I have never said the title of this article out loud. I have never been a left-winger. I may have grown up on a council estate with no father and lived on state hand-outs. But I never saw anything appealing in left-wing policies. I was obviously in the minority in my social class but not always with my friends. I explain the difference between left-wing and right-wing as a hand-out or a hand-up. I am sure you can work out which is which.

Recently, I have been reading George Orwell's, The Road To Wigan Pier. It is his personal journey through the industrial towns in the North of England. A real eye-opener. Looking at poverty in the 1930s within working-class communities. My community. My life if I had been born 30 years earlier. Scary.

We are all extremely lucky to be alive today and not born in any other period in human history. We are truly blessed. But this blessing is not a coincidence for it was earned. Not by you. Do not be silly. What have you ever done to improve things? Nothing. That is your answer. But our forefathers did. They fought for our future even though they never knew if we would exist. They fought for democracy and took the head of a king in the process. They protested unfair laws and changed them. They demanded equal rights and got them. Slowly but surely, they were successful. Every step forward improved the lives of everyone who came after. It was a journey, not an event.

I live around the corner from Peter's Field in Manchester. This is the site of the infamous 1819 Peterloo Massacre. Armed cavalry soldiers charged into a crowd of 60,000 people who had gathered to demand parliamentary reform. Approximately 18 people died, including an unborn baby. They wanted reform so working-class MPs could abolish the Corn Laws. These laws supported rich landowners by keeping the price of cereals high. It was not in their interest to import much cheaper wheat to keep the price of bread affordable.

A few minutes walk from Peter's Field is the Manchester Mechanic Institute. This is where the Trade Union Congress held its first meeting in 1868. The TUC took the leading role in fighting for better working conditions, fair pay and employment rights. Today, the TUC brings together unions to draw up common policies, lobby government and campaign.

Manchester was at the heart of the fight for a better tomorrow and a higher standard of living for the working-class. This fight was happening everywhere. Let us look just down the road at the Rochdale Pioneers. They founded the modern cooperative movement in 1844 to provide an affordable alternative to poor quality food. Any surplus profits were used to benefit the local community and people.

It was a proper fight to gain ground to improve the lives of the working-class. An example of the push back from the powerful is the Tolpuddle Martyrs. Six agricultural labourers from a village in Dorset. In 1834, they were convicted of swearing a secret oath as members of the Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers. Basically a trade union. They were arrested on a legal technicality during a labour dispute against cutting wages before being convicted. They were sentenced to penal transportation to Australia. Deported from their own country! This is what tyranny looks like.

If Orwell thought the working class in the 1930s had it bad, they did, he needed to look at how bad it was 100 years earlier. Every improvement in the lives of the working class has come through a fight. People with power do not give it up easily. Orwell describes the tough lives of coal miners, their dismal housing conditions and the abject poverty in northern towns. Families living in one room. 2 to 3 people to a bed. No bedding. Damp. Bugs. Cold. And a phrase still used today: a shortage of affordable housing.

I was born in the 1960s. We moved to a council estate in the early 1970s when my home was demolished as part of the Hulme slum clearances in Manchester. My old home's location is now in the middle of Manchester Science Park. My mum can recall many of the same issues in the 1960s that Orwell highlighted 30 years earlier. Black beetles everywhere, we called them black-jacks. A shortage of food. Second-hand clothes off the local market. No sanitary products. No refrigeration. And the dream of winning the football pools.

We have come such a long way, even in my lifetime. To such an extent that obesity is now a major problem in working-class communities, not hunger. Owning a pair of shoes is no longer a problem, as long as they are top of the range Nike trainers. Kids walk around with £400 smartphones. Kids have birthday parties in restaurants with entertainment.

We will always need people and organisations to speak for the voiceless and the powerless. History has taught us if not they will be used, abused and ignored by people in power.

The poor are not lesser people. They should not need to be treated like children or mentally inferior. They are not a charity case or an amateur social work project. They need to be treated equally and respectfully. They do not thrive when given hand-outs but regularly excel when offered a hand-up. This is what I have tried to do during the last 2 decades working in the poorest neighbourhoods across Greater Manchester. Pity does not improve someone's life or prospects. But it does chip away at self-belief, self-confidence and self-respect. This is one of the traps that the Left can fall into when trying to be compassionate. Pity is not wanted and is not helpful.

I want people to gaze upon all the opportunities available and have the skills to take advantage of them, regardless of class or social standing. Orwell's miners did not want a hand-out. They wanted a fair day's pay for a fair day's work, without having to die in a tunnel cave-in. People protesting the Corn Laws did not want free bread just the opportunity to buy cheaper wheat that was on offer.

We need the Left. We owe the Left a debt of gratitude. The Left is needed to ensure we do not slip backwards. They are a counterbalance to the excesses of capitalism, the elite and globalism.

But the Left can go too far. Demand too much. I remember the 1970s and the turmoil the country was in because of the excess of trade unions. It was not long ago when all the 'free stuff' on offer by Jeremy Corbyn was rejected by the working class at the election. Why? A hand-up, not a hand-out was wanted. The working class are not beggars. They have an innate sense of what is fair and what is earned.

The modern Left need to change its goals. They need to speak to the people they profess to serve and deliver what they say they need. Not entrenched in the new woke progressive agenda that is alien to the working-class. Orwell writes that the working class like the idea of Socialism, but cannot stand Socialists. I could not agree more. The working-class today still need help in the form of a hand-up to level the playing fields. Some of this help will look the same as 100 years ago and some will look different to fit the needs of our world today.

For example, this is what would interest me as a voter:
• improving employment rights for people in the gig economy
• improving education for children, including choice of schools
• more of a focus on technical education and less on university
• supporting adults to change careers to better-paid jobs with more security
• reducing low skilled immigration to stop pressure on wages
• more emphasis on personal responsibility and citizenship

My advice to the Left would be to spend less time trying to buy votes and more time talking about what real working-class people care about and need. Give people the skills and opportunities to improve their own lives, for ultimately they are responsible. That is how it should be. We are the masters of our own destiny.

The Left's role should be to hold 'the map of life' for people to read and study. The direction of travel should be down to the individual.