LATIKA M BOURKE: Aussie PM Anthony Albanese and British PM Keir Starmer perpetuate the working class sham

One of modern politics most anodyne obsessions is the rise of the “backstory”.

This is when politicians, eager to demonstrate that they understand the anxieties of the ordinary voter, regale us of their humble beginnings.

Indeed, it seems mandatory these days for politicians to outcompete each other with their woe-was-me, poor-kid yarns in a contest no voter ever asked for.

For Anthony Albanese, it was growing up in public housing.

For the UK’s Labour prime minister Sir Keir Starmer, it’s being the son of a toolmaker.

While politicians of all stripes do it — Starmer’s predecessor, the Conservative Rishi Sunak who is a multi-millionaire in his own right and married to a billionaire Indian heiress, had to draw upon his parents’ migrant, self-starting experience to tell his personal story for instance — the method seems to be bringing left-wing leaders particularly unstuck.

There’s nothing wrong with telling the public about yourself, indeed it’s desirable as it gives voters a general understanding of the values and decision-making that will guide you in office.

But the Oliver Twist tales are a little hard to stomach and even more so when their actual choices show that whatever upbringing they had is certainly not determining their contemporary political judgement.

This is partly because anyone who is in the position to be running for the prime ministership has usually been in some sort of political leadership job for a while and on a decent wicket with taxpayer-funded perks few ordinary workers receive.

In many ways, it’s also due to their personal success stories.

Albanese is a case in point. The son of a single mother, he was educated at St Mary’s Cathedral College in Sydney, studied economics at Sydney University and began his political career straight after when he worked as a researcher for the local government minister Tom Uren, before working for the party and then for then-premier Bob Carr.

In 1996, he entered Federal Parliament as the member for Grayndler where he has worked for 28 years — a Gen Z’s lifetime.

This means he’s been on a decent wage, enjoyed chauffeured car rides, taxpayer-funded flights, free upgrades, access to Virgin and Qantas VIP lounges, truckloads of freebies to sporting events and concerts, and generous taxpayer-funded expenses for all that time.

None of this is a criticism per se. Australians should want their politicians well-paid and politicians should repay the voters by being transparent with how they use their perks.

But in the Prime Minister’s case, it does mean that the benefits of the job have allowed him to accumulate an enviable property portfolio which includes an apartment in Canberra, his former family home in Marrickville and an investment property in Dulwich Hill.

It’s an asset-rich reality he deliberately omitted during the 2022 campaign when he tried relentlessly to pitch himself as the kid from council housing in Camperdown.

“Morning TV interviews outside the council house where I grew up,” he posted on his social media, in the days leading up to the 2022 poll.

“This is where my mum lived her entire life.

“It’s where I learned the value of community, the value of a dollar, and the value of holding no one back and leaving no one behind.”

Maybe so. But let’s be honest, it’s been a long time since the self-proclaimed DJ Albo lived in circumstances that were anything other than comfortable.

His baffling decision to spend his prime ministerial time sorting the purchase of a $4.3 million clifftop beach house on the NSW Central Coast was not just another sign of his shockingly poor political judgement but also betrayed the vacuousness of the need to ever sell us his back story.

If relentlessly reminding people that you grew up in council housing was to have a point, surely it was to underline that you haven’t forgotten how those circumstances govern your life, opportunity and outlook.

But his beachside purchase in the lead-up to an election where his majority is most certainly up for grabs because of a housing affordability and cost-of-living crisis only showed he had either forgotten or was clueless about how this might look to his younger self.

Anya Yakubova, 27, lives in the prime minister’s former Camperdown house with her mother.

She told 7NEWS’ Chris Reason that she did not begrudge the PM his beach house but that: “I don’t think it’s appropriate at this time.”

‘It’s kind of disappointing,’ she said.

Politically, when Labor’s housing policies are under direct attack over affordability and supply issues, it is indefensible and it was notable how few of Mr Albanese’s cabinet allies even tried.

“The decision on property purchases is a question for the Prime Minister,” the recently promoted Defence Ministry Minister Pat Conroy said when asked by The Nightly if this was his bosses’ Hawaii moment – a reference to when the former unpopular prime minister Scott Morrison holidayed on the American island while bushfires ravaged Australia.

The uncomfortable truth of all of this is that the PM is entirely representative of his inner-city and increasingly wealthy Sydney electorate of Grayndler.

Census data shows that median household incomes more than doubled between 2006 and 2021. This puts Mr Albanese’s seat as the 10th wealthiest in the country.

When the PM retires to his beach house, the seat is ripe to go Green following a western trend of wealthy progressive seats voting for left-wing parties while previously blue-collar or working-class seats flock to the right.

And it’s precisely because of this fundamental shift in voting behaviour and growing inconsistency with union-based parties increasingly representing metropolitan elites, that so many of their leaders feel the need to overcompensate and oversell their working-class roots.

In Britain, Starmer has fallen into the same trap. The human rights lawyer who lives centrally in North London has had an equally rocky time balancing the pretence of being a man of the working party while holding his hand out for free specs and suits worth thousands of pounds.

He has tanked in the polls since being elected in July, burnt up any honeymoon Labour might have had in less than three months and has had to move on his Chief of Staff.

Starmer spent the election campaign telling everyone he was the “son of a toolmaker.”

But his personal and remarkable social mobility story is nothing like his father’s.

Starmer went to a selective state grammar school and did his postgrad at Oxford before becoming a human rights lawyer and going on to lead the Crown Prosecution Service.

This is not to say he did not experience what it is to struggle.

Like many, Starmer had a difficult childhood – his mother suffered from Still’s disease and his father was her full-time carer and he has spoken openly about having a non-existent relationship with his father.

Childhood hardship is written into many people’s lives.

Politicians amplifying theirs are doing it to try to show they too have experienced difficulty and know how to relate and try and assist with yours.

But Starmer and Albanese demonstrate that no amount of a compelling backstory begets political judgment.