It's a smart move of Mr Miliband to recognise that the squeezed middle now describes pretty well the whole middle class
Ed Miliband is certainly consistent. Three years and four months ago, newly elected as party leader, he turned to the Sunday Telegraph to set out his agenda. It was a daring march into the enemy camp for a man who had just been elected because he was not New Labour. This was the moment when the idea of the squeezed middle went into political circulation – that is, everyone in work but short of cash, worried about the mortgage, their job, the cost of childcare and their future. Now Mr Miliband has turned to the Telegraph again, once more reaching out beyond Labour's core vote to the broad group he first identified. Only this time, he talks explicitly of the middle class: the squeezed middle has been expanded to describe the whole middle class.
Class, as an idea, has shown extraordinary resilience in the face of attempts at redefinition. For a decade or more, most people have described themselves as middle class, including a significant minority who technically fit the definition of working class. Class is more a reflection of where, economically, you came from, and where you expect to go, than any Marxist formulation. And most people born before the early 80s will have lived more comfortably than their parents. Not any more. A couple with no children in the middle of the disposable income scale – the true middle class, by one definition – would between them take home £22,000. When the average house price for first-time buyers in Britain last month was £187,000, it is clear that the old middle-class expectation of home ownership is out of reach. But it would also be beyond those soaring above the median towards the 85th percentile with a disposable income of just under £40,000. And it's not only housing. According to the Resolution Foundation's work on squeezed Britain, relatively higher earners, like those in the middle, are spending more and more of their income on essentials.
So it's a smart move of Mr Miliband to recognise that the squeezed middle now describes pretty well the whole middle class. The thought will be the framework for a series of policy announcements that appeal directly to concerns on the cost of housing, the quality of education and the sense of insecurity – the defining middle-class anxieties. This is a forceful kickback against Conservative attempts to brand Labour as the welfare party. Over the next few days expect to hear more policy detail from Mr Miliband and key shadow cabinet ministers. This should please those critics who have been urging him to set a clearer direction of travel. But it also raises one serious weakness. The policies have to be credible, affordable and sustainable. They need a sustainable economic strategy, because without it there won't be the resources to ease the squeezed middle's pain.