Labour’s Deputy Leader Lucy Powell says she is not “mucky middle class” in a new interview.
The former Cabinet minister told of the “ethics and pride” she said had come from her working class roots.
In a wide-ranging interview with Vogue, Ms Powell said: “I am self-evidently not working class.
“I have a middle-class job, but my family roots are all [working class].”
She explained that her mother is the daughter of Irish immigrants and that her father grew up in a “two-up two-down” with an outside toilet.
“I have the ethics and pride that comes through that, being respectful and polite rather than ‘mucky middle class’ as I call it – the posher you are the less you bother,” she added in comments likely to raise eyebrows.
She also told how she takes care with her looks, unlike some MPs.
“I spend money on a blow-dry,” she said. “My mum and aunties get their hair blow-dried every week.
“It’s disrespectful not to look the part and show you care.”
She added, according to Vogue, that there is a working-class pride “of looking nice, looking after yourself.”
As MP for Manchester Central, she told how the hardest thing being in London and at Westminster during the week was being away from her children.
“As a working mum, it has been tough at times but I don’t feel guilty,” she explained.
In the lengthy interview, she also:
* Warned against Labour losing touch with its supporters under Sir Keir Starmer’s government.
“It often happens when you get into government,” she said.
“You can lose touch with your base, party and movement, and the communities you are there to represent.
“We may have been too tactical, tacking one way and then the other, rather than being proactive and agenda-setting.”
* On whether Sir Keir could turn around the Government’s fortunes, she added: “We’ve got to change how we’re doing things. I’ve called it a course correction.
“We have to be the leaders of the anti-Farage alliance and we have to show that mainstream progressive politics can deliver change – or what comes after us is pretty horrifying.”
* Talking of “mistakes” made by the Government, including the axing of the winter fuel allowance and proposed welfare cuts, which the government was forced to reverse, she said: “We’ve given the sense that we’re not on the side of ordinary working people who are struggling to get by.”
* On the turmoil ahead of Rachel Reeves’ Budget in November, she said: “There were too many leaks, speculation and briefings.”
* Asked about her comments on BBC’s Any Questions, for which she was criticised for trivialising the grooming gangs scandal, she responded: “I hadn’t meant to diminish the issue or say that it didn’t warrant debate. I’ve met with victims and worked with campaigners. But at the time we were discussing local authority funding, which was a different subject.”
* When the controversy about her remarks blew up, she was at a restaurant celebrating her wedding anniversary.
“I had to spend the whole time on my phone, but it was my mistake and I take responsibility,” she explained.
“The thing that is upsetting is the misrepresentation of who I am.”
* On crying when she got her offer to Oxford University, she said: “I had gone for the open day and hadn’t enjoyed the place – it wasn’t cool. But it meant so much to everyone.”
* Like Margaret Thatcher, she studied chemistry at Somerville College, Oxford, she quipped: “I mean, we’re both bossy and we quite like handbags.”
On how politics has changed, she stressed: “Politics is so different from when I was first elected 13 years ago. The expectation and demands, the profile, the abuse, the danger, the hate, the negative feedback. I want to help the MPs navigate all that.”
* See the full feature in the February issue of British Vogue, available via digital download and on newsstands from Tuesday 20th January
