The perils of Lennonism

“A WORKING-CLASS HERO is something to be,” sang John Lennon. That certainly seems to be the view of the candidates for the Labour Party leadership, for they never miss an opportunity to boast about their proletarian credentials. Sir Keir Starmer’s father was a toolmaker who named his son after the Labour Party’s first MP, Keir Hardie. “I actually never had been in any workplace other than a factory until I left home for university,” he told the BBC. “I’d never been in an office.” Emily Thornberry was so poor when she was growing up—on a council estate, naturally—that her family had to have their cat put down to save money. Rebecca Long Bailey is the daughter of a dock-worker and trade-union activist; she insists that the next Labour leader should be “as comfortable on the picket line as at the dispatch box”.