Who are 'working people'?

Britain's working people "know exactly who they are", Keir Starmer has said as he promised to "protect their payslips" in tomorrow's Budget.

But "with the big day looming, it still isn't clear" what the term "working people" actually means, said the BBC. Even some government ministers have struggled to clarify the definition of a concept that touches on politically charged notions of identity.

What did the commentators say?

The phrase "working people" has been "bandied around a lot" during the run-up to the Budget. And Labour mentioned it "21 times in their manifesto", said Sky News, so "you'd think they would have a pretty concrete idea" of what it means.

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But Labour's definition is a "work in progress", said The Guardian. When ministers have been asked "inevitable questions" about what they would call a "working person", there have been "mixed results".

Somewhere among their "slightly salad-like cascade of words" there are "two interlocking definitions". The first is "economic and relatively precise": as "more or less defined" by No. 10, a working person is "someone whose income is reliant on a regular wage", as opposed to someone who can "rely on money from unearned wealth", such as shares or "rental income".

Britain "once had an obsession with social class", said Patrick O'Flynn in The Telegraph, but in Starmer's worldview you can be a "senior Whitehall mandarin" with a "gold-plated pension and a generous salary" and still be considered one of the working people he pledged to protect. If you are a buy-to-let landlord "running around" half a dozen rental properties "fixing dents in front doors and leaky taps, then forget it".

The other definition of working people is "political and notably more woolly", said The Guardian. It acts as an "all-encompassing synonym for the sort of diligent, taxpaying, family-raising voters" to whom almost all political parties "mentally pitch their ideas".

"If you're a Tory," said Sam Leith in The Spectator, "non-working" people mostly means "skivers, spongers, quangocrats and undeserving welfare recipients", but if you're "Trad Labour", it's "members of the rent-seeking capitalist boss class". If you're Starmer, it's "a bit of both" depending on "who you are hoping to appeal to".

Indeed, Labour's "flatfooted expression" opened up everyone's "secret feelings" about where our fellow citizens sit on a "private spectrum of esteem", stretching all the way from "critical-care nursing" to "hedge-funding", said Libby Purves in The Times.

What the government "really meant", said the Financial Times' Stephen Bush, was "we won't touch the headline rates of income tax and national insurance, but we will find any number of other ways to increase the amount of money going into the public services".

The term "working people" really "means absolutely nothing", but the debate does reveal one thing: Labour "is not clear in its own mind who 'its people' are".

What next?

Tomorrow's Budget will provide some clarity as to who the government regards as working people. The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, is "set to increase taxes significantly", City A.M. said.

Depending on "who the government class as working people", it could "open the door for potential hikes" to capital gains tax, national insurance for employers, and "even potentially inheritance tax", said Sky News. But "we will not really know" until Reeves opens that red box tomorrow.