The truth about Labour’s ‘class war’

Keir Starmer’s critics might have you believe that the Labour government is fighting a class war. They point to Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson’s crackdown on private schools and Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s attack on farmers. These initiatives certainly don’t appear to be just about money: whacking VAT on school fees and hitting dead farmers with inheritance tax won’t raise much cash in the scheme of things. But they will inflict totally unnecessary amounts of pain. Their targets are, supposedly, people with cash to splash, on behalf of the needy. 

But hang on: look at this government closely and it’s obvious that ministers aren’t horny-handed sons of toil. Well, Angela Rayner, the deputy PM, perhaps, but that’s about it. Despite Starmer’s attempts to portray himself as the salt of the earth – I’m not sure, but I think his father may have been involved in some role on the supply side of manual labour – and Labour’s nebulously defined mantra of ‘working people’, the party have the look of the extras hired to portray Injury Lawyers 4U in their advertisements.