The world has very recently become obsessed with elites in society. But who are they? This used to be the central question in politics. As the franchise was expanded over nearly two centuries, the expectation was that those in power would be drawn from an ever-widening pool. This belief was reinforced as political elites resembled the country they ruled. Between 1906 and 1916 the number of commoners in cabinet finally overtook the number of aristocrats. In 1924 a Labour government saw the first working-class cabinet ministers.
However, the latest research by academics at Oxford University into the social composition of cabinets and shadow cabinets suggests progress has halted and even gone into reverse. A paper by the sociologists Erzsébet Bukodi, Geoffrey Evans, John Goldthorpe and Matthew Hepplewhite examines in detail Britain’s political leadership from 1945 to 2021. Politics now looks like the 19th century, where two major parties, led by the higher castes, vie for the votes of a marginalised working class.
Their work attempts to highlight the differences, and convergences, between the two parties. While the Conservative leadership often hails from families who own businesses or manage them, Labour politicians are more likely to grow up in professional households. The Tories frequently have previously worked in the private sector, in technical industries, whereas Labour politicians were employed in “sociocultural professions” in the public or charitable sector. The political elite has become predominantly a graduate elite, with Tories far more likely to attend Russell Group universities. So far, so familiar.
But what the study brings out is that the Tories have a class base for their politics, but Labour does not. The Oxford researchers argue that the “increasing proportion of [Conservative] cabinet members from a small business-owning background suggests that there is a social basis for a more rightwing position on both economic and social issues”, while in the Labour leadership there has been an almost “complete disappearance of those with their own adult experience of working-class life, and who could thus be regarded as more committed to serving working-class interests”. There are some glaring exceptions: Angela Rayner grew up on a council estate and was a care worker before becoming a Labour MP. But the trend, obvious since 1997, has almost certainly driven working-class voting abstention at general elections.
Labour’s quandary is that the traditional industrial working class has almost disappeared from Britain, either because of low-cost competition or by being displaced through automation. Instead, it is in the service sector where today working-class people can be found. They have been mobilising, and organising, but not to the extent that they can exert sufficient political pressure. Labour has turned towards the “progressive” professional for its survival. Under Sir Keir Starmer, the Oxford study suggests, there also has been a reversion to the “Blairite view” that Labour’s image as a working-class party costs votes. This seems a mistake in an age of economic insecurity.
Flattening socioeconomic hierarchies is part of Labour’s historic responsibility. The party will have to make the case that its economic policies can mitigate the worst excesses of globalisation that affect both workers and professionals, as well as seeing off the snake-oil sales pitch of the populist radical right. Whether Labour will succeed, time alone will show.
