Chavs by Owen Jones

https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/264106590947389440

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/aug/16/unions-back-thinktank-reshape-labour-policy

"rooted in the experiences of working people..."

"The panel includes the Guardian's Seumas Milne and Polly Toynbee"

You couldn't fucking make it up.

Jones is like Pip from Great Expectations amongst the liberal elite. With Seamus Milne as Herbert Pocket, Laurie Penny, Estella and Tariq Ali as Miss Haversham, clock stopped in 1968 and left on the New Left shelf.

I think Paul Foot makes some good points here re. the primacy of class struggle over Labourism, the necessity of the Labour left having to keep the right on side, the history and limitations of the reformism and how 'change' is brought about:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/foot-paul/1982/3letters/index.htm

Useful review of Jones' book - long but worth reading:
http://insurgentnotes.com/2013/03/book-review-the-condition-of-the-working-classes-in-england/

I didn't agree with his conclusions, obviously.

It will not tell you anything new, but it is still a useful book to read.

EDIT - I actually lent this book to a friend, as it was a rare book I had read that was not written by or about dead Russians.

Ha! I like the image of Tariq Ali as Miss Haversham, Mr Jolly!
Jones spoke in the occupied library at the end of the Barnet demo on Saturday, and to be fair he was an inspiring speaker. He didn't mention Labour and before the people who are always so inclined to do so get on my case here, I'm well aware of his positions in trying to re-legitimise the Labour Party, especially as I was one of the few there to heckle the Labour Assembly member for Barnet and Camden, Andrew Dismore, who had the nerve to speak.

I had read the book a while ago. It's not bad, and even though it's not going to be enlightening in its theoretical or political perspective per se, it does have some decent historical overviews (bearing in mind that I don't come from the UK), and gives a fair look at the implications of a term which does often get taken for granted. I'm not sure that the overall purpose of the book is to give a new perspective on the working class so much as to function as a sort of journalistic investigation into the history behind the term, and how its use has generally formed part of a wider discourse concerning class in the UK.

It was a relatively interesting read, and the connection of images of chavs and council houses with meritocratic rhetoric can be fairly noticeable in UK politics, as well as at more ordinary levels of society. I don't believe that Jones seeks to say that the stereotypes are 'baseless' per se, that they have no basis in real phenomena, but that the way in which they are utilised implies a certain understanding of the phenomena in question which feeds into a specific political discourse. Likewise, there's an attempt to show how forms of identity politics such as anti-racism, etc., have been integrated with the condemnation of 'chavs' amongst the left, which is a fairly interesting discussion, and also seeks to show the actual origins of the things which ground the stereotype in a way going beyond its own victim-blaming, which seems to be a fairly appropriate way to do what the book seems to be attempting.

Don't think that there actually is that much 'identity politics for poor people' involved in the book, especially between the brief introductory and concluding segments. If anything, it's primarily a critique of certain forms of political and social discourse, moreso than an attempt to 'reclaim the identity of the working class' or anything along those lines. It's mainly about the working class' situation, rather than their 'identity' necessarily.

As far as being 'sketched out by the comfortably off,' it's not clear how much influence this would have had on the particular work. It's not an attempt by somebody well-off to sketch out an identity for the working class to embody, and tends to focus on a critical and historical account more than a positive political viewpoint. If its critique is limited, this doesn't mean that it isn't a fairly valid examination of the phenomenon which it looks at on a basic level. In any case, though, it seems a bit peculiar to object to both 'identity politics for poor people' and 'being written by the comfortably off' at the same time.

I recall that a section of the book actually discusses the general attempt to make a division between the more noble, hard-working aspects of the working class (the 'aspirational' part) and the 'feral underclass.' It's not criticized so much for explicitly condemning the whole working class as for being connected to an overall meritocratic paradigm which does, in fact, fall quite squarely in the territory of one class.

Don't recall there being that much of an attempt to 'speak on others' behalf' in the book. If anything, it's generally examining the use of the word among the 'middle and upper classes,' or at least how it reflects their perspective and has become part of political discourse due to this, so that their usage of the term (eg. in politics, journalism, etc.) and what it implies for views of class which are spread through society is the main focus of the book.

Jones seems to speak at the end of every demo nowadays. Still, from what I recall of him, he's relatively good compared to the average quality of speaker, although that doesn't necessarily make him exceptional on an absolute scale.

Jones came to speak at the college I work in and I agree he is a good speaker, makes good points, etc. But towards the end one of the students asked him a question about whether he saw a need for a revolution which made him very uncomfortable; in fact he was pretty explicit about being against it.

baam