Chavs. Owen Jones

      

      ‘A bold attempt to rewind political orthodoxies; to reintroduce class as a political variable … It moves in and out of postwar British history with great agility, weaving together complex questions of class, culture and identity with a lightness of touch. Jones torches the political class to great effect’

      Jon Cruddas, Independent

      ‘It is a timely book. The white working class seems to be the one group in society that it is still acceptable to sneer at, ridicule, even incite hatred against … Forensically … Jones seeks to explain how, thanks to politics, the working class has shifted from being regarded as “the salt of the earth to the scum of the earth”’

      Carol Midgley, Times

      ‘A lively, well-reasoned and informative counterblast to the notion that Britain is now more or less a classless society’

      Sean O’Hagan, Observer

      ‘Impassioned and thought-provoking … I genuinely hope his voice is heard’

      Claire Black, Scotland on Sunday

      ‘A trenchant exposure of our new class hatred and what lies behind it’

      John Carey, author of The Intellectuals and the Masses

      ‘The stereotyping and hatred of the working class in Britain, documented so clearly by Owen Jones in this important book, should cause all to flinch … the stigmatization of the working class is a serious barrier to social justice and progressive change’

      Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson, authors of The Spirit Level

      ‘Chavs is persuasively argued, and packed full of good reporting and useful information … [Jones] makes an important contribution to a revivified debate about class’

      Lynsey Hanley, author of Estates: An Intimate History

      ‘Jones’s analysis of the condition of the working class is very astute … A book like this is very much needed for the American scene, where the illusion is similarly perpetuated by the Democrats that the middle class is all that matters, that everyone can aspire to join the middle class or is already part of it’

       Huffington Post

      ‘A blinding read’

      Suzanne Moore, Guardian

      ‘[A] thought-provoking examination of a relatively new yet widespread derogatory characterization of the working class in Britain … edifying and disquieting in equal measure’

       Publishers Weekly

      ‘A fiery reminder of how the system has failed the poor’

      Peter Hoskin, Daily Beast

      ‘Seen in the light of the riots and the worldwide Occupy protests, his lucid analysis of a divided society appears uncannily prescient’

      Matthew Higgs, Artforum

      ‘A passionate and well-documented denunciation of the upper-class contempt for the proles that has recently become so visible in the British class system’

      Eric Hobsbawm, Guardian Books of the Year

      ‘Mr. Jones’s book is a cleareyed examination of the British class system, and it poses this brutal question: “How has hatred of working-class people become so socially acceptable?” His timely answers combine wit, left-wing politics and outrage’

      Dwight Garner, New York Times

      ‘As with all the best polemics, a luminous anger backlights his prose’

       Economist

      ‘Eloquent and impassioned’

      Andrew Neather, Evening Standard

      ‘Everybody knows what a chav is, it seems, but no one is a chav. But then it’s a word unlike any other in current usage … A new book, Chavs: The Demonisation of the Working Class, by first-time author Owen Jones … has thrown the word into the spotlight all over again’

      Carole Cadwalladr, Observer

      ‘Passionate, angry and articulate, Chavs rail[s] against the cynical slandering, by politicians and the media, of working people’

       Scotsman

      ‘What makes Chavs a work of art is precisely [its] power of demonstrating the deceptive nature of the premise of an all-encompassing neo–middle class. Far from being classless, British society is defined by an effort to undermine and demonize the underprivileged’

       Los Angeles Review of Books

      ‘A highly readable and very important book’

      David Skelton, Total Politics

      ‘A long overdue look at the state of the class war in Britain today’

      Pat Stack, Socialist Review

      ‘Reminds us of the potential political and economic power that exists largely untapped in British society’

      Richard Seymour, author of Against Austerity

      CHAVS

      The Demonization of

      the Working Class

      Third Edition

      OWEN JONES

      This new edition published by Verso 2020

      First published by Verso 2011

      © Owen Jones 2011, 2012, 2016, 2020

       owenjones.org

      All rights reserved

      The moral rights of the author have been asserted

      1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

       Verso

      UK: 6 Meard Street, London W1F 0EG

      US: 20 Jay Street, Suite 1010, Brooklyn, NY 11201

       versobooks.com

      Verso is the imprint of New Left Books

      ISBN-13: 978-1-78478-092-1

      ISBN-13: 978-1-84467-804-4 (US EBK)

      ISBN-13: 978-1-78478-377-8 (UK EBK)

       British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

       Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

      Contents

       Preface to the 2020 Edition

       Preface to the 2016 Edition

      Introduction

      1.The Strange Case of Shannon Matthews

       2.Class Warriors

       3.Politicians vs Chavs

       4.A Class in the Stocks

       5.‘We’re all middle class now’

       6.A Rigged Society

       7.Broken Britain

       8.Backlash

       Conclusion: A New Class