The Social Distance Between Us: How Remote Politics Wrecked Britain

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The RRP is the suggested or Recommended Retail Price of a product, set by the publisher or manufacturer. My main issue is this. As an immigrant myself and from own experience Britain's concept of poverty seems to be through the a capitalist lense, excessive materialism and consumerism. The book covers topics such as unequal health outcomes, addiction, aspiration, class and much more, using this lens to show how inured many people's lives are from seeing the reality around them.

His analysis of existing political positions and parties is equally insightful; I found his analysis and critique of the left (with whom I share many of his sympathies and frustrations) particularly so.

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.

This distance multiplies over time, as those who pass laws and oversee programmes to support the most vulnerable often live the kinds of lives that rarely interact with those who they are aiming to support. 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… 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. It is in his castigation of middle-class people that McGarvey is most challenging. His dismissal of their woolly liberalism, and their distance from the grinding reality of poverty, is full of sweeping generalisations. But maybe that’s the point. Working-class people face sweeping generalisations all the time. Maybe he is holding a mirror up to middle-class prejudices, and we just don’t like our own reflection. 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.found there were four times more prescriptions for strong opioids dispensed to people in the most deprived areas, than those in the most affluent areas." But I was able to be downwardly mobile precisely because of my education. Although I hated school, I loved learning, and was good at English, French, Biology and German. This meant that I could sustain myself morally and intellectually.

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 '. The rules are decided a group of people, many of whom are privately educated, personally wealthy & from the middle & upper classes, who have rarely suffered through the severe hardship that poverty brings, some even being 'parachuted' into safe parliament seats. The author asks: how can those who are socially removed or at a distance to those experiencing these problems fully empathise & legislate accordingly? For example, how can a millionaire Chancellor of the Exchequer know how it feels to try & survive on Job Seekers? The author doesn't tirade against the middle & upper classes as being deliberately harmful or fundamentally bad people but argues that this "social distance" disproportionately harms those who are already the most vulnerable.The book is at its best as a piece of reportage; powerful stories of individuals told with empathy.