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Should more working class people be in government? | LBC debate
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Jul 20, 2025
Actor Danny Dyer has dismissed Sir Keir Starmer as a "non-entity" and called for working-class people to be running the country. The former EastEnders star previously labelled former Conservative prime minister David Cameron a "t***" for leaving other people to sort out Brexit and is similarly forthright about the incumbent of Number 10 Downing Street. He told The Daily Telegraph: "We need a leader. He's not a leader. I don't know what the f*** he is. He's a f****** non-entity. "I feel sorry for the people when he goes to a factory and they put these poor people behind him and you can tell they all hate his guts." Dyer, 47, added that "nobody in politics is likeable" and questioned the lack of working-class people in positions of power. Iain Dale is joined by former Labour adviser Matthew Torbitt to discuss what it means to be working class in Britain in 2025. LBC callers also weigh in on the debate, having their say on whether more working class people should be in politics. Listen to the full show on the all-new LBC App: https://app.af.lbc.co.uk/btnc/thenewlbcapp #iaindale #dannydyer #labour #class #workingclass #keirstarmer #ukpolitics #news #LBC LBC is the home of live debate around news and current affairs in the UK.
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We are going to talk about whether we need more working class people in politics
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That is what the actor Danny Dyer says. And of course what Danny Dyer says has to be true because he's a fellow West Ham supporter
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He's given an interview to the Daily Telegraph today on all sorts of things, mainly him and his career
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But he starts talking about politics. He says nobody in politics is likeable
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Where's the working class people? So you have to be working class to be likeable
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Really, Danny? He then continues. they should be running our country, not people pretending they're working class
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because they've had a pint in a pub. I'm a bit sick, I have to say
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of this obsession we have in our country with class. I thought it was going away
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When I was in my 20s and 30s, I genuinely thought that we were becoming
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what John Major used to call a classless society. But in the last 20 years
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I think we've experienced a reverse where class seems to be almost as important
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it was in the 1920s and 1930s. I don't know whether working class as a phrase means the
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same as it did in the 1920s or 1930s. Can you be working class and work in a white collar job
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for example? People say, well, I work, therefore I'm working class. But you wouldn't call bankers
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working class, would you, even though many of them come from a working class background
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background um i i think i come from a working class background um but then again can you own a
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small farm and be working class well my father grew up working on a farm he didn't own it um he
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worked on a farm all his life did did his class change because he married my mother who had some
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money so they could buy their own farm um i mean again what does working class mean in today's
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society. Now, we've had working class prime ministers. We've had quite a few of them
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actually. If you think back, John Major was definitely working class, although he ended
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up working in a bank. So, does that mean that he then automatically became middle class
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Harold Wilson came from a working class background. James Callaghan did. Ted Heath
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up to a point. Margaret Thatcher, well, middle class, I would say, rather than working class
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David Cameron, clearly not Tony Blair, clearly not Gordon Brown, don't think so either
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and of the recent ones again, you wouldn't say Boris Johnson certainly wouldn't say Boris Johnson was
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or Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss Keir Starmer sort of claims to be working class
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because I know you'll be surprised to hear this ladies and gentlemen
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but his father was a toolmaker and he did grow up in a council house
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So he came from a working class background. But you can't say Keir Starmer is working class, can you
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There are lots of working class politicians in Parliament. I think Danny Dyer needs to look a little bit more
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But would it actually make our politics better if more people came from working class backgrounds
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You might think it's elitist to say this, but I actually want the brightest and the cleverest people in Parliament
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informing our government. I don't care what class they're from. They can be working class, middle class or upper class
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If they're good at the job, I don't care what their background is. And isn't that how it should be
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Well, Matthew Torbett joins me. He is political commentator, former Labour advisor who came from a working class family
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which lived on a council estate in Stockport in Greater Manchester. Matthew, do you still consider yourself working class
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Oh, I've thought about this one the last few years, particularly when I was living in London
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I had a real sort of crisis talking to a friend about it
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And I thought, well, I might live in a shared house, but I live in, you know, one of the richest cities in the world
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At the time I was working in Parliament, so you're working in somewhere where, you know
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it's a sort of 1% type of job in many ways for lots of people
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I was earning above the average salary, and I thought, well, am I working class anymore
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I don't know. And I think working class, I suppose, is something quite subjective
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I think, is it more people that feel left behind? And we hear a lot of that sort of talk post-Brexit and even pre-Brexit
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and whether it's the elites and those that are left behind in communities
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I think Danny Dyer is touching on something, because I think for working class people or those potential listeners today
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may feel that politics is something that is sort of done to them rather than something that they partake in necessarily rather than a vote at the ballot box There are working class people in politics I think he getting to the point where the idea that you got to
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It's a character test, I think, at times. I think you look at Nigel Farage, for instance
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I think he'd be welcomed by lots of working class boozers and working men's clubs
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He's not working class, but he's a good actor. He masquerades. Keir Starmer, on the other hand, would argue he is working class
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but for whatever reason isn't the best actor or best person to put himself forward
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so therefore would fail that, that sort of boozer test, if you will. So it's a tricky one, it's very subjective
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It's Danny Dyer himself. I mean, I'm sure if he were in the studio now
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he would say he was working class, but he's a multimillionaire. And therefore, these definitions of working class
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have to have changed over the years because in the 1920s, 1930s
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we're probably all the way up to the end of the 60s, maybe even into the 70s
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If you worked in the docks, if you worked down the mines, you were clearly working class
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I mean, there was no question about that. But with the manufacturing industry declining in this country
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the middle class has got a lot bigger. In a sense, we're becoming a little bit more like Germany
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which has one massive middle class. And even a lot of people that we would define as working class in Germany, they would be classed as the Mittelstand, the middle classes
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Is that a good thing? You'd hope so, because you would hope that that means inequality would be shrinking
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I'm not sure it definitely is. And I suppose with the de-industrialisation of the UK since probably around the 1980s, 1970s, it's more the gig economy sort of jobs
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And I think wages play a part. If you're on minimum wage, you probably are sort of working class, whether that be in a hospital or even an Amazon gig time worker or whatever
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But I think at the same time, I don't think as well people quite realise how poor they are sometimes
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I think when Margaret Thatcher deregulated the financial sector, credit was more easily accessible
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Because it is easily accessible, you can get that, you know, DFS furniture on credit for a year
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you can go on holiday with a credit card, get your car on finance. And I think that tends to sort of mask the potential poverty or working class or underclass that people may be in
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but not even quite realise, if that makes sense. It's a good text here from Josh
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He says, why was John Prescott more working class than Keir Starmer, worse streeting, and Angela Rayner
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The latter three grew up in council houses. So if they're not, presumably that's because of their careers
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Ergo, no sitting MP is working class. I guess that's representative democracy for you
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Well, if you think about it, MPs are on £92,000 a year now
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which some people would say, well, it doesn't matter what their background is. That excludes them
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But if you read West Streeting's autobiography about his childhood, there's absolutely no question what class he comes from
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similarly with Angela Rayner. Which then, we've got to be careful about diluting this into stereotypes
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essentially that, you know, somebody could be working class purely because of an accent or where they grew up
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And, you know, John Prescott, Angela Rayner and these sorts of characters, you know, they can almost be moulded into caricatures
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in a quite classist way, actually, that that's all they are. So I do think accent has something to do with it
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I think, well, listen, I've been told to tone it down before now, whether it be on media or in Parliament
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I think the past few years you've got posh. Do you know my friends up north say the same
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They say, why do you keep sounding posh on the radio? I'm not, am I
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But then do you do the same thing? If you go back home, you go more towards that accent
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If I go back to Norfolk, my sentences rise at the end. Yeah, yeah, that's it
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And I don't know that I'm doing it. I go totally mank. I've never really sounded like what my mates sound like
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and I end up going to the pub and sounding exactly the same. But the thing that I think Danny Dyer and maybe politicians maybe miss
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is I think the class element is whether you're potentially rooted in your community
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that's what makes you likable and probably relatable and i think that's where i don't
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necessarily need to be working class but you need to be engaged totally in a community or your
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community and i've always been big on community to understand the decisions many of which will
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be tough ones that you are going to take in government and how that will impact people
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within such a community i wonder how much it has to do with aspiration as well because if you look at I mean John Prescott I think is a really interesting example here where he was a shop steward trade union representative then obviously got into the House of Commons
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And I don't think he ever lost his background, but he kind of was very aspirational
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I mean, he had one of these sort of mock Tudor houses. He famously drove a Jaguar and he liked that sort of status
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But if he was here now, and I loved interviewing John Prescott, I wish he was, if he was here now, he'd be saying, yeah, but everybody wants that. Everybody wants to sort of, in inverted commas, better themselves. And that's not all about material things, but it is in part
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and that doesn't mean, and working class people should never be made to feel that they can't get to
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whether it's an income level, whether it's a status level or whatever
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people should always feel that they can reach for the stars. And they should and I think that's part of the problem
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You don't always, you know, just in mind. My mum and dad were never quite happy unless I had a job behind a desk selling things
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because that's what they'd grown up as an aspiration. That was the best you could get, essentially
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The day I did that, you know, I played football at a half-decent level. My mum hated sports, that didn't matter
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I'd gone and done all sorts of things. And until I got a job selling debt recovery plans
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that I hated in telesales, mum was like, well, he's doing all right now, though, isn't he? Because he's got a desk, he's got a phone
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And you see, that, I think, is replicated in many different communities. My friend Ayesha Hazarika, she always says about her parents
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I mean, she's now in the House of Lords, and they would still be far happier if she was a doctor or an accountant
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I'm sure, I'm sure. To be honest, it took me to bring in my dad down to Parliament to go look
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and I think it blew his mind, you know, someone like Andrew Marr, that he'd grown up watching on the TV, coming to say hello
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and I think it was, oh, he's doing all right, he's doing all right. And to be fair, my dad is now my biggest fan, he watches everything he do
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he tells me he's proud of me and he loves me and whatever else. but I think because it's so far removed
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from what you could ever imagine doing yourself let alone your kids
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it's hard to understand how maybe good dad is That's actually quite a moving part of Danny Dyer's interview
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where he talks about his relationship with his dad and he said he was a terrible dad
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because he was a sort of man of his age he felt he had to be a sort of tough masculine butch man
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and he says it's only now when he's older, I'm older, that we can tell each other that we love each other
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which is really sweet. No, listen. I had that with my dad actually a bit as well
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I took a lot from Danny Dyer's piece and, you know, I've been very open about my sort of upbringing
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and my background and being homeless and I don't think I spoke to my parents for the best part of a decade
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and in fact the relationship is the best it's ever been and I think, you know, listen, we can all argue and whatever else
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Parenting is hard and there's no manual. and you're a product of your environment and your time
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I was over the moon to hear that he had got to that point and actually me and my dad in particular, my mum as well
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are more open than we ever have been and do say things like love you and that we are proud of one another
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and it's something I'll always be grateful for because if I hadn't taken them steps probably the same way Danny and his dad did
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you know, you live with a lot of regrets. Well, going back to the subject, Tony Benn, who I always got on with really well
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He used to come into my bookshop all the time and he'd call me his favourite Thatcherite entrepreneur
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And I'd say, Tony, how many Thatcherite entrepreneurs do you actually know? And he said, well, fair point
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But he was very vocal in his support for trade unions and for workers
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But his background, I mean, he was an aristocrat. But he clearly didn't need to be working class to support working class issues
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And that's where I think this argument falls. in that, I mean, you don't need to have committed a murder
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to write a novel about murder or a drama about murder. And I think this is where I think people fall down
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because I don't know what percentage of the population you would describe as working class, but let's say it's 50%
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Does that mean to say that we should have 50% working class MPs
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I would argue absolutely not. I want people in Parliament who are going to govern the country
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in the best way possible, whether they're working class or upper class, I don't really care
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Yeah, no, the argument is you want the best working class people if you going to take a group of working class people I think Tony Benn an interesting one I mean he certainly my political idol and I think he greatly missed by lots of people It plays into what Danny Dyer said It not photo ops
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It wasn't for him. He would go to see the miners on strike. He would spend weekends down there
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and he would get to know these people. I don't think you can learn lots. You can learn lots from a book
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but unless you feel what people are feeling, you go and see that with people
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and you see with your own eyes what people are going through, I think therefore you can be
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a very good representative of people that maybe aren't of your class, yeah
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Michael's in Chelmsford. Hello, Michael. Hello, Ian. So I just want to add to your conversation
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I want to say that I think the key thing is that we're missing is that being working class
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or being any class at all is not constant. It's not fixed
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You know, it's fluid. So you can come from a working class background
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but, excuse me, you can come from a working class background, but not be working class in your life right now
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And that's increasingly true nowadays, isn't it? Whereas 50, 60 years ago, if you were born into a working class background
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you probably stayed in that background. Absolutely, absolutely. So there is a lot of mobility these days
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But the reality also, Ian, is that if you are of a working class background
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you will be able to empathize better with people who are currently in that background, in that class
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So it is a good thing if we can get more representation. And it is representation
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It's not about forcing anything through. It's about removing barriers, basically. So you mentioned earlier on about if we have a population 10% gay
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do we then make sure that parliament is 10% gay? No, we don't. But we look at whether there are barriers to gay people coming into Parliament and we remove it
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Which there clearly are not, because if I'm going to be controversial now, I could say that there are too many gay people in Parliament because they far outweigh the percentage in the population
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And that's why we're not having a debate about gay people. We're having it about working class
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And there are definitely not enough working class people in parliament and barriers like the one the gentleman that was on the phone with you just now just said about education is a key one
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You know, we have a system of education that excludes a lot of young people, a lot of children, and automatically excludes a lot of future workforce from certain pathways to working class, middle class or upper class settings in future
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So we need to do something about that. We need to make sure that a young person that is brilliant can get the kind of education they need
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whether or not they go to a grammar school or to a private school. We need to do things like that
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So for me, it's about what we do to remove barriers, not about what we do to intentionally start putting quarters in or anything like that
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I just think that the word working class is kind of very much from the sort of 60s and 70s
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And I don't know if that actual word has any meaning anymore
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Or people can relate to the word. And for example, if you look at somebody like Lord Sugar
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he is about as working class as you can get. He comes from a complete and utter working class background
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And he's worked incredibly hard his whole life to succeed in where he is today
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But if he was coming onto your show today, he's going to turn up in a show for Driven Rolls Royce
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And people are going to go, well, that's not working class. because people relate to the word working class
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as if it's to do with just money, but it isn't. It's to do with where you've come from and your background
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and how hard you've worked to achieve to what you've achieved. Or you may not have achieved what you want to achieve
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but you're still working very hard. Do you think there should be more working class MPs
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I think there should be more life experience MPs. MPs that have experienced different types of life
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And I do think there's something in the fact that if you've got big problems in hospitals, I think the best people to speak to are people that have run hospitals
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I think if you've got problems in retail, speak to people that have run massive retail businesses
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And I don't think, and again, when I listen to prisons, how many people that run the prisons in this country have actually been prisoners
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So there's all these different types of people out there that could bring so much to politics that the politicians don't want to use for some reason
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And I'm not sure why that is. Jason, thank you very much indeed
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