If Labour and its supporters stopped banging on about class they’d have a chance of abandoning their 1930s style blinkers and moving on into the 21st Century. Times have changed. The cloth cap and the tin lunch box went out of fashion years ago – along with the tin bath hanging on a nail in the back yard. Today education is not solely the domain of the wealthy and neither is home ownership. The working man can, and does, enjoy the trappings of a comfortable lifestyle. “Ordinary Labour votes” come from people who, regardless of the outcome, remain stubbornly loyal to the outdated politics of their forebears. Labour is stuck in the past, it is determined to remain there, and this constant ‘class war’ it wages is a sure way of doing that.
Ed will cost Labour votes – but not because he’s perceived as a toff by the Labour faithful, but because he’s recognised by the rest of the electorate as being unfit for office.