When Is It OK to Talk About a Politician's Background?

After the last election, David Cameron, chose a cabinet where half the members were privately educated (compared to 7 percent of the population) and over half of the cabinet had attended Oxford or Cambridge. He touted this as a more inclusive cabinet, as it was down from 62 percent privately-educated members in the previous parliament.

Whenever it has been suggested, by Labour or the media, that this concentration of wealth and privilege at the highest levels of government might influence the decision-making of our leading politicians – when the government are cutting billions of pounds of public spending in a way that systematically disadvantages the worse off, for example – they pull a face like they've smelled a bad fart. Their poshness has nothing to do with their policies, they say, and anyone who says otherwise is just a reverse snob.

In 2014, for example, Ed Miliband said that David Cameron "stands up for the privileged few". The Prime Minister responded by calling Mr. Miliband's comments "personal abuse", adding, "I can't change the school I went to, upbringing I had or the parents I have and nor would I want to. I am sorry, what am I meant to do? Rewrite history?"

Back in 2008, David Cameron also stood-up for Boris Johnson after some accused him of being too posh to be London Mayor. He said: "I don't think your level of in-touchness is to do with your upbringing. It's about whether you spend time listening to people or getting out into different parts of London and hearing what they've got to say."

Johnson himself has continually rubbished claims that his background might influence his politics. In one interview in 2012 he even invoked the Ancient Greek politician Pericles, saying "People don't rise because of their family, or because of their wealth, but because of what they can offer their society."

Let's take all of that at face value, that Boris Johnson is London mayor not because of his background but what he can offer society. It puts the Conservative party in a tight spot. If their backgrounds are of no consequence, then they can't accuse their opponents of being influenced by theirs.

Or so you might think, but in fact it was only last week that Boris Johnson remarked that Obama's pro-European sentiments were based on his "part-Kenyan" heritage and "ancestral dislike of the British empire". The implication being that Obama's support for Britain remaining in the EU couldn't be helped because of his father was Kenyan and Britain did bad things to Kenyans.

Meanwhile his potential heir to the mayoralty, Zac Goldsmith, has tried to drum up fears that his Muslim Labour rival, Sadiq Khan, is unfit for the mayoralty because he is a friend and apologist for "extremists".

The Prime Minister has backed Goldsmith in this tactic. In Prime Minister's Questions he said that Khan had "appeared again and again and again Suliman Gani", a South London cleric who "supports IS".

Cameron, failed to mention two important facts about Gani. First, that he is the Imam at Khan's mosque, and so Khan can hardly avoid meeting with him occasionally. Second that Goldsmith, had also met with Gani at a Conservative Muslim Conference and Gani had supported the Tory challenger to Khan at the general election.

Goldsmith is reported to have followed the Prime Minister's intervention by circulating a dossier alleging Khan's links to anti-Semites, hate preachers, convicted terrorists.

Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, went further. At an event in his constituency, he said that Khan was a "Labour lackey who speaks alongside extremists, proving himself unfit to perform that role. A man who has said Britain's foreign policy is to blame for the terrorist threat."

It is barely worth mentioning that Khan is consistently denounced Islamic extremism, voted for gay rights, opposes boycotts of Israeli goods. In most respects he has been the very model of a normal centrist Labour candidate.

It's true that Khan has come into contact with various political extremists as part of his career as a human rights lawyer, but this has often been framed as though Khan has shared political platforms with terrorists because of his religion. For example, Goldsmith has claimed that Khan spoke in 2003 alongside Yasser al-Siri, an indicted terrorist. In fact, says Khan's spokesman, he spoke at a separate session during a two-day conference about Guantanamo Bay in his role as chair of Liberty, the human rights campaign group.

Whenever Goldsmith mentions that Khan has shared platforms with Muslim extremists he assures voters he is "not Islamophobic" but believes electing Khan would be dangerous. He never mentions his background as a human rights lawyer. The narrative he's creating is all too obvious.

Goldsmith, another old Etonian, has been fighting claims that he is too posh to be mayor while attacking Khan for his background. In one revealing comment he told the Evening Standard, "The thing is… I am what I am. People either like you or they don't. If they don't like you, your background matters. If they do like you, it doesn't matter."

This, of course, is true. It's also worth baring in mind next time the Tories make the argument that their wealth and upbringing doesn't influence their politics while spuriously accusing non-white politicians that their positions and politics are only a result of their background. If they don't like you, your background matters.

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