The working classes are looked down upon for very different reasons than in the past, argues a new book.
"I felt that the status quo in both parties had rather taken for granted, rather ignored, the kind of people I went to school with - and the kind of people who, before the phrase became commonplace, were being 'left behind' by politicians of both parties."image caption"Working-class voters in places like Consett, places in the North East and Yorkshire, the Midlands - post-industrial places that had been long forgotten, just flexed their muscles for the first time.
In his book, he argues that this is a new form of snobbery, more "insidious" than traditional forms because it "questions people's ability to participate in the democratic process".Labour supporters and members of the People's Vote campaign for another referendum were particularly susceptible to it, he claims.
Like other writers, on both the left and right, Skelton points the finger at a misguided version of meritocracy, which gives people fortunate enough to have had a good education licence to look down on those who haven't.In fact, his definition of the working class - always a slippery concept in post-industrial Britain - is people who did not go to university.
In this respect, his book, The New Snobbery, is very similar to another recent book, The Dignity of Labour, by Labour MP John Cruddas, whoSkelton is an admirer of Cruddas's work, and like him sees salvation in the return of high-quality, well-paid jobs in manufacturing. Skelton says the "headlong rush" towards deindustrialisation - and the switch to a service-based economy - in the 1980s and 1990s was a mistake.He claims that under Boris Johnson there has been "a change in mindset and certainly a change in rhetoric" at the top of the Conservative Party. Hardline Thatcherite economics are increasingly out of favour - and "levelling up" is the latest buzzword, with promises to spend money on neglected parts of the country.
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