Who will speak for the working class? Everyone, apart from the working class | 28 August 2018

It’s funny how the new left’s rule against speaking on behalf of groups to which you do not belong never applies to class. If a white man ventures his thoughts on the best way forward for Britain’s black community, he’ll suffer social death by a thousand tweets. Woe betide any bloke who holds forth on women’s issues. ‘Dude, let women speak for themselves,’ people will chide. Yet when it comes to the needs of working-class communities, everyone gets to have a say.

So last week, Newsnight featured a discussion about the crisis of working-class representation in the media between Owen Jones of the Guardian and Sarah Baxter of the Sunday Times. Newsnight, come on: you couldn’t find a single journalist from a working-class background? Or maybe you were worried they would spill their flasks of PG Tips on the Beeb’s settees. To have Jones explain — class-splain? — what must be done to help working-class writers is like inviting David Starkey to talk about how hard it is to be a Muslim in 21st-century Britain.