The Social Distance Between Us: How Remote Politics Wrecked Britain

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It all boils down to education. I moved to France because of Brexit, being ineluctably middle-class, and the blessed Irish Nationality which, being a middle-class protestant, I had to claim. (When Thatcher sold off council houses I tore up my imperialist British passport.) I was ashamed to be British and to be white, as well as ashamed of my class. France has a terrible education system based on rote - but not based on class. Class is a much more simple and honest thing in France : it's the small élite versus the rest, just as it was before the Revolution. 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? 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. Funder reveals how O’Shaughnessy Blair self-effacingly supported Orwell intellectually, emotionally, medically and financially ... why didn’t Orwell do the same for his wife in her equally serious time of need?’ 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."

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. Why are the rich getting richer while the poor only get poorer? How is it possible that in a wealthy, civilised democracy cruelty and inequality are perpetuated by our own public services? And how come, if all the best people are in all the top jobs, Britain is such an unmitigated bin fire? It is a book that managed to make me both sad and angry. It made me question myself, living in a middle-class bubble, oblivious to others.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. These days I live in a little terrace miles away from the nearest town. I work from home, and the work I do is business-to-business writing. The closest I get to experiencing working class people now is when I stop and chat to the cleaners on my monthly visit to head office. I’ve got to be honest, I like it that way. I’m one of the few people who, in the words of McGarvey, is ‘ grateful for the exacting dimensions of the sand box you’ve been allowed to play in’. I still think of myself as working class, but I’ve got to be honest, I’m much more of a reed diffuser kind of guy these days. 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.

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. 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. Towards the end, he worries success will blunt his firebrand tendencies. But then he provides a manifesto for transforming Britain that includes the abolition of fee-paying schools and the strengthening of trade unions, and it’s clear his enduring radicalism is a given. Since leaving the corporate world, I realise that putting shareholder value above all else will destroy the future of our children. The RRP is the suggested or Recommended Retail Price of a product, set by the publisher or manufacturer.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. Some years ago, I was dragged along to Barnsley Civic Centre to a concert by the Pitmen Poets. I have a general rule that I don’t like any poetry that I haven’t written, and the fact that this concert was going to be two-plus hours of traditional folk songs interspersed with other peoples’ poetry left me cold. Much to my surprise, Bob Fox and his band were amazingly good, and I was soon swept along with the moment.