Chavs
The Demonization of the Working Class

Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class by Owen Jones (Paperback) (ISBN: 9781844676965)

"A trenchant exposure of our new class hatred and what lies behind it." John Carey, author of The Intellectuals and the Masses

A compelling 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 groundbreaking 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, one based on the media's inexhaustible obsession with an indigent white underclass, he portrays a far more complex reality. Moving through Westminster's lobbies and working-class communities from Dagenham to Dewsbury Moor, Jones reveals the increasing poverty and desperation of communities made precarious by wrenching social and industrial change, and all but abandoned by the aspirational, society-fragmenting policies of Thatcherism and New Labour. The chav stereotype, he argues, is used by governments as a convenient figleaf to avoid genuine engagement with social and economic problems, and to justify widening inequality.

Based on a wealth of original research, and wide-ranging interviews with media figures, political opinion-formers and workers, Chavs is a damning indictment of the media and political establishment, and an illuminating, disturbing portrait of inequality and class hatred in modern Britain.

Owen Jones has worked in the British Parliament as a trade union lobbyist and parliamentary researcher. He is writing a PhD on the history of blue-collar America and the rise of the New Right. He lives in London.

"A trenchant exposure of our new class hatred and what lies behind it." John Carey, author of The Intellectuals and the Masses

 

ISBN	184467696
ISBN13	9781844676965
Publisher	Verso Books
Format	Paperback
Publication date	09/05/2011
Pages	304
Weight (grammes)	454
Published in	United Kingdom
Height (mm)	228
Width (mm)	155

Owen Jones has worked in the British Parliament as a trade union lobbyist and parliamentary researcher. He is writing a PhD on the history of blue-collar America and the rise of the New Right. He lives in London.