Why Stephen Crabb shouldn't become Prime Minister, by one of his constituents with the same background

He voted for the bedroom tax and got caught up in an expenses scandal - and now he wants to be our working class hero

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Like Stephen Crabb, I too grew up in a council house in West Wales. I can appreciate the need for hard work to get anywhere in life, especially when the odds are stacked against you. In fact, it’s a wonder he’s got to where he is today – which makes the nature of his politics so much more baffling. As one of his constituents, I have seen firsthand the disappointment wrought by his Thatcherite enthusiasm and I truly believe he has neither the authenticity nor competency to lead the country as Prime Minister.

Whenever I see or hear someone parrot the Crabb story, I am disappointed with its hypocrisy. I do not wish to devalue his hardships, but the simple fact is the world he grew up in is not the reality faced by council tenants and those in similar situations today. The Conservatives have constantly undermined people seeking security in their time of need, from their stance on the bedroom tax, reducing benefits and the employment support allowance for the disabled through to increasing student fees. Crabb has been at the centre of a government that has sown resentment towards the poor - and he has consistently voted to remove the rungs from the ladder he used to climb up.

While Crabb readies his bid for PM, not one statement has come from him about how West Wales will cope without the EU funding it depended on, or if he would look to match it. Then again, this is a man who ended up caught up in a 2009 expenses scandal, and voted for tax cuts for the rich and against public money to create guaranteed jobs for young people who had been unemployed long-term. It beggars belief, really, that he even has the gall to play up his roots, especially given that his Pembrokeshire constituency is one of the poorest in the UK and his office used to be right next to an area that ranks poorly in the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation.

Like most MPs (and people), Crabb is hardly entirely malevolent - but for all his political endeavours, I can’t think what his ideological adherence has gained us, other than an award-winning food bank. His voting record would suggest he has a rather flagrant disregard for our needs.

Crabb’s story is one of moving from a background made stable by the welfare system into a job where he helped cut off each supporting string for the working class, one by one. To repeat that he has that background in an attempt to bolster his standing with the electorate as the token working class Tory is an affront to many people around the country. From those who have found it more difficult to reach full economic independence to those who have had to suffer from the indignation of poverty forced on them over the last six years, few of us feel enthusiastic about the idea of Stephen Crabb as our self-proclaimed working class hero.

Some of the 17 million people who voted to sever our relationship with the EU have legitimate grievances towards the Westminster elite. Seeing what little Crabb has done – or failed to do - for Pembrokeshire, I’m sure he would offer no more than a cosmetic change for so-called “compassionate conservatism”. People are already upset with the status quo. This unsympathetic opportunist is not what the country needs.