Poverty Safari: Understanding the Anger of Britain's Underclass

Product Information

I’m absolutely delighted that Darren McGarvey’s book Poverty Safari has won the Orwell Prize. His unflinching account of his life and the effects of deprivation and poverty is self-aware, brutally honest and more urgent than ever. If Orwell were alive, this is the book he would choose.” – Kit de Waal McGarvey puts his finger on one of the key problems which contributed to the Grenfell disaster – the exclusion of sections of society from democratic decision-making. Grenfell residents had been warning for years about potentially fatal fire hazards in the tower. ‘Having been ignored – and dismissed – for so long, now suddenly everybody was interested in what life in a community like this entailed’, writes McGarvey. ‘But most people, despite their noble intentions, were just passing through on a short-lived expedition. A safari of sorts, where the indigenous population is surveyed from a safe distance for a time, before the window on the community closes and everyone gradually forgets about it.’ The book is divided into 32 short chapters, self-deprecatingly described by McGarvey as a “series of loosely connected rants that give the appearance of a book” (p. xxv). The result is a pleasingly accessible book for those pressed for time (such as trainee EPs) as each chapter does not take long to read. Class Matters There is a warning to well intentioned 'middle-class' campaigners who might rely too heavily on academic or specialist language from their own particular area of interest that alienate the wider community, although there are a few passages of this book where the author could benefit from his own advice, because they read like he's trying to impress his sociology tutor. McGarvey initially regards intersectionality as a means to broaden the pursuit of social justice for a wider range of marginalised and discriminated groups, but then becomes critical, contending that many public expressions of intersectionality have become “illiberal, censorious and counterproductive” (p.155). He then goes on to claim that rather than providing an emancipatory ally of class politics, intersectionality has become engaged in a form of class discrimination, having become ‘gentrified’ by universities and middle-class activists. McGarvey believes that the ‘gentrification’ of intersectionality has excluded many from the socio-economically disadvantaged communities of the UK at the expense of other marginalised groups because they do not fit a preconceived and ‘approved’ model of disadvantage.

If The Road to Wigan Pier had been written by a Wigan miner and not an Etonian rebel, this is what might have been achieved. McGarvey’s book takes you to the heart of what is wrong with the society free market capitalism has created.” Paul Mason. In the absence of real leadership, it’s time we demanded more of ourselves. Not because it’s easy or fair but because we have no other choice. We must now evolve beyond our dependence on political figures to map out reality on our behalf. This then presents another challenge for EPs. As well as seeking to use our professional voice to support and advocate for marginalised and disadvantaged communities, are we also a profession that really listens to the communities that we serve? Are we a profession that seeks to facilitate and empower the solutions that local people advocate to their identified needs? I’m not sure I have the answers to these questions yet, but they’re certainly worth considering. And for that reason, I’d really recommend reading this book which doesn’t shy from asking them. That doesn’t mean people should stop fighting for what they believe in. Nor does it mean we should submit to forces that are clearly acting against our interests. Just that we should let go of the idea that all we require is for capitalism to collapse or for a new country to be created and everything will just work itself out. It won’t.This book is maybe 5% safari, and 95% theory and explaining of things. Not what I signed up for. Somewhere in the middle of the book, MacGarvey himself makes a joke that he sold the book as a "misery memoir" -- making fun of himself for talking so much theory and not so much personal anecdotes. Ha ha -- where's my misery memoir, dude?!? Can a leftwing structural critique be married to an ethics of personal responsibility? This is the big question at the heart of Darren McGarvey’s vivid, passionate and relentlessly self-questioning memoir, which all the judges agreed was a book for our times”– Lorien Kite In rhyming verse, he explains his rough upbringing. He references cheap alcohol and gray council flats. This is how McGarvey begins the songwriting workshops he teaches to prisoners all across Scotland. Over the next few weeks, he will hear his student’s stories, too. Inevitably, they will speak of poverty, drug addiction, and abuse. They will speak of lives that make crime hard to avoid.

Poverty Safari ends with some honest self-reflection by McGarvey. Although he speaks out against the social, political, and economic injustices that enable and perpetuate poverty, he suggests that the despair and powerlessness felt by many in disadvantaged working class communities has become a crutch to lean upon whilst blaming the difficulties that they face on circumstances and powers beyond their control. Darren McGarvey stands in front of a group of prisoners. The air is tense, his audience, all young incarcerated women, are apprehensive. He needs to break the ice and to earn their trust. So, he does what he always does: he raps. Much as I hate to admit it, I should have taken some time to properly consider the best way to respond to Ellie's project. I'd been raised to think that any anger I felt was legitimate, merely by virtue of the fact that I was lower class. But even if this were true, the anger itself was only useful when expressed at the correct moment, in the correct way. It's only legitimate when it's deployed with the right quality of intention and even then, its utility is time-limited. Just like the booze, the fags, the drugs and the junk food, the novelty of righteous anger soon wears off, leaving you only with a compulsion to get hot and bothered, when often the solution to the problem is staring you right in the face. This isn't a popular thing to say on the left, but it's an honest one. In this case, I used righteous anger as a smokescreen to conceal something more self-serving. I had used the 'working class' as a Trojan horse to advance my own personal agenda. And I did all of this while believing myself to be well informed and deeply virtuous, unaware of how personal resentment was subtly directing my thinking." (Chapter 31: The Changeling)A systemic analysis that focuses on external factors unwisely forgoes the opportunity to explore the role we, as individuals, families and communities, can play in shaping the circumstances that define our lives. A systemic analysis does not account for the subtleties of poverty at ground level; the link between false belief and self-defeating action that keeps so many of us trapped in a spin cycle of stress and thoughtless consumption. If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month. There is lots that I really enjoyed here, but the structure proved somewhat frustrating: it is only until the second half of the book, and really, the very last chapter that McGarvey seems to really spell out his most important point (and the most important lesson he’s learnt for his own life): that of taking personal responsibility. Part memoir, part barnstorming polemic, the blinks for Poverty Safari take you through the gritty realities of social deprivation in the UK. You’ll get a glimpse of life in underfunded council flats, personal stories of drug addiction, and insightful commentary on how to fix systemic poverty. By the end, you’ll understand why this gripping work won the Orwell Prize for political writing, one of the UK’s most prestigious awards. You are no use to any family, community, cause or movement unless you are first able to manage, maintain and operate the machinery of your own life. These are the means of production that one must first seize before meaningful change can occur. This doesn't mean resistance has to stop. Nor does it mean power, corruption and injustice shouldn't be challenge. It simply means that running parallel to all of that necessary action must be a willingness to subject one's own thinking and behaviour to a similar quality of scrutiny. That's not a cop out; that's radicalism in the 21st century.'

And you get what he promises. Disjointed chapters that run along without any connection. We flit from topic to topic, without any sense of building. And McGarvey uses the word "outwith" several times in what felt like a deliberate attempt to force me to use a dictionary. (I don't think I've ever seen that word before.)Some good things - the critique on the left for the most part was facts, cancel culture is dead out (not about it), facts poverty is not properly analysed and the part stress plays in all aspects of life. Change the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the “Settings & Account” section. What happens at the end of my trial? I can't say he didn't warn me. But, in my defense, I was reading the book electronically. Jumping around isn't exactly easy, in that format. And I just don't read that way.