1/ #WhitePrivilege It is not anti-racism that has caused white working class kids to perform badly at school, and it's cynical and divisive of the Tories to suggest otherwise.

But there is clearly a problem among a segment of the white working class. So some thoughts.
2/ Deindustrialisation has hit the working class hard. Employment patterns, communities and working class organisations have crumbled. Millions of stable unskilled jobs have disappeared and those that remain are often in the gig economy.
3/ Since the 1970s patterns of working class life that had endured for generations have disappeared. Many working class people have adapted and thrived in the post-industrial economy, but many others are struggling in a less stable economy that demands higher skills.
4/ If I am right, and I could well be wrong, this has particularly hit the unskilled working class. A harsh but stable economy, with little economic mobility meant that they saw little benefit in education, and much benefit in getting into paid work as soon as possible.
5/ The UK was the first country to industrialise. In consequence its economic growth rate was slow compared to countries which have industrialised more recently. That meant that class structures could ossify over generations.
6/ In faster growing economies the poor can aspire for their children to do better than them, and that puts a premium on education. But in economically and socially ossified Britain many people abandoned hope of advancement and took pride in being just where they were.
7/ So, if I am right, attitudes to education which made sense to many people in socially ossified industrial Britain are now blocking the educational paths of a significant proportion of working class children.
8/ This naturally affects the white working class most because over the 150 years or so of industrial Britain the working class was overwhelmingly white. We've thought a lot about the economic effects of deindustrialisation, but little about the cultural and social effects.

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More from @nickreeves9876

20 Jun
Bercow says the Tories have become “reactionary, populist, nationalistic and sometimes even xenophobic”, and that "people are sick of lies, sick of empty slogans, sick of a failure to deliver.’’

This is what Starmer should be saying - the plain truth about the Tories.
I like Starmer, he's decent and intelligent, but he is a hopeless leader, like a rabbit frozen in the headlights. He should be rallying Labour support on all sides of the party through an all-out attack on the Tories - and there is so much to attack.
Starmer acts like he's in a courtroom. He's very good at it. But politics isn't like that. It's about the relentless repetition of simple emotionally charged messages, and Starmer is far too polite and reasonable for that.
Read 4 tweets
30 May
1/ Tory misrule is populist ideology in action. In populism the 'Will of the People' authorises an elected government to smash through laws, rules, norms or Parliamentary scutiny. In short it is elected dictatorship posing as an ideal form of democracy.
2/ The present outbreak of populist misrule in the UK has its root in Brexit politics when the Brexiters copied the Nazis in using a referendum victory to demonise those opposing or seen as hindering Brexit as enemies of the 'democratic will of the people'.
3/ Dictators stage & win votes, because democracy isn't just about votes. It's equally about the right to oppose, the rule of law and accurate information - all of which were cynically violated by the Brexiters & continue to be violated by the Tories & their media allies.
Read 4 tweets
12 May
Andy Burnham urges UK to 'embrace' Brexit as 'new reality'

No @AndyBurnhamGM, Brexit damages the country, robs us of our Freedom of Movement and was obtained through the worst abuses of democracy in modern British history. Brexit is a crime.
theneweuropean.co.uk/brexit-news/we…
Dear Andy Burnham, Labour cannot properly challenge Tory authoritarianism until it accepts that the Tory attack on our democracy began with the tsunami of Brexit lies and hate propaganda and Vote Leave's electoral fraud which robbed us of a fair vote.
Labour cannot properly challenge Tory authoritarianism until it accepts that after the referendum the Brexiters unleashed the fascist notion that the "Will of the People" overrides the democratic right to oppose and legal and Parliamentary checks on government power.
Read 4 tweets
7 May
1/ Where Labour may be going wrong is by looking too woke. Labour was always a party that cared for ordinary working people. Its concern for minorities was always anchored in that care for the great mass of ordinary people.
2/ Labour was seldom the main force driving social liberalisation, but it didn't oppose it either, and when liberalising projects gained social traction Labour governments put the changes into law.
3/ Labour in the Corbyn years was often seen (perhaps unfairly) as being more interested in minorities than in the great mass of ordinary folk, and more interested in cutting edge ideas for social reform rather than in the concerns of ordinary people.
Read 6 tweets
4 May
1/ Working class support for the Tories isn't just due to disorientated people in a fragmented society clinging onto tribal nationalism.

It's also because economic stagnation makes economics and politics seem like a zero sum struggle for resources between social groups.
2/ Economic and social change has disrupted the white working class more than any other large social group. They feel that as natives they deserve preferential treatment, and feel that the liberal-left focus on minorities betrays them.
3/ So identification with the bogus security and solidarity of tribal nationalism is augmented by a bitter white nativist resentment against a progressive politics that they believe puts them at the back of the queue.
Read 5 tweets
4 May
1/ I think we need a centre-left populism. I think it should be aimed at the tax-dodging rich and the Tory elite. Rich bastards screwing hard-working honest taxpayers. Link that with Tory corruption and I think you've got something.
2/ An attack on the alliance of the Tory elite and the tax-dodging rich can pull in support from the Left and from the middle class and from decent tax-paying businesses. It's an attack on a very small venal, corrupt and cheating elite that is screwing the rest of us.
3/ I see deindustrialisation as having destroyed 20th century class politics. It's created a fragmented and disorientated populace open to manipulation by a very small coherent and well-financed elite.
Read 6 tweets

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