Starmer: gift of the gab to break class ceiling

Keir Starmer has vowed to break the “class ceiling” as he laid out his vision to boost poorer children’s education and tackle “the pernicious idea that background equals destiny.” 

Speaking alongside Bridget Phillipson, the shadow education secretary, at MidKent College in Gillingham, the Labour leader delivered his fifth and final “mission”: raising education standards.

One eye-catching proposed reform of the national curriculum is his pledge to “weave oracy into lessons throughout school” – giving it the same status as literacy and numeracy skills. 

The ability to articulate yourself fluently, he argued, “opens up a lifetime of empowerment”.

And lacking the gift of the gab is “a key barrier to social mobility.”

This isn’t just about securing workplace opportunities, he stressed. Rather, it’s a fundamental life skill: for overcoming shyness and anxiety, for having the confidence to call out injustice, “or even just for opening up more to friends and family.”

As ever, Starmer didn’t miss an opportunity to highlight his working class background. As the son of a nurse and a toolmaker and the first in his family to get a uni degree, going on to run the Crown Prosecution Service is an example of what should be possible for all working class pupils. 

His own father, the Labour leader added, often felt looked down upon despite being a highly skilled tool-maker because of the “snobbery” that places academia above vocational skills in the English education system.

This snobbery is something Starmer has vowed to stamp out. Under his leadership, there will be a “new skills and growth levy” to increase the numbers of individuals offered apprenticeships. 

The Labour leader also sought to capitalise on the criticism directed at Sunak’s “double-maths” policy. Appealing to those who saw it as a devaluation of the arts and humanities, Starmer pledged instead to place a greater emphasis on music and the arts, changing the rules to ensure all pupils study a creative subject until 16. 

He also promised to address staff shortages by recruiting at least 6,000 more teachers – though he refused to say whether Labour would commit to giving teachers in England a 6.5% pay rise, the figure reportedly recommended by the pay review body.

While seemingly passionate, the speech was thinner on the details – for instance, how oracy skills would actually be taught or, crucially, how much funding this overall plan would require.  

That said, Starmer has been clear that Labour’s plans to scrap tax breaks on private school fees would raise £1bn to be invested in recruiting new teachers. 

This works on the assumption that the added cost to fee-paying parents of VAT wouldn’t force their children into the state sector instead. According to the EDSK think tank, the plan would only raise £1bn from VAT if no more than 5% of pupils made the switch from private to state schools.

When challenged on this today, Starmer appeared confident, noting that we haven’t seen an exodus of private school pupils despite fees rising above inflation for many years. 

With Labour still riding high in the polls, it looks like we’ll soon see for ourselves whether Sir Keir’s calculation holds true. 

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