Just before Christmas I finished reading Paul Embery's 'Despised: Why the Modern Left Loathes the Working Class'.
It is very good, although I fear that the people who need to read it, and to learn from it, will not. Embery risks that cruellest of fates, being a Prophet in his own land, destined only to be heard from those outside his own tribe.
These are some of the lines on which he finishes the book:
We have learned that any drive to create an 'open' 'diverse' and 'progressive' nation will alienate a large part of the populace if it is forced upon them too rapidly, violates their sense of order and belonging, and comes at the expense of social solidarity and stability.
The British working class has found its voice. Politics in our country is realigning at speed as the old tribalisms crumble. The Left, if it is to halt the slide towards irrelevance, had better start listening.
I suspect this overstates the extent to which life may be breathed into a corpse. But that politics is realigning, is self-evident. And it is genuinely exciting.
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