries, over 12 weeks.

Not necessarily on ITV. But that network does happen to have the regional boundaries in place, and, apart from the Welsh thing, those do happen to be singularly suitable to this task. It would certainly put the BBC to shame.

Together with an annual competition to find the best idea for a one-off drama, and the best idea for a one-off documentary, from within the rural communities in the area covered by each of the 12 ITV regions. The ITV London region extends well into the Home Counties, so this would be perfectly feasible.

Again, the winners would be broadcast in two regular primetime spots, one for drama and one for documentaries, over 12 weeks.