Labour politicians invented working-class pasts, but Brown was first to fabricate a capitalist one

Evidence

Brown told the Confederation of British Industry conference that ‘business is in my blood’. His mother had been a company director and ‘I was brought up in an atmosphere where I knew exactly what was happening as far as business was concerned’. He was, indeed he had always been, one of them. The only problem is that it was not true. As his mother subsequently admitted, she would never have called herself ‘a business woman’: she had only ever done some ‘light administrative duties’ for ‘a small family firm’ and had given up the job when she married, three years before young Gordon was even born. While there have been Labor politicians who have tried to invent working class backgrounds for themselves before, Brown is the first to try and invent a capitalist background. — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 115

Categorization

• CANDY: A neat dinner-party anecdote: the first Labour leader to fake a capitalist pedigree, debunked by his own mother.
• XREF: connects to: Labour’s representation of the working class actively constitutes that class; Gordon Brown was the first Labour politician to invent a capitalist background. — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 115; Gordon Brown fabricated a capitalist rather than working-class background — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 115

Related

• Gordon Brown was the first Labour politician to invent a capitalist background. (similarity 0.94)
• Gordon Brown fabricated a capitalist rather than working-class background (similarity 0.91)

Broader Connections

• Labour’s representation of the working class actively constitutes that class #expands (0.72)