The Social Distance Between Us: How Remote Politics Wrecked Britain

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I also found it interesting that the majority of his anecdotes and interviews with people experiencing the problems faced in the UK were young men (or at least the ones he described in enough detail to stick in my memory). I’ve had a second-hand copy of Poverty Safari on my shelves for ages, but I’d not got round to opening it. Too many people remain so far from this nightmarish social reality that even when they would earnestly wish to bring about change, they don't know where to start.

The SNP has exactly one index entry, on the page which lists the proportion of parties’ MPs who are landlords. The lack of actual lived experience of policy makers in Whitehall and the devolved nations, make policies fail miserably; in many cases not by ill-intent, but because the policy makers just cannot fathom what the actual problem is and how it can be addressed. A no holds barred social and political commentary that is bang up to date and spot on in its conclusions. As a guide to how we reached this critical moment, though, McGarvey’s book is vital and indispensable. This includes drug addicts, evicted tenants, young people with nowhere to go and prisoners who are keen to talk about their struggles through music.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. YES: Darren McGarvey delivers a searing indictment of the UK system that everyone needs to read, regardless of their individual place and circumstances. The Social Distance Between Us packs a ton of detail into its pages, showing how the struggles of the poor are closely connected to broken social systems. The book may shock anyone who believes that class no longer exists in Britain or that the country has become a meritocracy. I fear it will preach to the converted, and so won't teach the people that need to read it anything.

All of author and documentary-maker Darren McGarvey’s work is a provocation, and I am easily provoked. I was a nuisance at the Dole Office, particularly when I rushed to the defence of an illiterate unemployed man who was being treated abominably by the middle-class woman on the other side of the wire.

He breaks down the rotten situation consuming the working class then proceeds to lay out how we reached this point. He drills down to the heart of these problems and ties them in to how they are perceived by the middle and upper classes.

The whole book is a shocking, moving, beautifully written exercise in exposing what needs to be shown in bright light but I despair that those who should read it, probably won’t. When McGarvey talks about class he does so in terms of there extremes, those from secure working class families and struggling lower middle class families may find slightly alienating. It was lengthy compared to the usual novels I read but it was definitely worth the time I spent reading it.There are stories of people leaving rehab early because they’ll lose their home - the state won’t pay rent and rehab.

Because I was "well-spoken" I was told that I was not to "sign on" every fortnight, that my generous dole would be sent out to me by girocheck. This book lays bare the facts that confirm Britain is a country divided, one that is still in the grasp of class warfare.Since leaving the corporate world, I realise that putting shareholder value above all else will destroy the future of our children. Might not be fresh, might even read tad repetitive if you follow British politics closely, but it's poignant account of this particular place country found itself in. 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. In successive chapters, McGarvey looks at education, employment, prisons, addiction and much more, charting in rigorous and rage-inducing detail the way the system operates to further disadvantage those who already have the least.