Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class

Product Information

Boredom is undoubtedly another factor. Unfettered free markets have been allowed to dismantle our local communities, bit by bit. Places where young people — and the rest of that community, for that matter — could congregate have been disappearing. According to the government’s Valuation Office Agency, the number of sports and social clubs fell by 55 per cent in the thirteen years of New Labour rule. Post offices were down by 39 per cent; swimming pools by 21 per cent; pubs by 7 per cent; and public libraries by 6 per cent. The sorts of things that have flourished in their place hardly foster a sense of community, or give young people something to do. Betting shops and casinos went up by 39 per cent and 27 per cent respectively, for example. Little wonder young people have been forced to create their own entertainment — or that a minority have resorted to anti-social behaviour out of boredom, despair, or both. Evans, RichardJ. (2019). Eric Hobsbawm: A Life in History. New York: Oxford University Press. p.642. ISBN 9780190459642. Under the Conservative-led government, this crisis will get more severe. Just months after coming to power, David Cameron called for the scrapping of lifetime council tenancy agreements. Instead, only the most needy would be eligible for five-year or, at most, ten-year agreements. If it was decided that their conditions had improved sufficiently, they could be turfed out of their homes and made to rent privately. Council estates would become nothing more than transit camps for the deprived. A government whose signature policy was building a ‘Big Society’ was unveiling plans that would further undermine the cohesion of working-class communities across the country. Owen Jones". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 19 March 2013 . Retrieved 2 March 2013. Britain's indigenous working classes are put last in line for employment, council housing, health care, education and bank loans in favour of the exotic Third world immigrants (especially Muslims) favoured by the pc left elites.

Neather, Andrew (23 April 2011). "The Marx effect". London Evening Standard . Retrieved 8 May 2012. Barnes is careful to say that, of course, other factors come into play, not least the rise of rampant consumerism in the 1980s and the greater availability of drugs. But he was in no doubt that people often made the leap from being a bit experimental with drugs to full-blown, problematic drug use, either through despair or as a coping mechanism. How this came to pass in Britain, which has long revered its stalwart working class, is Mr. Jones’s primordial subject in “Chavs.” The book poses this principled question: How did the salt of the earth come to be viewed as the scum of the earth?Turner, Janice (17 October 2023). "Sexist of the self-loving left sinks to a new low". ISSN 0140-0460 . Retrieved 17 October 2023.

Cruddas, Jon (3 June 2011). "Book of the week: Chavs: the demonization of the working class by Owen Jones". The Independent . Retrieved 12 October 2014.Following the 2017 election, Jones was one of the few media pundits to champion Jeremy Corbyn and in 2020 he chronicled Corbyn's leadership in This Land: The Story of a Movement. Though definitely not a great work of theory, or academic in nature, Jones is quite capable of using the statistical evidence to underline his points, and includes data on such things as the growing disparities in wealth, the lower proportion of GDP going to wages (as opposed to the increasing share going to owners of capital), the effect of immigration on wages, etc.

Anearby pub that was recently closed because of drugs was a particular source of anti-social behaviour. ‘I remember after midnight Mass at Christmas, it was Christmas morning — about half past five — and I was out here, sweeping up the glass and everything before people came to Mass in the morning. Bottles, just smashed — thrown all over the wall, litter everywhere.’Time to abolish Oxbridge?". The Oxford Student. 9 June 2011. Archived from the original on 29 October 2013 . Retrieved 18 February 2012.