Call to shift power back to hard-working people
...on columnist’s bid to dismiss MP in five little words
THE real divide in UK politics is not between Scotland and England but between “working people and the money men”, Labour’s shadow chancellor will claim.
John McDonnell will speak out about the “real division in our society” as he closes Labour’s Scottish conference in Dundee.
He will use his speech to insist that Scotland can be a Labour heartland once again with leftwing MSP Richard Leonard now leading the party north of the border.
The former union official took over the post in November last year, with Mr McDonnell to hail him as someone “who I know will return Scotland to being the Labour heartland which it was and can be again”.
Labour in Scotland is committed to an industrial strategy that boosts and stimulates the economy “in such a way that benefits the many not the few”.
Mr McDonnell will say: “The dividing lines today are the dividing lines every day ... everywhere ... as our movement has always known.
“Not between brothers and sisters either side of a border, or across the Channel, but between the haves and have nots ... the 95% and the 5% ... the many and the few.”
Scottish politics has been dominated by the constitution in recent years, with the independence referendum in 2014 a divisive experience for many.
But Mr McDonnell will say: “Our goal in this movement is not and has never been about shifting power from one parliament and one set of politicians to another.
“Our goal is about shifting power from those who own the wealth in this country back to those who, through their hard work and endeavour, create the wealth in this country.
“That’s the real division in our society. Not between Scotland and England, but between working people and the money men.”
The shadow chancellor will tell the conference that when Labour returns to power the party will “fundamentally change the whole economic basis of our society”. He will state: “We know that the free market fundamentalism of recent years cannot deliver the change we need. It’s not just that privatised public services are more expensive and of lower quality.
“We simply will not be able to face the challenges of climate change and automation without collective action.”
WHAT does your accent say about you? And when people make a judgement on you based on how you speak, are their assumptions correct?
Accents can hint at where someone is from and also what their class is. They might also tell you nothing.
Take my accent, for example. I sound Scottish and what you might describe as well-spoken. Listening to me speak you might think I was from a nice suburb of Glasgow.
Actually, I was born in Sydney, Australia, and my family emigrated to Coatbridge when I was at primary school.
Teachers used to come in from other classrooms and ask me questions so they could hear my funny accent, like I was a performing pet.
When you’re that age there’s nothing worse than standing out from the crowd so my Aussie accent vanished pretty quickly.
Unfortunately, it was replaced with something far worse – a “posh” accent. My mum is deaf and lip reads so I think it’s partly that I was used to enunciating my words so she would understand me.
It made life awkward. Other kids used to shout “posh Catriona” at me in the street – and worse. It was not uncommon to be spat at or, on the bus in the morning, for balled up bus tickets to be thrown at me.
My mum sent me on a placing request to a school outside Coatbridge and that made things worse, especially as she forced me to wear a blazer when absolutely no-one else wore a blazer.
I remember being on Coatbridge Main Street one Saturday when two boys went past.
“She goes to an Academy school,” one said. “Aye, she’s that posh lassie,” the other replied.
So I empathised with Mhairi Black this week when her accent was called into question by the Daily Mail’s Quentin Letts.
Mhairi, MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South, was speaking in Westminster about the dog’s abuse she’s suffered online. During her speech she became the first politician to use the C-word in Parliament.
Quentin (names say a lot about a person too, don’t they? I wonder how many Quentins they have cutting about Paisley and Renfrewshire South) was unimpressed.
“Went to the ‘ban wolf-whistling’ debate just now. Few there,” he Tweeted. “Mhairi Black (SNP) gave a speech full of rude words but I’m not sure anyone fully understood them. “It’s not an easy accent.” Our pal Quentin read Medieval English and Classical Civilisation at Trinity College, Dublin. I wonder how he coped with the Irish brogue or did he spend much of his undergraduate degree squinting in bafflement at the locals?
It’s not an easy accent. Those are five quite brutal little words, aren’t they, when you mull them over?
There’s Mhairi, young and bold, bright and female and standing up in an arena that has traditionally been the preserve of the older, wealthy and male, calling out the behaviour of men who would like to silence her. And there’s Quentin, attempting to snuff her out with five little words packed full of snobbery and privilege.
Mhairi has previously said: “Misogyny is everywhere in our society”, and I think we can safely argue there’s a wee bit of misogyny involved in Mr Letts’s Tweet too.
It does not matter, Mr Letts appears to be saying, how well educated Mhairi Black is, how hard she has worked, what evidence she has for her assertions – she speaks common and so she can be dismissed in five little words.
I feel quite sad for Quentin. What an awful lot he must be missing out on in life, if he’s only willing to give credence to those who sound like him.
There’s a vast swathe of literature, theatre, film and television he’s having to skip over, for a start. As a theatre critic that must be a hindrance. Does Quentin need subtitles? Perhaps he is provided with a written translation to skim before the house lights go down.
I do hope he didn’t bother with the recent production of Rita, Sue and Bob Too – bamboozled from first to last, surely.
Someone on Twitter tried to suggest that Mhairi is faking her accent and the evidence for this is that her parents are teachers. I know teachers who speak like Mhairi Black. I know plenty of educated, professional people who speak like Mhairi Black.
What is essential here is to point out that it no longer matters what you sound like. That what you sound like is no indication of your levels of education or your professional success.
I would hope we were over the days of judging people by the way they talk but we aren’t. I’ve heard twice in the past week someone be told to “speak properly” when they already were. I have another memory from primary school. The head teacher giving a lecture at assembly about the important qualities of a person not being visible to the eye. In this case, ear.
It’s an early lesson we all learn, isn’t it? Not to judge a book by its cover. It seems like there are grown ups who need reminded.