One of the most frustrating aspects of Owen Smith’s media presentation is that it’s a painfully transparent attempt to position him as representative of a particular cultural demographic – working-class regional male – which is perceived as outsider in a politics dominated by public-schoolboys and metropolitan liberal elites. And, you know, that perception isn’t incorrect – we’re highly unlikely to ever get another Aneurin Bevan. But this attempt comes across as excruciating because it’s a demographic that Smith a) doesn’t quite occupy and consequently b) ends up insulting by presenting it as characterised by unreconstructed testosterone-addled pre-60s machismo. I see this happen again and again in attempts to appeal to some… not even romanticised, but some condescending lowest-common-denominator idea of those apparently exotic unknown creatures, working-class men, and it’s both unhelpful and embarrassing.