She asked him his dream job. His answer broke my heart
A few years ago I was on a bus, going through a high street that once used to supply shoppers with everything she needed but is now infamous as the worst in Britain. There were two lads sitting next to me, in their early 20s and on the way to the job centre. And as they talked, it became clear they didn’t hold out much hope for the help they would be given.
“She asked me what my fucking dream job was,” said one. “I said: ‘Any fucking job is my dream job.'”
I had to “sign on” in the 1980s and well remember the sense of hopelessness. But this was something more. This was a young lad who not only felt hopeless, he felt those supposed to help weren’t even living in the same world. As he saw it, her question was like asking someone in a storm what kind of sunshine they prefer.
It’s a conversation that has stayed with me because these two lads weren’t really talking about jobs. They were talking about not being seen. Not being understood. Not being part of the world that gets to dream.
This conversation came back to me on Sunday, when I read The Observer‘s review of Underdogs by Joel Budd, about the “white working class”. The book talks about how white working class are so often turned into a convenient political stereotype, a homogenous group that is backwards-looking and (at the very least) xenophobic. And I realised: that was once how people saw me.
I grew up in a working-class home. Benefits. Free school meals. A home that knew hardship all too well – financial, emotional, generational. I didn’t grow up thinking I’d one day be writing for top newspapers or involved in politics or talking to High Court judges about menopause. That world didn’t belong to people like me.
So when I stepped into those spaces, I didn’t feel I’d made it. I felt like an intruder.
And I still do, sometimes.
For years I thought it was imposter syndrome, but it’s not. It’s not in our heads. This is systemic, a culture of who belongs, who speaks and who gets listened to.
It’s arriving at a meeting and noticing your accent as you say “Ah” and “youse” and they say “I” and “you”.
It’s sitting next to someone at dinner who complains about the port at her law firm’s galas.
It’s constant second-guessing: Am I saying this the right way? Am I the only one who didn’t go to Oxbridge? What does he mean, I’ve cut the nose off the cheese?
Working-class pride is real, but so is working-class trauma, the weight of always feeling you have to work twice as hard to be seen half as capable.
And it’s exhausting.
What’s worse is the way “white working class” is weaponised. Not by the people who live it, but by politicians who’ve never once had to choose between topping up the electricity meter or buying school shoes. They talk about “white working-class anger” as if we’re all angry about the same things – usually immigration and “woke” policies.
But the white working class isn’t a political football. We’re people. People like me. Like my family. My friends and neighbours. The two lads I sat next to on the bus.
That’s why this section from The Observer piece really stood out to me:
“While working-class children often have high aspirations, their expectations soon become tempered by reality. They may dream of becoming doctors or engineers, but their social pathways are often blocked. Doing well in school can feel redundant. ‘I was aspirational too, until I realised there isn’t much to aspire to’, as one of Budd’s interviewees despairingly puts it.”
It took me years to believe I had something worth saying and I’ll be honest, I’m still working on it. I don’t have the quiet, innate confidence of someone who was raised in a society that says: “You’re good enough.”
But the biggest hurdle hasn’t been the lack of money or connections, as much as they ease the way. It has been that quiet, consistent feeling that I don’t deserve to be in the room.
But I do.
We do.
That’s one of the reasons I’ve got into politics. Because I want working-class children to be told they can be a doctor or an engineer – or a lawyer, journalist, actor, politician…
Their dream job.
I want the people making decisions to understand what it’s like when you’ve lived through those decisions, when you’ve felt the pain of policies that ignore or punish people for the life chances they’ve had. I want young people growing up like I did to see that it is possible to take up space, to lead, to change things.
This isn’t just about representation. It’s about reality. It’s about lived experience. And it’s about making sure that no one gets to define us but ourselves.
I don’t speak out despite my background. I speak out because of it.
And I won’t stop until our voices are heard – and respected – at every level.
Because I haven’t forgotten those lads on the bus. And I want a country that doesn’t forget them, either.
*Main image: Photo by Unsplash from Freerange Stock
