Faiza Shaheen's Blog, page 2
July 10, 2019
We need to redefine what ‘working class’ really means | Faiza Shaheen
Working-class Britons include old, young, black, white, minorities and many others. Only by uniting can they be empowered again
What makes a person working-class? Being northern? Working in a factory? Being a plumber? Being white? Voting Brexit? If you watch TV or read a newspaper you will probably think all of the above. Unless you’re actually working-class, that is. From David Dimbleby declaring on the night of the EU referendum result that working-class votes were the decisive factor in the Brexit referendum (wrong) to TV dramas depicting the lazy and criminal, the mythology built about working-class people is wide-ranging and often damaging. This is important, because if we see class as purely about culture, we ignore the role of the economy, the state or community.
New research on low-income Londoners from the Centre for Labour and Social Studies and the Runnymede Trust found that while just over half identified as working class, almost all shared what could be described as a working-class experience. On the negative side, this included feelings of being “dehumanised” by impersonal public services and excluded by gentrification. Social mobility didn’t work for many in a system rigged for privilege. However, there are signs of community-led solidarity.
Related: Britain is run by a self-serving clique. That’s why it’s in crisis | Gary Younge
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July 4, 2019
Osborne thinks he could run the IMF. Maybe gaslighting a country is a useful skill | Faiza Shaheen
Imagine: you have been very publicly sacked from your job and the mistakes you made have had dire consequences for society. When planning your next steps do you a) rethink your career goals and consider doing something different with less responsibility; b) go for a job you’re completely unqualified for; or c) go for a big promotion with even greater stakes for society? I assume most of us would go for a), and even if we wanted to, we wouldn’t have the option of b) or c) without facing rejection.
However, that’s not the case for our former chancellor George Osborne, who after presiding over the worst economic recovery in recorded history, with severe and deadly public spending cuts, went for option b) and managed to become the editor of the Evening Standard – a job for which he is totally unqualified. And how has that gone? Losses of £11.5m aren’t too shabby. So, sensing now is the time to cut and run, he’s in the running for the top job at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Yes, it’s yet another example of a privately educated white male failing upwards. But it also shows us how without an ideological change at the top we are stuck with the same pool of arrogant neoliberals.
Continue reading...May 15, 2019
The inequality review’s panel experts are all white. How equal is that? | Faiza Shaheen
Angus Deaton’s five-year review of inequalities can’t succeed while it excludes people from different ethnic communities
Some years back, when I was working at the New Economics Foundation as a researcher, a trustee of the organisation called me. I had met him briefly the day before, but was still surprised to hear his voice on the line. He told me he organised art events and eventually got to the point of his call by saying that a panel he had organised was a bit too stale and having met me he thought I could bring some “edge” to the conversation. I laughed, saying I didn’t know anything about art, and in any case wasn’t available. I put the phone down, bemused.
I am assuming by “edge” he meant that he needed me – a brown woman from a working-class background – to counter his panel, which was presumably all white, and no doubt too male and too posh. I suppose I should have been happy to be invited; and, while this was textbook tokenism, if I’d known something about the topic I might have accepted. After all, at the very least I was asked.
Related: Britain risks heading to US levels of inequality, warns top economist
Far too many thinktanks are hideously unrepresentative of society, especially in research roles
Continue reading...March 7, 2019
It’s not the ‘white working class’. The real home of bigotry is elsewhere | Faiza Shaheen
New research this week has undermined the widely held view that to be prejudiced you must be poor. It turns out that, rather than the working class or the poorest, it is middle-income earners – those in households with combined salaries of £25k-£50k – who are more likely to feel threatened by immigrants: Muslims, Gypsies and Travellers. Tell me something I don’t know.
For years, we have had a deeply divisive and incorrect conversation about the working class. We constantly hear the working class is white rather than multi-ethnic; that it is the white working class who disproportionately voted for Brexit, even though that is factually incorrect; and that it is among the white working class that we find the majority of British racism.
Related: The Guardian view on the hostile environment: the ‘right to rent’ and other wrongs | Editorial
Continue reading...February 25, 2019
As a Labour candidate, I know we are the real ‘new politics’ in Britain | Faiza Shaheen
I agree that British politics is broken, but the defecting MPs of TIG can’t give the country what it desperately needs
• Faiza Shaheen is Labour PPC for Chingford and Woodford Green
Why would anyone choose to enter politics right now? Brexit chaos, historically low trust in politicians and politics, hate all over social media, the ever-present establishment resistance to change and, of course, all the infighting – it’s not exactly an enticing concoction. I’ve been the prospective parliamentary candidate for the Labour party in Chingford and Woodford Green since last July and, while my new working regime is intense, I’ll let you into a secret: grassroots campaigning, and standing up for the change you believe in, is fun. I want you to join me.
The new Independent Group MPs claim they are the “new politics”. I find this ironic because I joined Labour more than two years ago, when it was at one of its lowest points in the polls precisely because I wanted to support a new politics. The Jeremy Corbyn project was unexpected and different, much like the Bernie Sanders campaign in the US. All the people who had put me off the Labour party with their incrementalism, selling out of immigrants, tacit approval of cruel welfare changes, and pro-war views, were no longer in charge. There was finally a political movement for all the policies I’d been working on, and a chance to address the gross inequalities I’d been watching get worse for years.
Related: Chuka Umunna wants 'biggest role' in new Independent Group
Continue reading...December 5, 2018
Racial bias in Britain – what it feels like | Kamran Ahmed and others
As part of the Guardian's Bias in Britain series we want to hear from readers and find out more about your experiences and perspectives.
Continue reading...November 19, 2018
Why did Andrew Marr lose it with Shami Chakrabarti? | Faiza Shaheen
BBC viewers used to the genteel, unflappable Andrew Marr might have had a shock on Sunday morning when the veteran broadcaster suddenly snapped. His guest, Shami Chakrabarti, explaining how Labour would follow through the Brexit referendum result, said: “I don’t know about you, Andrew, but I’m a democrat.” To which he barked, jabbing his crib notes in her face: “Don’t try and patronise me – I’m as much a democrat as you are!”
Change is hard to deal with – especially, it seems, for old-guard political broadcasters. Right now the number of women and people of colour coming forward and challenging the establishment is growing and the establishment is not taking it at all well. Yes, we can read their behaviour as bullying and obviously unacceptable, but Marr’s retort to Chakrabarti is just another sign that they have their knickers in a twist.
Related: Online abuse is a tawdry attempt to limit what we say | Carole Cadwalladr
It’s no coincidence that before before last year’s election Diane Abbott, a black woman, received more online hate than any other female MP
Continue reading...November 14, 2018
Theresa May’s Brexit deal – what will it mean? | Gina Miller and others
November 2, 2018
No poor people through that door – another sign of the UK’s growing class divide | Faiza Shaheen
Housing developments where only rich residents can use certain facilities are emblematic of a much bigger problem
Different doors. Different schools. Same housing block. London and other big cities struggling to fight gentrification are becoming increasingly segregated at a very micro level. This type of cheek-by-jowl social segregation is giving birth to new and old forms of class antagonism.
Related: We don’t want billionaires’ charity. We want them to pay their taxes | Owen Jones
Related: Affordable land would mean affordable housing. Here’s how we get there | Alastair Parvin
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