Labour’s long route back to power appears to rely on denouncing coffee

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/20/labour-power-denouncing-coffee-jeremy-corbyn

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It was the party’s elitist fixation with hot drinks that alienated voters, says Joel Golby, author of Brilliant, Brilliant, Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant

A few things happen after an election bruising like the one Labour suffered on Friday: former MPs clear their desks, members of staff are quietly let go and there’s time for reflection. It’s a quiet period of post-humbling, shoe-staring defeat, and – ah, no, sorry, just getting notice through that “it’s all coffee’s fault”. Stop the autopsy, lads, we’ve found the cause of death. The Labour party knows what a flat white is and now can never again represent the working man.

Here’s Stephen Kinnock, who once claimed a £34.99 milk frother on expenses, this week: “Messages about fast-paced economic change/globalisation may go down well in coffee bars in London, but don’t speak to workers whose factories are closing down.” And there’s Justin Madders, MP for Ellesmere Port and Neston, writing this week for LabourList: “We won’t find the answers to our problems at the bottom of a cup of fruit tea in an Islington cafe.”

These two comments aren’t anomalies – they are part of an illustrious history of Labour politicians getting worked up about beverages. In 2017, responding to proposals about migrant visas, Andy Burnham tweeted: “Bit bizarre hearing these rightwing calls for a ‘barista visa’. God forbid the idea of waiting longer in the morning for their posh coffee.” Then there was Owen Smith, in an Observer interview from the year before, deliberately taking journalist Daniel Boffey to a local cafe to paint this scene: after receiving what he chooses to call a “frothy coffee” (a cappuccino), Smith tells the interviewer, “I tell you it is the first time I have ever been given little biscuits and a posh cup in here … Seriously, I would have a mug normally” – expressing his anxiety that the mere act of drinking from a cup would make him look out of touch.

Can anyone in Labour please tell me what hot beverages the working poor are allowed to drink without accidentally transmogrifying into the metropolitan yuppie elite? Is it just thinned-down Bovril served in a chipped mug that says, “EY UP” across the brim? A sausage on the side for dipping? PG Tips from a teabag that your dad’s already squeezed five meek little cups out of? Drips of tar collected off the Tyne bridge and thinned down with rain water? The condensation from the wall of an outdoor toilet, warmed in a pan and drunk in the morning? What?

It’s been a while since I left the grim grey north but I still vaguely remember hot water being there, and milk, and alternative milks, and the concept of frothing those alternative milks to serve with an espresso shot, and, like, green tea. I can’t help but feel that these weak culture-war stabs at aligning with the crumbling remains of the “red wall” by suggesting a cortado is a bit beyond people who live there is, you know, actually incredibly condescending. You know Costa exists beyond the M25, right, yes? You know that getting mad at Twinings being served in a London borough where 38% of children are living in poverty is perhaps not the exquisite own you think it is?

Come back to us, Workington man, and we’ll pretend we don’t know the difference between a latte and an americano! It’s either that or the Liberal Democrats offer you a “coffee wallet”, while the Conservatives just stick with Kenco and Brexit. Difficult choices in the bleak years ahead.

• Joel Golby is the author of Brilliant, Brilliant, Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant