Tories are wrong ‘class’ to run today’s Britain, says David Lammy

David Lammy has claimed the Tories are not the right “class of people” to be running Britain because of their “public-school smallness”.

The shadow foreign secretary said in an interview that Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, was by contrast someone who “gets it”.

His remarks come amid speculation he could be demoted to a more junior Cabinet role by Sir Keir Starmer if the party wins power next week.

Mr Lammy has kept a surprisingly low profile throughout the election period and has not made any major interventions in the campaign.

In an interview he described attending this month’s Trooping the Colour with senior Tories Boris Johnson, Lord Cameron, and James Cleverly.

He told the New Statesman: “There was a sort of demob happiness about them, a sort of casual frippery, a certain kind of public-school smallness.

“They are not the class of people that Britain needs to run it now, and that’s what my own life story tells me.

“The Labour Party is full of people – Angela Rayner, for instance. I was with her yesterday, campaigning in Mansfield – she gets this.”

All three Tories were privately educated. Mr Johnson and Lord Cameron both attended Eton College while Mr Cleverly went to Colfe’s School in London.

The shadow foreign secretary described the trio as being like a “certain class of individuals at the end of the Raj not really having an account of the future”.

He added: “It just spoke of a class of people who have no real sense of the world as it is, whether it is in our own country or the world as we find it today.”

In contrast Ms Rayner, who has made frequent references to her working class roots, attended her local comprehensive, Avondale High School in Stockport.

Mr Lammy attended The King’s School, Peterborough – a state-funded Church of England school – after winning a scholarship as a chorister aged 10.

He has been a mainstay of Sir Keir’s top team, first as shadow justice secretary and then since November 2021 as the shadow foreign secretary.

His current position means that he is expected to take up one of the four great offices of state if Labour wins the election on July 4.

But there has been mounting speculation that he could be demoted in a first reshuffle and replaced with Douglas Alexander, a New Labour veteran.

Mr Alexander served as a Cabinet minister under Sir Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and is looking to return to Parliament as an MP after nine years away.

Sir Keir did little to douse the rumours when asked about them this week, insisting that he is “not going to start announcing the Cabinet” in advance.