People Like Us: What It Takes To Make It In Modern Britain by Hashi Mohamed – review

There’s so much that’s compelling about the life of Hashi Mohamed that this entire book could be devoted to telling the story of how he has become a successful London barrister after arriving in this country as a young fatherless Somali refugee.

It’s a victory over adversity, which included being brought up and schooled in one of the most challenging parts of the capital ,on top of struggles with identity, discrimination and homelessness.

However, although the details of his progress from Wembley High School to the Bar via Oxford University are scattered throughout, the author’s principal purpose is to rail against the lack of social mobility in Britain.

His experience, he insists, is not typical, and the fact that such stories occur does not mean that everyone has the opportunity to succeed. He argues that society is still weighted in favour of the advantaged by education, particularly at private schools, and “class barriers”. Social attitudes designed to ensure “everyone knows their place” also reinforce privilege and divide society. Neither education nor meritocracy can solve the social mobility problem when people start from such different positions, Mohamed contends.

His proposed solutions — such as major investment in education and more mentoring — are predictable. As the book veers from addressing society’s structural failings into a self-help manual, there are valuable prescriptions, especially on the importance of language and speech. He laments the reluctance of people within the Brent community he grew up in to consider speaking as he does, using received pronunciation, and criticises the way both ends of the social scale expect him to talk the language of the street. 

He views this as a trap and insists that those from disadvantaged backgrounds must learn to “code switch” and speak well when needed to improve their prospects.

It’s a well-made point, but elsewhere the book goes awry by presenting a view of the world that bears little resemblance to reality. One example is the endorsement of the notion that ”a sooty white man emerging from a coal mine as the Hovis theme tune plays” is how people imagine the working class. 

The author’s world view becomes clear when Left-of-centre writers Owen Jones, Afua Hirsch and Faiza Shaheen are quoted approvingly. 

There’s error too, when in a digression on Shamima Begum, the schoolgirl who joined Islamic State, he wrongly claims that her British nationality was removed on the basis that she was “entitled to Bangladeshi citizenship”. In fact, the Government’s case is that she was already a Bangladeshi national via her parentage. It’s sloppy imprecision for a lawyer.

It all makes for a flawed, though interesting jumble. But while his book doesn’t match the quality of his achievements in life, it seems certain we’ll hear much more of Hashi Mohamed.

People Like Us: What It Takes To Make It In Modern Britain by Hashi Mohamed (Profile Books, £16.99). Buy it here.