Billy Bragg may not like it, but the Conservatives are the new workers’ party

Ed Miliband argued this morning that the Labour party ought to be more focused on people working. ‘The clue’s in the name,’ he said. The irony is that Labour gave up on working people some time ago, and used the boom to keep five million Brits on out-of-work benefit while foreign-born workers accounted for 99.9% of the rise in employment. The Conservatives, with their revolutionary Universal Credit, want to make work pay – and save lives rather than save money. I tweeted earlier on today that the Conservatives can be seen as the new workers’ party. This drew a response from the two of the left-wingers I most admire: Polly Toynbee and Billy Bragg.

Like many 40-year-olds, I grew up with Billy’s music. He’s the greatest protest singer of the postwar years – yet I drew rather different conclusions from his lyrics. “People ask me when will I grow up to understand/Why the girls I knew at school are already pushing prams,” he wrote – quite so.