RUTH SUNDERLAND: Workers divided… according to the employment definition of an employee!

As my fingers fly across my keyboard to write this column, I could have sworn I’m working.

But I’m not. That’s not possible because I own a number of stocks that pay dividend income.

That’s why, according to Sir Keir Starmer, I’m not a working person. Having investments means I don’t fall ‘within his definition’ of an employee.

Not only that, but I had a dental emergency last week. I was fortunate enough to be able to afford the repair of my tooth, which ended the pain quickly, if not the financial pain.

A working person, says Sir Keir, would ‘not have the resources to write a check to get out of trouble’.

Who writes checks anymore? For our wealthy Prime Minister to do so indicates that he is out of touch with the realities of modern household money management.

The bigger question is: What have I been doing at various newspaper offices for at least ten hours a day for the past thirty years?

It felt a lot like working, but that couldn’t be because I’m not a working person.

Of course I’m being hyperbolic. We all know what Starmer meant: that he wants to give priority to people who work hard but are just getting by.

But the way politicians express themselves is important.

His words revealed a reductive and divisive attitude, with a hint of moral ridicule. The anti-aspirational tone of this story is at odds with Labour’s aim of boosting growth and encouraging investment in British assets. It is quite extraordinary that the leader of a party, whose real name is Labour, should give the impression of dismissing the efforts of so many and thus tying himself in knots about what a worker is.

Starmer and Reeves should encourage wider share ownership – not least through employee share schemes – and not stigmatize people for it.

There is some anger about the Prime Minister’s unfortunate wording, but I and many others feel genuinely offended.

Work has always been a big part of my identity. I am as proud of my working-class northeastern roots as any scion of the aristocracy could be of their ancestry.

I will not receive any inheritance from my family, but I have inherited something much more valuable: a work ethic.

Every share and ability to save us from an emergency is the fruit of our own efforts, not of unearned privilege. With the implication that we have turned ourselves into undeserving non-workers, Starmer struck a chord.

Emotions are important in politics and it felt like he was trying to erase our working class heritage.

The impression given is that the only worker Labor believes deserves respect is an oppressed public sector worker.

They should be exempt from tax increases on pensions and rewarded generously with wage increases. Private sector? You’re fair game.

Starmer’s words suggest an alarmingly simplistic worldview.

He harkens back to an imaginary earlier era, depicted in Victorian melodrama, even further in the past than checkbooks, when evil capitalists twirled their mustaches and oppressed the virtuous factory hands.

The world was never so binary and it certainly isn’t now.

Building a stock portfolio and some savings does not make you a rentier. But in Starmer’s Britain, this makes you an important target for the tax authorities.

And why strive for success and social mobility if this is a bull’s-eye?