If I hadn’t had sex for money to support myself through university and a year or so of unpaid internships, you wouldn’t be reading my words now. I’m neither proud nor particularly ashamed of my past, but there you have it. I had to make tough choices to gain a foothold in journalism – a competitive industry, which often seems, like much of Britain, to be run by posh people for the benefit of posh people. So I fully agree with Alan Milburn, chair of the Social Mobility Commission, when he says: “Unpaid internships are a modern scandal which must end.” According to new research, the public agrees with him: 72% of the public backed a change in the law, with 42% “strongly supporting” a ban.

Today I am doing pretty well for a freelance journalist. But I grew up poor. Please, no euphemisms. Not disadvantaged. Not working class. Not underprivileged. Poor. My dad’s a brickie, and my mum was a barmaid before getting herself a fancy job at Boots. My grandad worked down the pit. So it can be done! Right? OK, well let me tell you how I did it.

Banning unpaid internships could be a good move too. But it wouldn’t necessarily fix the problem

When I first moved to London fresh out of university I embarked upon a year of mostly unpaid internships at magazines. Because I was dedicated, and cheeky, I slowly managed to extract some money from the people I was working for as they recognised that I was bringing value to the company and couldn’t be expected to live off nothing. At first it was just travel. Then it was £50 a week and eventually more. But only after months and months of working for free.

I was only able to do this because I was financially supported by my boyfriend at the time, a nice middle-class boy on a good wage in the City. Lucky me. The Sutton Trust estimates that a six-month unpaid internship will cost a single person in London £5,556 – or £926 a month – a figure that is as frightening as it is precise. But without sex work and my boyfriend during those early days, there would have been no rent, no food, no unpaid internships and no career.

And, like the overwhelming majority of poor people in Britain, no voice.

I doubt many of the people I come into contact with in my career have ever had to stand in a shop and worry if they have enough money for a tin of beans. Despite the fact that transgender people are barely represented in journalism, I’ve been feeling for some time that I’m actually more of a novelty as a working-class person in this industry.

I remember going on Radio 4 a few years ago, and thinking that all the people I met inside Broadcasting House sounded strange. I couldn’t put my finger on it at first. And then the penny dropped. They sounded like the people on television. The people on the radio. The people you see on the news. The way prime ministers sound. I remember sitting in the car on the way home and realising: “Oh, you’re the people who run everything.”

It’s not just journalism. I don’t know what’s worse: seeing working-class friends in their 20s and 30s, from various professions, giving up on their dreams, or the ones who never felt able to pursue them in the first place. Talented people who just couldn’t establish themselves in their chosen fields. Why? Because they didn’t have rich parents introducing them to their social networks, setting them up in unpaid internships, and taking away the worry and hassle of just how the rent is going to be paid.

Meanwhile, I see mediocre middle-class people prosper: left, right and centre. Not all middle-class people! But enough. You know who you are. It’s a scandal. With more support early on, who knows what I and all the people in my run-down comprehensive could have achieved by now.

But it’s not just individuals who are not being supported to reach their full potential: it’s Britain itself. In the 1960s – when poor people started to benefit from the welfare state (now currently under attack) – a whole generation of talented working-class people emerged. But the notion of Britain as a meritocracy is becoming increasingly ridiculous.

Innovative industries celebrate diversity and make the most of talent wherever it comes from. Closed clubs stagnate. We’d all be better off with a diverse workforce, and that includes class diversity. In her new book, Diversify, June Sarpong quotes research that reveals only 4% of doctors, 6% of barristers, 11% of journalists and 12% of solicitors come from working-class backgrounds; women earn 14% less than men; and only one in 16 top management positions are held by an ethnic minority person. To me that raises a perennially relevant question: what if the cure for cancer is trapped in the mind of someone who can’t afford an education?

So what is the solution? David Lammy is calling on Oxford and Cambridge – the factories that produce Britain’s ruling elite – to do more to attract students from diverse backgrounds. There are more offers made to students from one school – Eton – than to those on free meals across the whole country.

Public backs ban on long-term unpaid internships, study finds Read more

A basic, universal income is another possible solution, but I can’t help thinking that with more money in people’s pockets, rents would rise even more. And yes, banning unpaid internships could be a good move too. But it wouldn’t necessarily fix the problem.

The thing about privilege is that it has a funny way of recalibrating itself to ensure that the people who enjoy it continue to do so. If the government forces employers to pay interns, that will likely mean there are fewer internships and therefore fewer opportunities for young people eager to get on. Who will these newly paid internships go to? People with fancy degrees will be at the front of the queue, as will those who come with recommendations and prior experience. Poor kids will be left at the back.

We urgently need the government to commission an independent review into the complexities of class discrimination and what can be done about it. The Tories might not seem like the people to take social mobility seriously, but with pressure from Jeremy Corbyn – who has steered Theresa May towards his position on various issues this past year – you never know. What is clear is that the class gap needs to be taken seriously. In modern Britain it’s wrong that poor kids like me should be forced into prostitution to catch up with our richer contemporaries.

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• Paris Lees is a freelance journalist