Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class

by Owen Jones

How did this generational divide become so entrenched to the extent it has severely disrupted class politics? A million pensioners were lifted out of poverty by New Labour in the noughties, and their living standards have been protected by the triple lock, increasing and already very high levels of homeownership, and booming house prices thanks in part to post-crash quantitative easing.9 Older Britons are the most socially conservative on issues such as immigration, Islam, LGBTQ rights and feminism. Younger Britons, meanwhile, have suffered one of the worst wage squeezes in the industrialised world, as well as collapsing levels of home ownership combined with a depletion of social housing, driving them into an unregulated and rip-off private rented sector.10 They are saddled with debt for daring to aspire to a university education which benefits all of society; services they rely on have been decimated; and cuts to social security have hammered low-paid young workers. They have the most progressive social norms of any generation, articles of faith they quite understandably believe are under attack. It is this divide in economic security and social values that surely explains the political chasm separating the generations.