When Emily Thornberry posted that picture on Twitter of the house in the Rochester and Strood constituency with the England flags and white van, it was assumed that the Islington barrister was sneering.
But one van-driving builder claims to know for certain that she wasn’t. And how can be be sure? Because he is her brother.
A week after Thornberry was effectively sacked as shadow attorney general for her tweet, which was deemed disrespectful by Ed Miliband, her brother Ben hit back, saying that the rightwing press had been “gunning for her for years” and that he could not understand why her tweet was considered offensive.
“I couldn’t see that perception that she was looking down her nose at anybody. I just didn’t understand it,” he told the Islington Tribune.
“What is happening here is that some people – not Emily – do look down their noses at the people in the construction trade, and they feel bad about it. Then, when someone takes a pic of a house with a white van outside, it is a chance for them to criticise them.”
His sister returned to Twitter on Friday to express thanks for the brotherly intervention: “My local paper @IslingtonTrib has an exclusive interview with my builder brother – who puts the record straight.” It was retweeted 131 times – sadly, for her, a lot fewer than the original, offending tweet.
Ben Thornberry returned to the UK recently after spending 26 years in the US employed as a builder and photojournalist. He now works for a charity that helps disadvantaged young people find work in the construction industry.
Interviewed by the Tribune wearing a high-visibility jacket, he said the house in his sister’s tweet looked just like the council house they grew up in.
The controversy generated by the picture said more about the prejudices of those criticising his sister than it did about her, he said.
And why she had to resign was something that was “almost impossible to comprehend”.
He added: “It would not have happened in America. British politics is becoming increasingly cut-throat and dirty.
“In America, I had two trucks with tools in. They were red, not white. From someone who is in the construction industry, and has been for many years in a foreign country, I cannot believe this wild reaction and how all these people are jumping on construed ideas.
“People are now taking a breath and saying ‘What went on in those 24 hours?’”
Emily Thornberry may well have been able to hold on to her job had it not been for the fact that she is Labour MP for Islington South and Finsbury, that she is a barrister and that she is married to a high court judge – all of which fuelled suspicions that she was a snob.
But her brother said that this was wrong and the north London stereotype was misleading. “There is a prejudice about Islington and a weird stereotype of the people of Islington. I don’t think Emily fits into that,” he said.
“She will spend hours making sure that someone’s kid is properly supported, or that a woman who is a refugee will be able to enter the country with their child, instead of ending up in prison or being murdered.
“She works very hard for the rights of the working class. The rightwing press have been gunning for her for years because she is an effective leftwinger who supports Labour values.”
Emily, Ben and their brother James, director of Sense International, the deafblind charity, were brought up in a council house in Guildford, Surrey, after their parents divorced when Emily was seven. Their father, a law professor, went to the US, where he became a UN assistant general secretary, and they were brought up by their mother, Sallie.
Ben said that, as a result, helping other people was “in our genes”. He added: “I remember going with mum to drop [Emily] off at Canterbury University in Kent. We asked her ‘What are you going to do next?’ expecting to hear she was going to lunch or something, and she said ‘I’m going to become head of the NUS, then I’m going to be a barrister and then an MP’.
“She is very driven. She gets that from our mother. And she got that from her mother, who lived in the East End and talked about a time when children couldn’t go to school because they didn’t have shoes.”
His sister would recover from her setback, he said. “She is a strong woman and she will bounce back.”
