In his book, Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Classes, Owen Jones sets out to make class an integral part of our politics again. This is a laudable aim, and the book's deeply sympathetic portrayal of the British working classes does a great service to this cause.

The gist of the book is built upon determining what the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher, and the subsequent rise of Tony Blair's New Labour has done to working-class communities across the country over the last 40 years. Margaret Thatcher's strategy was as simple as it was ruthless and effective. Her aim, Owen Jones contends, was to destroy any notion of working-class identity, society or culture. The aim was class war, at it's very purest.

Prior to Thatcher's reforms, the working classes were still a force to be feared among Conservatives. The 1972 and the 1974 miner's strikes forced Edward Heath, the Conservative Party leader, to declare states of emergency, which included a three day working week to save electricity. During the second strike, Heath called a general election and was defeated by Labour. The Labour government, with Michael Foot as Secretary of State for Employment, soon capitulated to the miner's demands for a 7% wage increase, and also offered compensation for pneumoconiosis sufferers, and a superannuation scheme which began in 1975.

Importantly, many of the Tories saw this defeat as one that the miners themselves had brought about through the direct action of the NUM. Heath's defeat led to a great sense of bitterness among certain Conservative MPs, particularly Margaret Thatcher.

When the Tories won back power in 1978, Thatcher's radical new monetarist policies sought to break the backs of the unions. The 1984-1985 miner's strike and the defeat of the strikers was seen by many as being the key turning point in the history of Britain, and the working classes never recovered from the defeat.

Importantly, the crushing of the trade unions was also undertaken in tandem with an assortment of other policies that sought to attack the idea of working class collectivism. The right-to-buy, for example, eroded council housing stock by allowing tenants the ability to buy properties at a fraction of the market value of the property. At the same time, Thatcher's government restricted the amount of council housing that could be built to replace stock sold off to tenants. In addition, nationalised industries were routinely privatised.

A general war on the working-classes was waged in the popular press. In short, working-class roots were seen as something one should escape from, rather than an identity one should be proud of. As Owen Jones puts it:

"The working classes went from being salt of the earth to being scum of the earth."

Owen Jones argues that the added cruelty of working class subjugation in Britain was that the rhetoric of class as a form of identity was also eroded. Thatcher and other Tories talked about the creation of a "classless" society. Of course, the idea behind this was not to create a communist utopia. It was, instead, motivated by the need to create an "aspirational society". In a society where "there was no alternative" to free-market capitalism, working class people faced a stark choice. Either abandon everything and submit to the selfish, bourgeois models of "aspiration" set out by Margaret Thatcher, or become a part of an abject, demonised underclass without power or employment.

Those who chose the latter option, 40 years later, are known collectively as the "chavs" or the "chavettes".

The cruellest thing about class war is that the victors of it do not simply disappear afterwards. Indeed, class war was waged in the decades that followed 1984 and the defeat of the miners. As working class communities fragmented, fell apart and, in the words of one ex-miner's wife, quite literally "died", the political elites effectively left these communities to bleed to death, offering next to no support for towns whose entire livelihoods had been closed down virtually overnight.

This was compounded by an added psychological cruelty. The working class as a group was gradually being replaced by the idea of an individualist "aspirational" society that rejected collectivism altogether and created a kind of neo-Darwinist society of individuals pitted against one-another. In this society, members of the working-class were routinely blamed, marginalised and victimised for their "failure" to escape from the collapsing communities and cultures that had, in many cases, existed since the mid-19th century. This culture of victim blaming only added to their pain and suffering.

Slowly but surely, the working class was being replaced by the Victorian idea of the "residuum" - a feral, criminal underclass of people, wholly reliant on begging and state benefits, and universally loathed by anybody who had either escaped that designation or had the fortune never to have had any association with it in the first place. Owen Jones points out that, while the middle-classes would baulk at the idea of calling somebody a Paki or a Wog, the term Chav is fair play, and even raises a laugh around the dinner table. This is in spite of it being just as discriminatory, and just as negative in its portrayal of a group of subjugated, marginalised people.

The destruction of the trade unions also led to the collapse of any working class representation in politics. Margaret Thatcher famously said, without hesitation, that her greatest political achievement was Tony Blair and New Labour. Indeed, Tony Blair frequently bragged about Britain having the most draconian anti-trade union legislation in Europe. His cabal effectively transformed the Labour Party into an undemocratic, plutocratic coalition of big business interests, and his policies, effectively, were a continuation of where the Conservatives had left off. In fact, many New Labour policies took Conservative policies even further - the system of sanctions now routinely applied to Jobseekers was introduced by New Labour, alongside a series of increasingly more punitive schemes that effectively criminalised working class unemployment.

In addition, the rise of unpaid internships and the middle-classes' use of "cultural capital" exacerbated working class marginalisation - increasingly, only those from extremely wealthy, privileged backgrounds could afford to, or had the cultural capital to enter professions or study at elite institutions. Along with the shutting down of the trade unions, working class voices were effectively shut out of the political and journalistic sphere. At the same time, Thatcher and Blair promoted ideas of a "meritocracy", which effectively rewarded those from the middle-classes for being middle-class, and allowed them to see all classes as equal. Poverty was increasingly seen as a "choice". Chavs, to put it bluntly, are the "niggers" of 21st century Britain.

I use this analogy because the parallels between race in the United States and class in the United Kingdom follow similar trajectories, and without a class-based understanding of the identity politics that liberals have become obsessed by, an authentic progressive political movement will never get traction. One of the problems I have with identity politics, and one that is also expressed in Owen Jones's book, is that identity politics can frequently lose touch with their roots in class struggle. The rise of the BNP, an utterly incompetent political entity spearheaded by the dimwitted and uncharismatic Nick Griffin, exploited these ideas of identity, divorcing them from more deeply rooted issues related to class. The working classes, according to BNP rhetoric, became the "white working class." Similarly, the recent fallout from Brexit, and the unlikely rise of the angry wotsit Donald Trump have shown how the establishment use the "white working class" as either figures of blame or as bastions of good old-fashioned common sense in a world "gone mad".

Owen Jones challenges these stereotypes, and seems to argue, as I do, that class should nearly always be a formative part of other emancipatory movements. Since nearly all progressive movements are based on a divisive relationship based on privilege and deprivation, class can be seen as an umbrella term for articulating issues among different groups that are subjugated compared to the mainstream.

When "white working class" becomes just another identity, the whole subject of race, ethnicity and shared history and struggle collapses. While alt-right baiting of "special snowflakes" is not something I particularly admire, it does nonetheless point out that the pursuit of "uniqueness" in a wholly consumer-oriented way is unlikely to be emancipatory in any profound sense. In other words, emancipatory struggles are always class struggles, because they are fundamentally grounded in a relationship between oppression and privilege. The grim and intellectually barren alternative to class struggle is identity shopping - which is the difference between reading Karl Marx and wearing a Karl Marx T-Shirt.

Owen Jones points out that many myths and stereotypes about the "white working classes" are patently untrue, and reveal more about the composition of the media and our politics than they do the "white working classes" themselves.

First, the idea of the working classes as a racist, xenophobic mob is undermined by statistics that actually show the exact opposite to be true. Because the working classes live in multicultural communities and have, to a much greater extent, been affected much more profoundly by globalisation and multiculturalism, the working classes are, in fact, less racist on the whole than the middle classes who have had the luxury of walling themselves off from other cultures. Secondly, Owen Jones points out that, in some ways, the working classes are less reactionary, and more progressive politically than the middle classes. The working classes, way more than the middle classes, were against the imperialist wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Importantly, Owen Jones mentions the BNP, but does so in a way that I understand, more than the bourgeois media does. Most media framed the rise of the BNP and UKIP in deprived areas as a rise of right-wing, racist, xenophobic sentiment among working class communities. However, the situation in reality was much more complex. I, for example, am aware, first hand, of many, many people who voted BNP in the Pendle constituency who weren't even racist. Similarly, many UKIP voters did not support right-wing UKIP policies.

In short, working class people voted in fairly large numbers for these far-right and popular right parties because there was nobody else to vote for. When Labour became New Labour, the working classes were deprived of any political representation whatsoever. People who continued to identify themselves as working class had no major political party to turn to to represent their interests in government. They voted BNP or UKIP because, to parrot Margaret Thatcher's favourite phrase, "There was no alternative." New Labour or Tory, being the same party, would both treat the working classes like shit.

One of the most likeable features of this book is its humanity and optimism. Throughout the book Owen Jones speaks directly to working class people, and genuinely respects and believes they ought to be proud for having withstood what they have, through no fault of their own, had to face over the past 40 years. Indeed, one of the most uplifting parts of the book is that, in spite of 4 decades of stigmatisation and hate, the British working classes still struggle and continue to fight. Quite admirably, Owen Jones presents us with the facts, and backs these facts up with the stories and quotations from working class people who have never accepted wholesale defeat. Although many of the working class communities and estates destroyed by the Tory and New Labour governments have destroyed people's will, and forced many into drug dependency and crime, these figures are actually much lower than what most people expect. One of Margaret Thatcher's failures was, in spite of her zealous devotion to the cause, she did not completely break the working class spirit entirely.

Owen Jones also points out that all of our most vital jobs are occupied by "Chavs" - people that many of us routinely discriminate against. One of the more disgusting hypocrisies of our current "managerial" epoch is that loathsome, despicable parasites like Steve Jobs and Philip Green - people whose very raison d'etre is to exploit people and suck resources out of the economy - are the very people who are celebrated as the "wealth generators". Perhaps even more sickening, the rise of the "managerial class" have served to completely skew our perception of what our "aspirations" as people should be. While old people bemoan the "celebrity culture" that has created a generation of people unwilling to work in the expectation of instant rewards for having no talent, it is this managerial class who instil these virtues without even providing any of the drama or the entertainment this new self-ironical "Chav" class have given to the world of reality television, and so on.

Owen Jones also exposes myths about workshy pregnant teens, whose only goal in life is to get on Jeremy Kyle as bullshit. As Jones points out,

"we have developed a distaste for socially useful but poorly paid jobs. This is a spin-off from the new religion of meritocracy, where one's rank in the social hierarchy is supposedly determined on merit."

Our "aspirational" society prefers to determine "merit" in financial terms. This impoverished Abagail's Party view of reality has become the dominant paradigm for both Conservatives and New Labour, as well as the deluded lower middle-classes who aspire to the giddy heights of, say, being able to afford a house with an extra bedroom or dine regularly in a restaurant with a Michelin star.

Much of New Labour's strategy for "monetizing" culture was built upon the squalid, price-obsessed doctrines of the Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA). CBA is essentially an attempt to put a price tag on culture, by judging things like artistic merit and quality, sense of community, pride and other emotional factors in entirely economic terms. This impoverishment of values was a more insidious attack of working class values of collectivism, because it sought to put a price tag on beautiful things and beautiful actions. In essence, what CBA does is it prostitutes culture - a street busker no longer busks for the pleasure of playing music, but does it in order to make X amount of money and give Y amount of pleasure to passers by. Similarly, philosophy professors in University were "less valuable" than business management thickos because people with business management degrees were likely to get higher paid jobs.

As Owen Jones points out, "Chavs" nearly always contribute more social value than the parasites who, in our post-Thatcher world, we should all aspire to become:

"The New Economics Foundation (NEF) think-tank published a report in 2009 comparing the social value of different occupations. Hospital cleaners are generally on the minimum wage. However, NEF calculated that—taking into account the fact they maintain standards of hygiene and contribute to wider health outcomes—they generated over £10 in social value for every £1 they were paid."

In short, lower paid jobs have much higher social value than higher paid jobs. It is therefore ridiculous to feel ashamed about having a low paid, low status job, because these are the very jobs that keep our society functioning. As Owen Jones goes on to suggest:

"Waste recycling workers are another example. They fulfil all sorts of functions, like preventing waste and promoting recycling, as well as re-using goods and keeping down carbon emissions. The NEF model estimated that, for every £1 spent on their wages, another £12 was generated."

By contrast, the jobs promoted by the aspiration culture tended to destroy social value, rather than accumulate it. In other words, they either deserve to be paid much less money, or their jobs are fundamentally useless and self-serving.

"When the think-tank applied the same model to City bankers—taking into account the damaging effects of the City’s financial activities—they estimated that for every £1 they were paid, £7 of social value was destroyed. For advertising executives it was even more: £11 destroyed for every £1 popped into their bank account."

So, the irony is that jobs taken up by "Chavs" are also the most important and fundamental jobs. It is rather shameful, and somewhat ironic, to think that the past 40 years has brought about an aspirational culture where the jobs to be aspired to are parasitic jobs that take social value out of a community rather than put it in. In short, "In modern Britain, you may end up having a low-paid, low-status job even though the contribution you are making to society is enormous."

Both Thatcher and Blair's doctrines have placed enormous burdens on the future generation to get us out of the mess their policies have put us into. The "aspirational" society, in which jobs of a parasitic nature have been sought after, has led to the current problems in our society. With any hope, the Grenfell Tower disaster and the continuing car crash of Donald Trump's presidency may mark the end of this barbaric era and usher in a new period of working class struggle.

Somehow, over the past 40 years, we have reached the point where the lives of working class people are worth so little to the councils who are there to represent their interests as well as the interests of their wealthier clientèle that simple safety requirements were ignored, along with continued complaints from the tenants of the building about a lack of fire safety. Flammable cladding was installed, solely to make the building "blend in" to its gentrified environment (and erase the inhabitants) - a case of social cleansing which has its own symbolic importance - but also endangered the inhabitants to save as little as £500. Undoubtedly, these "savings" were made by the very consultants who, we are force-fed through the media, are people who are society's "winners."

Owen Jones's compassionate study into this subject certainly isn't escapist, but the bleak recent history of the working classes in Britain is brought to life by Jones's sympathetic accounts of working class people. Owen Jones is also a commentator who rarely seems cynical or pessimistic. And his highly readable account offers us a great deal of hope for the future, especially given the unlikely but welcome re-emergence of socialism across the Western world. What appears to be happening is that the grisly neoliberal era is grinding to a humiliating stop. Corbyn and the working classes may face an uphill struggle in future years to reverse the immense damage done to the UK's social fabric. However, what Corbyn, and, to a lesser extent, Jones, both offer, is hope for the future.

What will emerge from the wreckage remains to be seen. However, perhaps more than anything else, the contribution that Owen Jones's book is that it offers an accessible and spirited defence of the working-classes in Britain and their long and arduous struggle. In so doing, the book gives the working classes of Britain one thing that they so richly deserve but so rarely get - some respect. As Jones concludes:

Get rid of all the cleaners, rubbish collectors, bus drivers, supermarket checkout staff and secretaries, for example, and society will very quickly grind to a halt. On the other hand, if we woke up one morning to find that all the highly paid advertising executives, management consultants and private equity directors had disappeared, society would go on much as it did before: in a lot of cases, probably quite a bit better. So, to begin with, workers need to reclaim a sense of pride and social worth. Doing so would be a big step forward in making the case that the wages and conditions of low-paid jobs must be improved in order to reflect the importance they have in all of our lives.

Exactly.