Labour‘s Faiza Shaheen has criticised TV presenter Adam Boulton after he mocked her diction in an appearance on Sky News to discuss Theresa May and Saudi Arabia.
Boulton was responding to a Sky News viewer who tweeted at him and said: “Someone tell Faisa [sic] there’s a ‘t’ in the alphabet!”
He responded: “Not in the right on Labour lexicon there isn’t. Dropping it shows you are embarrassed about being posh.”
Ms Shaheen, who is the Labour parliamentary candidate for Chingford and Woodford Green, called his comment “outrageous” and added: “Is class snobbery from a prominent broadcaster ok? I’m the daughter of a car mechanic from east London, this is how I speak.”
“Get up Monday morning, go on telly to discuss May and Saudi, get abuse for not being posh,” she continued. “British class snobbery still alive & kicking.”
Ms Shaheen is also the director of think-tank CLASS, and has spoken at length about inequality in British society.
In 2017, she claimed the Brexit vote was being use to “justify an idea of ‘white self-interest’” and added: “If we are to have a truly ‘United’ Kingdom we must return to speaking about the real issues that hurt the whole working class – low wages, the housing crisis and devastating cuts to our public services.”
Boulton, 59, was educated at three different private schools before studying at Christ Church, Oxford and John Hopkins University.
He apologised after being criticised by Ms Shaheen, but did not delete the tweet and defended it as “light-hearted”, to which she responded: “Saying it’s a light-hearted comment means you don’t get the reality of class snobbery.”
Ms Shaheen told The Independent: “Adam Boulton’s comments [today] are a reminder of the prevalence of class snobbery in our media. The irony is Sky just had an ‘Inclusion Week’.
“We have failed to get working class representation in our media and this is partly why the demonisation of working class communities continues. It’s time Boulton and others in our media take class prejudice seriously.”
