After the 2024 election, the British parliament looks very different, with a large Labour majority for the first time in more than a decade. Several cabinet ministers come from working-class backgrounds, including the prime minister, deputy prime minister and foreign secretary. What impact will the upbringing of this new parliament have on the way Britain is governed?
In the fourth part of Know Your Place: what happened to class in British politics, we examine the link between representation and political change and ask will Britain's new look parliament herald meaningful reform?
Featuring Rosie Campbell, director of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership and professor of politics at King's College London, Vladimir Bortun, lecturer in politics at the University of Oxford, former Labour MP David Hanson, now Baron Hanson of Flint and current Labour MP Jeevun Sandher.
The Conversation Documentaries, formerly The Anthill podcast, is home to in-depth audio series from The Conversation UK, a not-for-profit independent news organisation. Find out more and donate here. And consider signing up for Politics Weekly, an essential briefing on the big stories of the week from The Conversation UK's politics and society team.
Further reading:
- Can Kemi Badenoch claim to have ‘become working class’ while working in McDonald’s – and why would she want to?
- Beyond ‘my dad was a toolmaker’: interviews with former politicians reveal what it’s really like to be working class in parliament
- Class identity: why fancy freebies are a bigger political problem for this Labour government than its Tory predecessors
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