The Likes of Us: a biography of the white working class
Michael Collins Granta, 274pp, £12
ISBN 1862076006
This was an excellent idea for a book. Surprisingly little has been written about the hypocrisy of middle-class contempt for contemporary white, working-class culture. Liberal columnists have been allowed to heap limitless scorn on "white trash" and their shameful racism, and it has been left to a few lone mavericks such as Julie Burchill to point out that piety comes easy when immigration means a cheaper nanny, but less so when it means lower wages and longer waiting lists for housing. The chattering classes appear able to extend compassion to almost any disadvantaged group, yet find nothing but bile for white urban Sun readers, and the anomaly seems well worth investigating.
This could be done in two ways. The first would be to make a detailed study of a white, working-class family that humanised its cultural identity, replacing the lazy stereotype of shaven-headed xenophobes with a more sympathetic and authentic portrayal. The second way would be to write a proper polemic grounded in politics and economics. Either could make a good book. Unfortunately, Michael Collins has tried to do both, and neither with great success.
The first and larger section of The Likes of Us is devoted to the author's own family, which has lived for centuries in Southwark, a downtrodden enclave of south London. Beginning at the turn of the 18th century, Collins traces the generations through the squalor of Victorian slums, the drama of world wars and the personal anatomy of domestic detail. Woven into this narrative is a wider commentary on local social history, with extensive references to contemporary writers, from the novels of Dickens to the daily newspapers. The work is thoroughgoing and diligent.
The problem is that, despite all his research, Collins has failed to come up with particularly interesting material. "The beginning of the fried fish trade," he informs us, "dates from the middle of the 19th century, when costermongers sold on fishmongers' leftovers." In the hands of a gifted writer these pages might have come to life, but in Collins's workmanlike prose they seldom make a much livelier read than the archive documents through which he trawled. In due course, you find yourself wondering where this is all going, and hoping it will hurry up.
When at last we arrive at the polemic, the wait is insufficiently rewarded. Collins contends correctly that Southwark's white working classes have long been exploited and marginalised. He then claims that the left abandoned them when mass immigration began in the 1960s, because liberals became so excited by the new creed of multiculturalism that they forgot all about class: "There was something bumpkin-like about white middle-class journalists from white middle-class backgrounds, living essentially white media-class lives, taking on the mantle of the missionary and spreading the word of their newfound faith to the white working class."
The impact of immigration on white, working-class Southwark was not exclusively positive, he goes on, and so its population was less enthusiastic about the new faith. For this not unreasonable ambivalence, it has been punished ruthlessly by the very intelligentsia who claim to care about the disadvantaged. Branded "Little Englander" racists, Collins's people have been cast beyond the political pale.
I would be interested to hear more of this argument. Frustratingly, The Likes of Us does not help. Its analysis is so weak that it is difficult to know what the author is trying to say. On the one hand, he sneers at a media type who moves into his manor and complains that aubergines are not available in the local shops. On the other hand, he is angry with media types for having previously overlooked his un-fashionable neighbourhood, and seems pleased that the jam factory where his grandmother used to work has been converted into luxury apartments.
The Likes of Us reads less like a social history or a political thesis than like a lengthy expression of the author's resentment. Collins is cross with the Victorians for ignoring Southwark's slums, but also offended by intrepid 19th-century journalists who dared venture in to publicise them. Like, who did they think they were? His latter-day irritants write almost exclusively for the Guardian, and his essential objection seems to be that they are a bunch of phoney middle-class toffs, whereas he is proper working class.
No one could blame him for feeling annoyed, but when there's a good book waiting to be written, a chippy manifesto of somebody's working-class credentials makes a disappointing read.
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