Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class
Owen Jones
Language: English
Pages: 352
ISBN: 1784783773
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Bestselling investigation into the myth and reality of working-class life in contemporary Britain
In modern Britain, the working class has become an object of fear and ridicule. From Little Britain’s Vicky Pollard to the demonization of Jade Goody, media and politicians alike dismiss as feckless, criminalized and ignorant a vast, underprivileged swathe of society whose members have become stereotyped by one, hate-filled word: chavs.
In this acclaimed investigation, Owen Jones explores how the working class has gone from “salt of the earth” to “scum of the earth.” Exposing the ignorance and prejudice at the heart of the chav caricature, he portrays a far more complex reality. The chav stereotype, he argues, is used by governments as a convenient fig leaf to avoid genuine engagement with social and economic problems and to justify widening inequality.
When Chavs was first published in 2011 it opened up the discussion of class in Britain. Then, in the public debate after the riots of that summer, Owen Jones’s thesis was proved right—the working class were the scapegoats for everything that was wrong with Britain.
This new edition includes a new chapter, reflecting on the overwhelming response to the book and the situation in Britain today.
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Like that if the mines hadn’t closed,’ former Nottinghamshire miner Adrian Gilfoyle told me. A few years ago, Labour MP John Mann launched an inquiry into heroin use in the former mining community of Bassetlaw. It concluded that a health crisis comparable to a smallpox epidemic was raging in the heart of some of Britain’s former coalfields. ‘People growing up in the coalfields lack the sense of identity afforded to their parents and grandparents who were part of a stable and prosperous mining.
Jumps to 23’, Daily Telegraph, 28 December 2011. 6. ‘Stop and search “racial profiling” by police on the increase, claims study’, Guardian, 14 January 2012. 7. William Lee Adams and Nick Assinder, ‘London riots: Fires spread on third night of violence’, Time, 9 August 2011. 8. Gareth Morrell et al., ‘The August riots in England: Understanding the involvement of young people’, National Centre for Social Research, October 2011, p. 13. 9. Randeep Ramesh, ‘London’s richest people.
Were once common among middle-class eugenicists. He argued that ‘a high and rising proportion of children are being born to mothers least fitted to bring children into the world and to bring them up. They are born to mothers who were first pregnant in adolescence in social classes 4 and 5 … Some are of low intelligence, most of low educational attainment.’ But the killer line was this: ‘The balance of our population, our human stock is threatened.’ Joseph’s message was clear. The poor were.
Always been at the heart of Tory strategy: to drive wedges between better-off and poorer working-class voters, while peddling the idea that there is ‘room at the top’ for those with the grit and determination. And yet the reality is that Thatcher came to power in 1979 with a smaller share of the vote than any winning party since World War II, excepting the two general elections of 1974. More people voted for Labour in 1979 (when they lost) than in 1974 (when they had won). It was the defection.
Rational observers, that the country was descending into chaos. ‘Not since the blitz during World War II have so many fires raged in London so intensely at one time,’ claimed Time magazine.7 Amid the chaos, commentators looked at Chavs in a new light. Partly, I suppose, because the word ‘chav’ was being bandied around to describe the rioters, particularly on Twitter and Facebook. Fran Healey, lead singer of Scottish soft-rock band Travis, described the unrest as the ‘Chav Spring’ in a Tweet,.