ThePoliticalReader: Courting Demons - The Conservatives and the Working Class

The Political Reader reviews and recommends political books. He blogs at www.thepoliticalreader.com and tweets as @PoliticalReader.

Owen Jones, author of "Chavs: The Demonization of the Working-Class", is in no doubt as to who is to blame for the current condition of Britain’s working-class: Thatcher. Whilst Jones, a member of Britain’s contemporary socialist intelligentsia, may find himself at odds with many readers of this site (and indeed many working-class Britons who benefited from such policies as the “right to buy”), voting figures continue to show that even if this is not the reality, it is the broadly held perception. This is an issue for a Conservative Party that has struggled to move past the legacy of the 1980s as much as the socialist movement. However, as the Conservatives must improve their performance in working-class communities (especially those in the North West) if they are to win an outright majority at the next election, what can they learn from Jones’ book about how to paint the working-class bits of the map blue in 2015?