The Social Distance Between Us: How Remote Politics Wrecked Britain

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this move to digitisation reveals perhaps the greatest absurdity of austerity Britain - you cannot own a phone if you’re poor but you can’t access benefits without the internet." Join Darren McGarvey on a journey through a divided Britain in search of answers. Here, our latter-day Orwell exposes the true scale of Britain's social ills and reveals why our current political class, those tasked with bringing solutions, are so distanced from our lived experience that they are the last people you'd want fighting your corner. Eileen M Hunt: Feminism vs Big Brother - Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life by Anna Funder; Julia by Sandra Newman Although I don't agree with everything Darren McGarvey says in "The Social Distance Between Us", I do think he is spot on locating where the major problems in Britain reside. Early in the book, he introduces the concept of "Proximity", which he uses to refer to the distance (politically, geographically, economically, etc) between those with the power in society and those who are either powerless or have little power.

Britain is in a long-distance relationship with reality. A ravine cuts through it, partitioning the powerful from the powerless, the vocal from the voiceless, the fortunate from those too often forgotten. This distance dictates how we identify and relate to society's biggest issues - from homelessness and poverty to policing and overrun prisons - ultimately determining how, and whether, we strive to resolve them. So why, for generations, has a select group of people with very limited experience of social inequality been charged with discussing and debating it? When it comes to the haves and the have-nots in Britain, you don’t have to look far to see the damage. The recent pandemic revealed a nation in a spiralling downturn, its social systems and political connections incapable of pulling up those who lie in the gutter. Working alongside several contributors and utilising a large array of sources, Darren McGarvey’s The Social Distance Between Us is a scathing release, one that demands the attention of any reader. Charting a route through many inequalities in society, McGarvey's argument is deceptively simple- that the social distance we think of now from Covid is only a more modern version of what has been happening societally for centuries, namely that the lives of the poorest and most vulnerable in society are almost never seen by those on the other end of fortune. This was an angrily written book in the best way possible. Many books about social inequality and poverty appear to have a sort of detached viewpoint and write it as a matter of fact - Darren McGarvey is seething and bitter in his exposure of the systemic issues of a multitude of facets like health, housing, and class.

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Overall I felt like it was trying to cover too much ground, and ended up being a bit scattergun. The second half of the book was more interesting and it was strongest when debating the ideas of class in British society.

I am middle-class. I was sent against my will to a government-funded, fee-paying school which I hated. I was dragged reluctantly along the conveyor belt to a minor university. I dropped out. I started to hate the middle class and everything it stood for. So I left it. I became a class-refugee, 'déclassé' as we snooty class-refugees would term it. This was the mid-sixties. I got a job as a gardener at a Stately Home. I was fired because my bean-rows weren't straight. I 'signed on the dole'. I never worked again. Now, thanks to the EU I get an Old Person's dole (900 euros a month) from the French state. How can we solve our biggest social and economic problems if the people in power so rarely understand what it’s really like to be at the sharp end? Having now had over 20 years of direct Scottish control over virtually every issue that the author raises, his silence on any aspect of Scottish administration speaks more loudly than any of the other words in the book. ITV’s Robert Peston - a man so middle class he ought to have a reed diffuser scent named after him." Join Orwell prize-winning author, BAFTA nominated broadcaster and celebrated hip-hop artist Darren McGarvey for his new show centred on his recent book, The Social Distance Between Us. In it Darren confronts the scandal of class inequality with passion, humility and a dose of humour.David Gelber: Chancellors & Chancers - Austria Behind the Mask: Politics of a Nation since 1945 by Paul Lendvai For me so called immigration anxieties are projections and pretexts that would take some other form if it were not for immigration. As the author put it in plain speak 'a political red herring '. A troubling tale of disaffection between classes in Britain – it's resolute in its class-based analysis, despite how out of fashion that is, and after reading this book it's difficult to disagree. That makes it an uncomfortable read for any middle-class person, since it's the middle class who takes the brunt of Garvey's assignment of blame. By allowing the working class to be demonised, and by allowing the creation of a benefits and support environment at least as "hostile" as that facing immigrants, the stage has been set for a breach between people that allows everyone to be manipulated by those in power. There are stories of people leaving rehab early because they’ll lose their home - the state won’t pay rent and rehab. People having their benefits stopped because they’re late to an appointment with no discretion - one man was trying to help his suicidal sister…