What happened to MPs with real jobs?

21 November 2024, 13:31 | Updated: 21 November 2024, 13:35

John Prescott’s journey from waiter to minister highlights the decline of MPs with real-world experience—and what it means for our politics.

John Prescott considered himself middle class. In saying this he was more honest than many of us. When invited in the British Social Attitudes Survey to say whether they were middle or working class, 52% of Brits now say they are working class.

This is down only a little from 58% who identified this way in 1983. Yet today half (46%) of those who identify as working class in fact work in middle-class jobs.

However Prescott was also unusual in another respect. He was part of a shrinking group of politicians in the UK and around the world whose first experience of work was in the manual sector (in his case, as a waiter on the Cunard line).

He entered politics through his workplace as a member of a trade union, part of a broader labour movement which fed into the Labour Party and ultimately propelled him to high office.

In 1979, nine years after Prescott first became an MP, he was not unusual in being able to tell this story. At the time around 15% of his colleagues had a similar background. A minority, to be sure, but equal to the number of barristers and solicitors combined.

Yet by the time he retired from Parliament in 2010 that figure had dropped to 4%.

Who replaced those working class MPs? In part the ‘political class’, or those with previous work primarily in politics, whose share went from 3% to nearly 15%.

This matters not just for how politics looks and sounds but also the outcomes we get. The political scientist Tom O’Grady has shown that Labour MPs shifting positions on welfare spending since the 1980s were significantly related to changing occupational backgrounds. And in my own work I show MPs demanded higher pay as they increasingly saw themselves as a meritocratic professional group.

These aren’t just trends in the UK but internationally. The decline of working class legislators is a trend across the developed world as centre-left parties links to trade unions declined.

This is also reflected in their voting bases, who have increasingly become composed of younger socially liberal graduates whose investment in the party is based on values more than economic class.

John Prescott’s passing is thus a good moment to reflect on how these changes have affected our democracies, and what to do about it if we want a Parliament and politicians who have experienced life as many in the country still live it.

________________

Dr Nick Dickinson is a Lecturer in Politics at the University of Exeter.

LBC Views provides a platform for diverse opinions on current affairs and matters of public interest.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official LBC position.

To contact us email views@lbc.co.uk