Hanley, Lynsey (8 June 2011). "Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class by Owen Jones – review". The Guardian . Retrieved 12 October 2014. In pursuit of answers, “Chavs” covers a lot of ground. It’s a history of the British class system, a long-form indictment of Margaret Thatcher’s social and economic policies and a rowdy broadside against London’s elite media and political circles. Its combination of wit and outrage, at least in the early chapters, is intoxicating. Jones' television appearances include Jeremy Vine, Politics Live, Good Morning Britain and University Challenge.

Take away the heart of a community and it will wilt and begin to die. ‘The community just disintegrated,’ says Mrs Parry. ‘There was just nothing left for nobody. They tried to fetch various works up to the industrial estate, but every one’s just left after two or three years. Loads and loads of men over forty-five never worked again, because they were too old.’ Mrs Parry is a woman battered by events that were outside her control. I met her in the centre of Ashington, a 27,000-strong community about seventeen miles north of Newcastle. It was the world’s biggest mining village until the local pit closed in 1986, just a year after the defeat of the Miners’ Strike. Thousands were thrown out of work; the community has never recovered. How this came to pass in Britain, which has long revered its stalwart working class, is Mr. Jones’s primordial subject in “Chavs.” The book poses this principled question: How did the salt of the earth come to be viewed as the scum of the earth? Writing about a tabloid crime that seemed to indict England’s lower classes, Mr. Jones declares, “The episode was like a flare, momentarily lighting up a world of class and prejudice in modern Britain.” Flood, Alison (31 August 2011). "Guardian first book award longlist: fiction takes lead". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077 . Retrieved 13 November 2011.When did liberal men start thinking it was acceptable to tell feminists that they aren't feminist enough?". The Independent. 25 March 2017 . Retrieved 17 October 2023.

In only a decade or so, Thatcherism had completely changed how class was seen,” Mr. Jones writes. “The wealthy were adulated. All were now encouraged to scramble up the social ladder, and be defined by how much they owned. Those who were poor or unemployed had no one to blame but themselves.” Jones, a twenty-something year old former trade union lobbyist and self-proclaimed ‘lefty’, presents his argument through contrived facts, figures and twisted examples. To give him credit, he does make some interesting, relevant and insightful comments. It is here where my problem arises: his use of unrelated examples frustratingly distract the reader from the essentially valid points. In his attempt to cover a lot of ground, Jones loses sight of what is relevant and what is not. Cruddas, Jon (3 June 2011). "Book of the week: Chavs: the demonization of the working class by Owen Jones". The Independent. London . Retrieved 15 September 2011.One of many snide accusations against the poor is that they ruin themselves by spending their money on frivolous and luxury items. The reality could not be further from the truth. Chris Tapp, debt expert and director of Credit Action, reveals that his organization rarely has to educate low-paid people when it comes to budgeting. ‘People at the bottom end of the income spectrum are better at managing their money day-to-day than people at the top end, because they absolutely need to be,’ he explains. ‘If you’ve got only a very limited amount of money coming in every week, and you’ve got to pay your bills, buy the food and feed the kids off that, then you have to be darn good at managing that.’ Poorer people are much more concerned with spending wisely than wealthy ones are, he says. Pinochet shared one of the main aims of his ideological soulmates in Britain: to erase the working class as a concept. His goal, he declared, was to ‘make Chile not a nation of proletarians, but a nation of entrepreneurs’.” And then you go and spoil it all by doing something stupid like criticising Gordon Brown for calling that bigoted woman 'bigoted'. And by saying that she made 'mild' remarks about immigration. MILD?! Neather, Andrew (23 April 2011). "The Marx effect". London Evening Standard . Retrieved 8 May 2012.