[Thu 1st Mar 2012] Class Wars/Culture Wars: Owen Jones and the Chavs (London, WC2A 2AE)

[butchersapron]

She's some kind of business type.
Edit: Founder of Ariadne Capital among other things:
http://www.entrepreneurcountryforum.com/speakers/julie-meyer

Oh great 5 people from oxbridge and someone normal for balance. I take it Jones is the comedy act this week?

 

[articul8]

Prescott's not Oxbridge?

 

[JHE]

unless you count Ruskin

 

[butchersapron]

True, his college merely has a special relationship with oxbridge. Down to 4 1/2 out of 6.

 

[treelover]

Julie Meyer is a very aggressive free marketeer/neo-liberal, it will be an interesting programme...

 

[manny-p]

Brace yerselves - he's doing Question Time this week
<dons flak helmet>

Edit: With Ken Clarke, Susan Kramer, John Prescott and Julie Meyer, in case anyone cares.

When is questions time on again? Ain't watched that shite in years.

 

[articul8]

Tonight (Thursday) - round half ten I think

 

[dynamicbaddog]

It's rare to get a socialist on a platform like Question Time. I hope he does well

 

[JHE]

He's made a good start. What a pity he wasn't given the chance to say how to cure unemployment. He was cut off by the blonde Yank gibbering about self-employment.

 

[The39thStep]

It's rare to get a socialist on a platform like Question Time. I hope he does well

As a friend of mine commented he is fast becoming what carol vordermen was in the 1980s

 

[dynamicbaddog]

good audience reaction when he mentioned Tesco and workfare

 

[JHE]

It's a pity Jones couldn't bring himself to support a modest extension of democracy. Clarke's answers on policing were better, gawd help us.

 

[frogwoman]

As a friend of mine commented he is fast becoming what carol vordermen was in the 1980s

it was before my time lol but what was that?

 

[The39thStep]

good audience reaction when he mentioned Tesco and workfare

clapping seals

 

[manny-p]

Julie Meyer is a disgusting cunt

 

[Random]

My broader point was right - it wasn't *inevitable* from his social position that he would go wide of the mark.

Just like on the morality thread - when you're wrong, you're wrong on a higher plane, that's pretty much the same as being right. You'll go far in politics.

 

[dynamicbaddog]

clapping seals

so I take it that you support Tesco using workfare to exploit the unemployed?

 

[frogwoman]

When is questions time on again? Ain't watched that shite in years.

that fucking programme should carry a health warning on it for the blood pressure. don't watch it, you'll end up with a stomach ulcer!

 

[The39thStep]

Easy fish for Jones to throw them .

 

[articul8]

He did pretty well - if being ultra critical he gave too much ground to the view that US Democrats had it right re US economy and implicitly suggested that policing could be "above" politics. But by the standards of QT he didn't do bad?

 

[dynamicbaddog]

 

[manny-p]

that fucking programme should carry a health warning on it for the blood pressure. don't watch it, you'll end up with a stomach ulcer!

Just watched it. Lolz at that lib dem peer and ken clarke telling Jones to join the green party.

 

[articul8]

Is Kramer a peer now? Jones did well not to turn on the old cow

 

[manny-p]

Is Kramer a peer now? Jones did well not to turn on the old cow

I don't know. Question time is a joke, I will keep away from it indefinetly

 

[articul8]

yer man's on the 10 O'Clock show tonight -- on workfare

 

[Smokeandsteam]

yer man's on the 10 O'Clock show tonight -- on workfare

He's certainly the media 'go to' person when an opinion from the middle class left is required isn't he?

 

[Captain Hurrah]

Middle class cunt.

 

[nino_savatte]

to be fair though it's not just books like jones's, i bet that the vast majority of books that get published are both aimed and written by upper middle class people, even fiction. it's very rare to be honest that you get to read books (although perhaps kindle's different) that are about anyone who isnt quite rich, even "gritty" crime thrillers and so on (apart from Ian Rankin and some sci-fi). I read a lot of books and I've also noticed that so many of what gets published is very similar just because of "trends" in the publishing industry, not just to do with class. somebody could write a very good book but it may not get published because it isn't "trendy" at the industry at that time.

Yes and I'm going to sound as though I've swallowed a load of texts by Adorno/Horkheimer but that's the nature of the culture industry. Anything that is produced from below is usually stamped out or recuperated. I don't have to time to expand on this but I may come back to it later.

 

[butchersapron]

That's not really the point of their argument nino. The culture industry as they see it isn't like some chomsky thing stopping stuff being put out there, it's more about what the mass nature of culture demands things do - it's a pathetic elitists argument against stuff from below.

 

[nino_savatte]

I don't follow you. Whose argument?