Labour leadership: "Mirror mirror on the wall, who's the most bourgeois of us all?"

Long ago, when I had to mark hundreds of first year sociology exam papers, the only way some of us managed to stay awake and focussed was to keep a lookout for 'howlers'. For example, one I still remember went as follows:

'The original proletarian worker wore overalls and a cloth cap.'

These days, the embourgeoisment (to retrieve another memory from my sociological past) of the Labour Party has progressed so far that MPs who've ever worn overalls and a cloth cap are an endangered species.

This is presumably why some of the leadership candidates have been invoking their proletarian background. Andy Burnham has written of his humble origins in Liverpool and Ed Balls has told us that one of his grandfathers was a lorry driver.

Simple measurement indices

All this has taken me back to other experiences from long ago, when I used to invent simple indices to assess things as diverse as the probability of ex-prisoners being reconvicted after release from gaol and the suitability of student applicants for admission to a university department.

By giving prisoners a different score on measures like type of offence and number of previous convictions, we were able to discriminate different groups with a high degree of accuracy, ranging from one with a 7% probability of reconviction within three years of leaving prison to another with a reconviction probability of 75%.

Later on, when in charge of admitting students for a university course, I attracted hostility and admiration in roughly equal amounts by devising a weighting system that included different scores according to the type of school they'd attended - in those days, as follows: secondary modern (5) , comprehensive (4), grammer (3), direct grant (2) and public (i.e. fully fee-paying) school (1) - where the higher the score, the lower the 'A' level grades we demanded from them.

With this in mind, I thought it might be an interesting exercise to devise a similar index to guage which of the Labour leadership candidates (so far declared) stands where on the proletarian-bourgeous scale.

Atkinson's proletarian-bourgeois index

To compare them, the scoring system is based on 4 variables - so that the most bourgeois candidates will have the lowest scores and the most proletarian the highest:

A: Father's job

4 Unskilled

3 Semi-Skilled

2 Skilled

1 Professional/managerial

B: Candidate's first job

4 Unskilled

3 Semi-Skilled

2 Skilled

1 Professional/managerial

C: Type of secondary school attended

2 State school

1 Fee-paying school

D: Higher education

2 Non-Oxbridge

1 Oxbridge

RESULTS

According to this, John McDonnell comes out way ahead in the 'most proletarian' stakes, with Ed Balls pipping the Milibands to the post as 'most bourgeois'.

McDonnell

A Bus driver (3)

B First job (4)

C Secondary school (2)

D Higher education (2)

TOTAL: 11

Burnham

A Telephone engineer (3)

B First job (1)

C Secondary School (2)

D Higher education (1)

TOTAL: 7

Abbott

A Welder (2)

B First job (1)

C Secondary School (2)

D Higher education (1)

TOTAL: 6

Miliband D

A University teacher/professor (1)

B First job (1)

C Secondary School (2)

D Higher education (1)

TOTAL: 5

Miliband E

A University teacher/professor (1)

B First job (1)

C Secondary School (2)

D Higher education (1)

TOTAL: 5

Balls

A University teacher/professor (1)

B First job (1)

C Secondary School (1)

D Higher education (1)

TOTAL: 4

ANALYSIS

Maybe this is why Mr Balls has felt it necessary to go back a generation to tell us about his lorry-driving grandfather. His point, as in Andy Burnham's reminder of his humble past, was that their family's social mobility was made possible by the wonderful innovations of past Labour governments.

In their case, it may be true. But things aren't always as simple as that.

It took my paternal grandfather the best part of 40 years to progress from being a farm labourer to a tenant farmer to an owner occupier farmer. But, as the Labour Party didn't even exist for most of that time, they can hardly claim any credit for that.

And, as far as my own case is concerned, I've never been quite sure whether the journey from farmer's son to university lecturer and, more recently, communications consultant, counts as upwards, downwards or sideways social mobility - which is almost certainly one of the reasons why I was never quite convinced by mainstream sociology, and why my escape into the much more interesting world of conversation analysis came as such a relief.

Labour leadership candidates share the same hymn sheet, the same speechwriter or the same fear?

As you'll see in this clip, David Miliband and Ed Balls used remarkably similar words to announce their bids for the leadership of the Labour Party, both asserting that listening/hearing is more important than speaking/talking.

Do they really think the same, or are they merely using the same speechwriter?

Or could it be that they both share the same fear, namely that neither of them is as effective a platform speaker as a certain other candidate called Miliband?

A solution to the pressing need for a new Tory logo

During the election, I had a few conversations that went along the following lines:

Q: "What's that infantile scribble supposed to be?"

A: "A tree."

Q: "What's a tree got to do with the Tories?"

A: "I think it's supposed to say something about a greener agenda."

Q: "But why a tree? And why isn't the stump a darker blue?"

A: "Er ...."

Although I'm no expert on corporate imagery, I'd have thought that no such conversations would take place if the Tory 'tree' had been doing an effective job .

However, I did learn a bit about the subject at a fascinating meeting near Oxford in 1988, when the idea of the 'bird of liberty' was first mooted as a possible logo for the then recently formed Social and Liberal Democrats.

You may remember that, during the 1987 election, the SDP-Liberal Alliance had fought under a rather ugly diamond shaped logo that looked like one of those irritating 'Baby on Board' posters that some parents insist on sticking to their car windows.

New party: new logo

After the Liberals and SDP merged, Paddy Ashdown, the new leader, thought something more imaginative was needed - something that would be instantly associated with the party, like the Tory's former dark blue torch and Labour's (then) recently adopted red rose.

So he recruited a leading corporate image consultant who, as party member, was willing to provide his services free. A meeting was arranged, where he told us about how they went about doing such things and led a brainstorming session.

I vaguely remember words like 'liberty', 'freedom', 'taking off' and even 'phoenix rising from the ashes of the merger debates' (!) being bandied about.

I remember much more clearly that the idea of a bird came up very quickly, as too did fears that it might attract ridicule based on the Monty Python 'dead parrot' sketch - as indeed it did when Mrs Thatcher recited from it in her party conference speech just after the new logo had been launched (HERE).

But the eventual result was the very neat design of a bird flying upwards (that can be animated if required) that's served as the instantly recognisable symbol of the Liberal Democrats for more than twenty years since that original meeting in Oxford.

Fell the tree and plant a flower

Yesterday, while walking though a spectacular bluebell wood near Cheddar Gorge (and with complaints about the Tory tree lurking somewhere in the back of my mind) I had a 'Eureka moment':

Replace the tree with a bluebell.

Apart from eliminating the ambiguity of the scribbled tree, a bluebell logo would have at least five advantages:

1. It's the right colour for the Conservative Party.
2. Bluebells have a freshness and purity that any party would surely be glad to be associated with.
3. If you want to emphasise your green credentials, what better way to do it than with such an attractive and popular wild flower
4. As there's a well-known Scottish folk song called The Bluebells of Scotland, it might even help to broaden the party's appeal north of the border.
5. Almost any picture of a bluebell is more aesthetically pleasing than the shoddy-looking scribbled tree.

So, for these reasons, and in the true spirit of a 'non-aligned' blog, I offer this free suggestion to the Conservative Party for a logo to replace today's trendy but tacky-looking 'tree' with an image of unequivocal and timeless beauty ....

David Miliband trips up on the teleprompter

A couple of days ago, I posted a clip from a speech by Labour leadership candidate Ed Miliband.

His 'joke' about his father was accompanied by a rather embarrassed looking grin, which can be observed HERE.

The following clip from a speech by his older brother David, also a candidate for the Labour leadership, suggests that it might be something that runs in the family. Scroll in for about 60 seconds and you'll see a similarly embarrassed grin when he apologises for having read too far ahead on the screens in front of him: "I beg your pardon - got ahead of myself."

Apart from the question of whether speakers should ever apologise for something the audience would never have noticed if their attention hadn't been drawn to it by the apology, it's another reminder to politicians that teleprompters are not a sure-fire guarantee of effective delivery (see other posts below).

Initial inspection of speech-making by the Miliband brothers suggest that, if either of them is to take off from where Tony Blair and Gordon Brown left off, there's considerable scope for improvement in the speech-making department.

Related posts:

• Why doesn't anyone warn politicians about becoming Autocue automatons?
• Thatcher had more teleprompter troubles than Obama
• Ronald Reagan's masterclass on how to cope when the teleprompter lets you down

It was Brown's last minute speeches wot might have won it - if only he'd done it sooner

Regular readers will know that one of my complaints before and during the election was the way in which speeches have played an ever smaller part in UK general elections and media coverage of them (see below).

I was therefore fascinated to hear former Labour deputy leader Roy Hattersley on this week's Any Questions (BBC Radio 4) echoing various other commentators by singling out the last three days of the election as the point at which Gordon Brown finally came into his own (to listen, scroll in 33 minutes HERE):

HATTERSLEY: "What I'm utterly certain of is that had Gordon Brown behaved for instance as he behaved during the last three days of the campaign when he was himself had he behaved like that for three weeks let alone three years the election outcome would have been quite different But that was the only occasion I saw the real Gordon Brown I knew and the tragedy is he didn't become that earlier."

And what was so different about those last three days?

Answer: He made two traditional barnstorming speeches at large rallies.

I rest my case - but very much doubt whether any of the Labour leadership candidates declared so far is capable of doing likewise.

Related posts on the election

• Will the 2010 UK general election be the first one to leave us speechless?
• Blair speaks and the BBC tells you what he said
• Before we watch the debates, has anyone seen or heard any proper speeches yet?
• Silent speeches by party leaders: the wallpaper of television news coverage
• Brown speaks and the BBC doesn't tell you what he said
• At last: the first sign of passion and audience excitement in an election speech

Earlier posts on UK media coverage (or lack of it) of speeches

• Mediated speeches: whom do we really want to hear?
• Obama's rhetoric renews UK media interest in the lost art of oratory
• 'The Lost Art of Oratory' by a BBC executive who helped to lose it in the first place
• Is the media no longer interested in what goes on in parliament?
• BBC discovers the 'Lost Art of Oratory' (again)
• Political speeches can still make a big difference - like changing the date of an election

Miliband the Younger speaks of Miliband the Elder

The announcement by Ed Miliband that he'll be competing with brother David for the leadership of the Labour Party reminded me of a tale he told during his first conference speech a few years ago, in which he jokingly referred to the political views of his Marxist father.

Or was it a joke? And did he have any more to say at a fringe meeting when Gordon wasn't around?

More seriously, did the far left views of Ralph Miliband leave no impression whatsoever on his two sons?

As an erstwhile sociologist, it's something I've often wondered about. If you're not aware of their Professor Miliband's contribution to the discipline, the titles of his main publications (below) will give you the general idea, or you can learn more HERE.

Books by the late Ralph Miliband

• Parliamentary Socialism: A Study of the Politics of Labour (1961).
• The State in Capitalist Society (1969).
• Marxism and Politics (1977).
• Capitalist Democracy in Britain (1982).
• Class Power and State Power (1983).
• Divided Societies: Class Struggle in Contemporary Capitalism (1989).
• Socialism for a Sceptical Age (1994).

How UKIP's dodgy dealings helped to defeat horse manure expenses MP

The Wells Journal, like most local newspapers, tends not to get involved in political controversy.

But it published a most extraordinary editorial on Election day, revealing an attempt by UKIP to get their members to vote Conservative in three local constituencies (all of which have now returned Liberal Democrat MPs).

By way of background, you need to know that David Heathcote-Amory, who lost his seat on Thursday after 27 years as Tory MP for Wells, is about as anti-European as it's possible to be. However, the local UKIP candidate had refused to stand down, as he'd been asked to do by the party's leadership.

Mr Heathcote-Amory was defending a majority of 3,000, and faced the additional pressure as a result of having had to pay back £30,000 (including £388.80 for horse manure) following the expenses scandal.

By its normal non-partisan standards, the lead editorial in the Wells Journal on 6th May not only expressed extreme displeasure at the way UKIP had treated the newspaper, but also came very close to recommending its readers not to follow UKIP's advice:

'Embargo respected
Lord Pearson of Rannoch left me in a difficult position last week.

'He phoned me on the Tuesday in his role as leader of the UK Independence Party to offer the Mid Somerset Series an exclusive statement asking the electorate in the Wells, Somerton & Frome and Taunton Deane constituencies to vote Conservative rather than for his own party, on the basis that we would not publish it in the paper or on our websites before the Thursday.

'I agreed and Lord Pearson emailed me the statement in letter form on the Tuesday afternoon.

'So I was surprised the next morning to see a BBC reporter revealing Lord Pearson's extraordinary position in a broadcast from Wells Cathedral Green on their nationwide BBC1 Breakfast programme.

'His report featured interviews with four of the Wells candidates, including the Conservative who has taken considerable flak over his expenses and was delighted by Lord Pearson's support.

'UKIP's candidates and supporters felt angry and betrayed.

'So we watched our exclusive on BBC television. Then saw it copied by BBC radio and ITV, all two days before our newspapers were published.

'But we could do nothing. We could have had the story on our website within minutes of the BBC broadcast on the Tuesday morning but we had agreed to the Thursday embargo.

'Anyway, the Mid Somerset Series does not presume to advise anyone on how to vote but I do think it is a valuable right not to be wasted.

'Philip Welch'

ELECTION RESULT: UKIP votes could have saved another seat for the Tories

Jake Baynes, the local UKIP candidate, received 1,711 votes. Liberal Democrat Tessa Munt's majority of 800 over Mr Heathcote-Amory (Con) was less than half the number of UKIP votes.

What's more, if the Conservatives hadn't demanded a recount, the winning margin would have been half the final figure, as Ms Munt's majority after the first count was only 400.