IAN Lavery, the Labour MP for Wansbeck in Northumbria, said in a discussion that the Westminster Labour elite have not 'done anything' in their lives, and think that people with Northern accents do not 'really know too much'. He made the remark at a conference on social mobility in London organised by the think-tank Class.
He was reported as saying:
'I’ve got to say there are some superb Labour Party MPs - Sadly, there’s not enough MPs who’ve actually worked on the coalface, on the factory floor... We’ve got an elite in Westminster which, quite frankly, frightens me. They haven’t been anywhere or done anything, and when you’ve got an accent like mine, they think "Well, that man doesn’t know too much".'
Meanwhile, Conservatives in Northumberland seized on comments made by Mr. Lavery that a 'Westminster elite' of Labour MPs look down on people with Northern accents. The Wansbeck branch of the Tories has claimed the constituency’s Labour MP Ian Lavery 'confirmed what we all already knew'.
Mr Lavery, a former president of the National Union of Mineworkers, later said:
'My comments were about the need for more working-class MPs and in no way a criticism of Ed or his office. For the record, I believe Ed Miliband is absolutely the right man to bring in policies that will be of great benefit to people in the North and across the country.'
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