I’m writing this almost immediately after the policy was announced on Thursday so, by the time you are reading it, I’ve no idea where the policy is up to or what the reaction to it has been. What I do suspect, however, is if you want a live action, real-time unfolding of why people hate Labour, this is it. I am, of course, talking about Rachel Reeves’ dual cost-of-living busting policy to freeze a planned rise in fuel duty and to cut VAT on summer days out. You can read about it here. Not to put too fine a point on it, but both these policies are pointless and will accomplish next to nothing. Especially, it must be said, for those who most need help.

On the one hand, the government have unveiled a freeze in fuel duty. So, their answer to a serious cost of living crisis, their great plan to help people facing ever-rising living costs, is not to make anything cheaper or to give people a rise in their money coming in. Their answer is to freeze something that is entirely their choice to raise and to promise not to make petrol even more expensive than it already is. This is not helping, it is simply choosing not to do something that would obviously make the problem even worse. It’s like attending an oil spill and then claiming that you were going to dump your own sewage into it as well, but you’ve decided against it in order to be helpful. It is absolutely laughable that this can get passed off as helping rather than what it is actually is, planning on making the cost of living worse and then choosing not to.

But to be fair to her, Rachel Reeves is planning an actual cut. Only, it’s not a cut on anything that people inevitably have to use, it’s a VAT cut on summer days out. For the most part, those who can’t afford food and electricity at the moment were probably not planning on taking their families to Alton Towers. Those who can afford to take their families to big attractions will obviously be marginally happier to save £17 off their c. £130 family ticket, but I suspect that £17 is not going to change their life or make any great difference to whether they bought food that week or not. This is a cut that is only going to benefit more wealthy families and the benefit it gives to them is about as minimal as it comes. If £17 will be the difference between whether you eat or not, you aren’t taking your family to Thorpe Park VAT cut or no VAT cut. If you are planning to take them, you probably don’t need the VAT cut and it is unlikely to make a huge difference to your day to day living.

These measures are facile and evidence the problem with mainstream politics in this country more broadly. As I noted here, rather than offer any sort of radical change and seek to fix the systemic problems that cause so many of the issues that blight people’s lives, mainstream parties content themselves to tinker reactively around the edges. In this case, not even offering actual reductions in costs or raises in income but simply promising not to make life even harder for people in the way they had originally planned to do. I am no fan of Reform and I have misgivings about the Greens, but it is impossible to blame people who are fed up with this kind of asinine tinkering being passed off as generous, benevolent and in any way actually helpful. The Tories and Labour have consistently let people down and they are now insisting on trying an entirely different form of politics altogether.

What all the mainstream parties need to grasp is that people are not really voting Reform or Green because they are bowled offer by what’s on offer. They are voting for these leftwing and rightwing populist parties, both of whom cast themselves as anti-system and are prepared to radically alter the existing setup, because they cannot tolerate more of the same inane policies and fatuous claims of help that have little to no bearing on their lives. Many are aware that populists make promises that won’t be delivered, but they are at a point now where they are willing to roll the dice on it, knowing that if even some of what is being mooted is implemented, it will go further in benefitting their lives than what they have settled for at least over the last 15-20 years. Whilst I am yet to be convinced by these alternative offerings, I do not blame people in the slightest for being swayed by them.

The church does well to heed this lesson too. Sometimes people will leave churches despite every good being done and the church loving them well. This is always sad and very unfortunate, but there is not a right lot the church can do about it. And yet, other times, people will leave the church specifically because what we are doing is so tone deaf to their needs and does very little for them. I say this thinking in the broadest terms of everything from the preaching and teaching through to our interactions with one another entirely apart from the formal service and everything in between. if we don’t understand people and their needs, even the very help we offer is likely to be poorly received no matter how well intentioned we might be.

I think this is especially true when it concerns the majority middle class church seeking to help the working class amongst them. As I previously noted here, Darren McGarvey made note of this in his book Poverty Safari (forgive the lengthy quote):

It’s usually the case that those who feel misrepresented or marginalised by an aspect of mainstream culture attribute this misrepresentation to either the ignorance or malign intentions of a more dominant, privileged class. For some people it’s men, for some it’s white people, for some it’s able-bodied or straight people and for others it’s the English or the Americans. Everyone sees the world through their own particular lens, so it will not surprise you, given the subjective nature of culture and identity, that I am going to make the argument that class, above all, remains the primary dividing line in our society. In truth, it’s less a line and more an industrial-scale wound. Whether placing your blind faith in the advice of a doctor, being assessed or disciplined by a teacher, interviewed by a social worker or children’s panel, cuffed by a police officer and advised by a lawyer before appearing it front of a judge, class is the elephant in every room.

It’s no great surprise that when lower class people interface with a mainstream culture, created predominantly by and for people from higher up the food chain, whether it be newspapers, television or radio, that they often feel they’re viewing a parody of reality. The reality with which they are presented appears so jarringly disfigured that they are forced to scratch their heads and ask ‘Who the hell comes up with this stuff?” The questions being posed and the issues being explored in ‘mainstream culture’ often feel infuriatingly shallow, twee or wide-of-the-mark. This is nobody’s fault, but too often culture itself becomes something people feel they exist outside of.

However, contrary to the conspiracy theories many of us concoct to explain it, there may be a far simpler explanation for why mainstream culture leaves so many noses out of joint: social mobility. The concerns of the dominant social classes become more culturally prominent than others because the dominant classes are more socially mobile. It follows that they would ascend to positions of influence and preside over a society that reflects their own interests. If you come from a more affluent background and are more socially mobile, then it’s comparatively easier for you to move up the ladder and maintain your position because you have less distance to travel and aren’t carrying as much baggage. This explains why, those who begin life farther up the food chain tend to end up either owning, managing, prescribing, running, directing, publishing, commissioning, editing, administering or legislating for every aspect of our lives. Even organisations that appear to care about the needs and concerns of the lower classes, like charities or tabloid newspapers, are usually controlled by people who have only a theoretical conception of what being poor entails. There are, of course, exceptions to the rule but the further up you go, the more aware you become of a prevailing sensibility that one must not offend. One which is increasingly at odds with everyone else. This specialist class have their hands firmly on the levers at every level of society and naturally create it in their own image by doing what we all do: assuming their interests, preferences and aspirations are universal. Anything outside of that is a ‘counter-culture’, an insurgency or a glitch in the matrix.

You must assume that nobody wants anyone else to feel excluded. But when attempting to express our thoughts and opinions across vast gulfs in social and cultural experience, nuance gets lost in translation. Good intentions become obscured and the wider the gulf, the likelier the chance of a misunderstanding. It’s this tension between the various competing perspectives that festers under the bonnet of our society, becoming an engine of resentment, bad faith and even hate. In Scotland, the poverty industry is dominated by a left-leaning, liberal, middle class. Because this specialist class is so genuinely well-intentioned when it comes to the interests of people in deprived communities, they get a bit confused, upset and offended when those very people begin expressing anger towards them. It never occurs to them, because they see themselves as the good guys, that the people they purport to serve may, in fact, perceive them as chancers, careerists or charlatans. They regard themselves as champions of the under class and therefore, should any poor folk begin to get their own ideas or, God forbid, rebel against the poverty experts, the blame is laid at the door of the complainants for misunderstanding what is going on. In fact, these types are often so certain of their own insight and virtue that they won’t think twice before describing working class people they purport to represent, as engaging in self harm if they vote for a right-wing political party. Not only does this broadcast a worrying lack of self-awareness regarding why many are turning away from the left, but it also implies that those who no longer see the value in our ideas or methods are not just ungrateful, but also stupid.

In 2014, the Glasgow School of Art caught fire. It was a unique building designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and its loss was spoken of in the language of national tragedy. Pictures of the blaze adorned the front page of every paper and politicians like then First Minister Alex Salmond as well as celebrities like Brad Pitt responded almost instantly, deploying vast resources and guaranteeing financial assistance to the School and the students affected. The Art School’s prominent place in our national psyche provoked such a broad public response that the incident, in which nobody died or was injured, dominated the headlines for days. But the public response wasn’t that broad. In truth, it was very narrow. The reaction only came from a certain section of the public, who felt connected to the Art School in some way. Most people in Glasgow weren’t that bothered. After a few days of constant talk of the fire, its implications and whether the damage was permanent or could be salvaged, some (myself included) began to get irritated by what felt like the disproportionate coverage. Many of us were offended at the amount of time dedicated to this story, not just because we had no real interest in contemporary art, but because we grew up in communities where things burn down all the time. Where schools are bulldozed against our wishes. Where cultural heritage is seized before being turned over to private developers. Where roads are built through our land so that people from the suburbs can drive to places like the Glasgow School of Art without having to wait in offensive traffic queues.

‘But it’s the art school,’ people cried, implying their interests were universal. ‘Who gives a toss?’ was the uneducated, vulgar response. The perception of the Glasgow School of Art, to those who felt connected to it, was equal to the lack of concern of those who didn’t. But in the days that followed, there was no scrutiny or discussion of why so many people didn’t care. Apparently, that wasn’t interesting or important. There was only an assumption that those who didn’t partake in the national grief were uncultured. Because, you know, there could be no other explanation; no legitimate reason not to care about the Glasgow School of Art, because, you know, it’s the Glasgow School of Art. Such a backward view could only be the result of a lack of understanding. But it’s arguable that it was those who considered themselves educated and cultured who were missing the point.

That same summer, Glasgow was to host the Commonwealth Games. If the media and politicians were to be believed, this was a time of unbroken national unity and pride. But in the shadow of the games, residents of the surrounding schemes of Bridgeton, Parkhead and Dalmarnock were angry about the disruption to their daily lives and the lack of consultation prior to these disruptions. This received very little press attention. Granted, a couple of local newspapers did cover it, but the story got lost in the carnival narrative engulfing the country. Instead, Glasgow City Council positively beamed about the jewel in the crown of their Commonwealth extravaganza: a public Wi-Fi system, designed especially for the games so that affluent international sports fans could explore the city without having to log out of Facebook. As well as the new Wi-Fi service, thousands of signs were placed around the city, in over 50 languages, directing people to and from venues, stadia and various other places of cultural interest. Meanwhile, in historically deprived communities like Cranhill in Glasgow’s East End, which still haven’t been signposted despite existing for over 60 years, community centres were providing a Wi-Fi service that would make the ’90s blush. Young people, at war with exasperated community centre staff and police, were terrorising the area with acts of vandalism and arson. Bouquets of dead flowers were tied to the fence just along from a playpark, marking another senseless alcohol fuelled death. These are the type of communities where trains don’t run to, where bus timetables aren’t worth the paper they are printed on.

But everyone was so caught up the in the carnival narrative constructed, mainly by all the people who had been cut into the Commonwealth action, that nobody realised the shameful levels of social deprivation and political exclusion running parallel to shindig. As Glasgow City Council and the Scottish Government basked in the glory of international recognition, poor communities were being disrupted, ignored and patronised. To add insult to injury, they were also priced out of the games as well as many of the peripheral events set up to cash in. Meanwhile, back in Cranhill, if you walked into the library, it could take as long as 15 minutes for a computer to fully boot up and become operational. Then you had the shoddy Wi-Fi service to contend with. People sitting in their homes watching the carnival on television could have been forgiven for thinking: am I living in the same world as these people? But by expressing displeasure or frustration about the galling inequity at play, then you rain on the parade. You’re seen as obstructing progress or regarded as incapable of grasping the broader picture of what is really going on. You are not being ‘constructive’. When you live in these communities, it always feels as if your concerns are regarded as narrow-minded, short-sighted and parochial; the story that ascends is the story that meets the needs of the many. Which, coincidentally, usually aligns with what many in these areas would regard as ‘middle class’. See Stewart Lee for an example of this.

Perhaps that could explain why some people, in the aftermath of Brexit, began referring to an ‘elite intelligensia’ to the absolute delight of many Stewart Lee enthusiasts. They were, perhaps clumsily, trying to describe the phenomenon whereby the accepted culture, comprising news, politics and entertainment, which they were presented with every day, was contradicted and undermined by the reality of their own lives. Perhaps they were trying to express how the vast contrast between the world they were being presented with as reality and the one they were actually living in was so stark that they could only conclude it was a deliberate fabrication.

Granted, this conclusion is often rooted in paranoia and a lack of insight into the decision-making processes taking place inside government and the media. Lack of insight often leads to the creation of myths as people pour hyperbole into the gaps in their understanding. But these assumptions aren’t always that wide of the mark. It’s quite true that people who work across culture, framing, dissecting and superimposing meaning onto events, for the rest of us to consume, very often hail from more privileged backgrounds than the demographics they cater to. So naturally, leads to a cultural narrative that leaves many people scratching their heads.

Brexit Britain, in all its dysfunction, disorder and vulgarity, is perhaps a glimpse of what happens when people start becoming aware of the fact they haven’t been cut into the action but have no real mechanism to enfranchise themselves beyond voting. Brexit Britain is a snapshot of how things sound when people who are rarely heard decide to grab the microphone and start telling everybody how it is. When people vote against their own interests because they don’t think it’s going to matter either way. People who are then called ‘arseholes’ and ‘scum’ by middle class liberals for expressing genuine shock that their vote actually did bring about change – for the first time in their lives. Luckily, the ‘liberal intelligentsia’ and the ‘metropolitan elite’ possess enough influence, cultural capital and personal agency to construct their own vast parallel reality in the event that coarse, under class concerns do start bleeding into the conversation. A parallel reality where ‘twibbons’, safety pins, free-hugs, Huffington Post think pieces, Tumblr blogs and gender-neutral gingerbread products are all that’s needed to resolve a crisis, When the full wrath of working class anger is brought to bear on the domain of politics, sending ripples through our culture, it’s treated like a national disaster. Following these political earthquakes, a deluge of condescending, patronising and emotionally hysterical social media posts, blogs and online campaigns are launched, ruminating about the extinction level event – which is what is declared whenever this specialist class, on the left or right, get a vague sense that they are no longer calling the shots. That they have been defied. That culture is no longer being curated with them in mind. For these people, not getting their way feels like abuse.

The morning of Brexit, multiple crises were announced simultaneously by middle class librals, progressives and radicals, who were suddenly confronted with the vulgar and divided country the rest of us had been living in for decades. A country filled with violence and racism. A country where people had become so alienated by the mainstream conversation that they were beginning to create their own parallel cultures and even their own ‘alternative facts’. It was infuriating to witness one hyperventilating Guardian subscriber after the other, lamenting how a once-great nation had gone to the dogs.

Of course, by ‘dogs’ they meant the working class.

In the week following Brexit, I was operating in several communities across the city, all with high migrant populations. However, contrary to the pronouncements of many people on social media, who took the liberty of announcing Armageddon on everybody’s behalf, immigrants and the poor were very calm. Life continued as normal. Local people organised cultural diversity events in solidarity with migrants and refugees. Gazebos were erected in parks to distribute micro-grants to local groups. Young people attended music lessons in youth clubs held in churches – not a journalist in sight.

In these communities, it was just another week. Here, violence is present every day – it doesn’t ‘spike’. Here, racism is a horrible fact of life – it isn’t ‘unleashed’. Of course, many foreign nationals were very anxious about what this referendum result would mean for their citizenship in the UK. Many people of colour received horrendous racial abuse from morons who took Brexit as a green light to engage in bullying and hooliganism. It was perfectly appropriate that communities moved quickly to acknowledge those fears and to show unconditional solidarity with those affected. But much of the outrage that was flying around had nothing to do with what immigrants actually thought or felt; it was about people using those issues to conceal their own naked classism. Thankfully, in the following days and weeks this group of well-meaning millennials managed to compose themselves, exercising tremendous personal restraint by comparing the experience of not getting their way in a vote to fascism and accusing anyone who thought that was a bit over the top of apologising for Nazis. – McGarvey, D., Poverty Safari, Luath Press, Edinburgh, 2017, pp.123-131

Our country needs to get a grip politically, but I think churches similarly need to understand this problem lest we suffer the same fate and find, as much as we want to help in the most well-intentioned of ways, people ultimately vote with their feet because they do not reckon we are doing anything for them. The sad truth is, they are often probably right.