10 survival tips for working class policy wonks
All the things I wish I had known at the start my career
Tis the season for giving, so I would like to share a few tips for how to survive in the world of wonkery if you happen to hail from humble origins. I’ve had a varied career spanning government, think-tanks, advocacy and academia — places where working class people are relatively rare. Along the way, I’ve probably made more than my share of mistakes: may you learn from my lifelong lack of guile.
1. Use your superpower
The policy world generally sees itself as a realm of abstraction, where the best ideas prevail. Your experience of material disadvantage will often be relevant to the policy issues you are working on — but you are there to do a job, not to represent.
This can be frustrating. However, it ultimately means that you have the career you have despite your background, not because of it. Give yourself a pat on the back, every now and then.
And just because your lived experience might be overlooked by others, this does not mean you cannot draw upon it, implicitly, in developing your own ideas. It’s your superpower.
2. Be good at one thing, and one thing only
Working class wonks are rarely generalists. You are unlikely to be seen as worldly, erudite, and impartial — the attributes that allow some wonks to to excel in judgement rather than any singular aspect of policy formation and implementation processes.
Your contributions to policy will instead be most impactful when derived from a verifiable source of expertise, or the application of a particular skill. Consider leaning into this attribute: it may well be your ticket to a successful career.
Be aware, however, of the trade-offs. This strategy will at the same time reinforce the class ceiling that will impede your career, since specialists seldom rise to the very top.
3. Make obvious errors
You are probably a perfectionist, because you have learned that working class wonks are less often offered the benefit of the doubt. But this can be a dangerous trait. Take care to leave a couple of mistakes in every piece of work you do: the freedom to correct is one of the key foundations of social order.
4. Caricature yourself at every opportunity
Being working class is a chronic but manageable condition. However, being unassumingly working class can make others uncomfortable. Get ahead of it.
If you can, be Northern. Stick to stereotypes wherever possible.
There is, however, an important caveat. The working class coding you are going for is the flat-caps-and-whippets variety, not the more contemporary bully-XL-and-Benidorm strain. So, above all else — unless you can be absolutely certain it was brewed in Prague and/or you are able to consume it ironically — you must never drink lager in the presence of fellow wonks.
5. Be appropriately left-wing
This one is a minefield. You have to be a bit of a lefty to dispel any suggestion you might sympathise with the right-wing populism that London-based policy wonks tend to assume is rife in England’s deindustrialised regions.
This might also be a helpful addendum to tip 3, above. Being a bit too radical in your policy recommendations is an obvious mistake to make, allowing more seasoned wonks to school you in the merits of a pragmatic approach.
However, you must not under any circumstances present as very left-wing. There is too great a danger that, as a member of the proletariat, you might actually do something about it.
And to be absolutely clear: this advice applies especially if you are working for a policy organisation that itself identifies as left-wing or radical. Left-wing policy wonkery is usually based on theory not experience: allow colleagues the pleasure of radicalising you, or indeed the validation that comes from failing to do so.
6. Boycott Amazon
Most policy wonks find the online retailer Amazon ethically and aesthetically offensive. It may be beneficial to your career to pretend that you too believe that books being cheaper is antithetical to social progress.
7. Pretend you didn’t apply to Oxbridge
You were probably the smartest kid at your school. You probably applied to attend Oxford or Cambridge. You probably didn’t get in.
There is no shame in that, of course. Most people don’t get in: the Oxbridge acceptance rate is around one in five. But you will notice that many of the people ahead of you in the wonk hierarchy did get in.
Invariably, Oxbridge graduates do not want to hear that you were so overwhelmed by the interview process that you could barely remember your own name when asked for it. They do not want to hear that you had no idea there was such a thing as an admissions exam until the morning of said exam, or that the realisation that you had not even brought a pen with you would send you into a blind panic on said morning.
Similarly, they do not want to hear that not only did you not possess anything even resembling a suit to wear for the occasion, you also decided that leaving your fresh-from-the-packet C&A shirt untucked for the interview was the best way to hide the fact that the only belt you owned was a canvas belt.
Nor do they want to hear that you were late for dinner because you had no idea which college building it was being held in, and then squeezed awkwardly into what transpired to not actually be a free space, because you had never before seen a side plate. Nor that requesting cutlery from the waiter as you attempted to style it out would cause such a kerfuffle that said waiter would literally spill jus into your lap. Nor that you attempted to style that out too.
And they definitely do not want to hear that being rejected by Oxbridge changed your relationship with your parents forever, because as a teenager you simply could not get your head around why the grown-ups who had always before made everything okay had left you so profoundly unprepared for the most daunting moment of your life.
If anything like this ever happened to you, I implore you, never tell another living soul.
8. Never under-estimate how small the policy world is
Most policy wonks will have more friends and contacts throughout wonkdom than you, especially in the early stages of your career.
They have the networking skills that you were never taught, because most working class occupations do not require them. Many will have been at school or university together. They did the unpaid internships that would have been impossible for you.
They date each other. They marry each other. It will sometimes feel like a club you don’t belong to, but it’s all completely normal. Policy wonks are people too.
Navigating this uncharted social nexus, the occasional faux pas is inevitable. But try not to let it happen too often. Always assume, even if they appear to be political opponents or professional rivals, that any two given wonks have a personal connection — until there is irrefutable evidence that they do not.
9. Remember that many of the wonks you meet will one day be a member of the Parliamentary Labour Party
Most won’t, but you should play the percentages.
10. Finally, beware the prolier-than-thou
They are the absolute worst.