There are stories of people leaving rehab early because they’ll lose their home - the state won’t pay rent and rehab. People having their benefits stopped because they’re late to an appointment with no discretion - one man was trying to help his suicidal sister… Something that Darren did not point out: for the most excluded and socially-deprived, intellectually-unstimulated kids, the very set-up, the very classroom of a school, the very accent of a teacher can intimidate them into "stupidity" and refusal to learn.

Since leaving the corporate world, I realise that putting shareholder value above all else will destroy the future of our children. Possibly an uncomfortable read for the mandarins in British politics, but that's exactly the reason this book should be taken seriously.Britain is in a long-distance relationship with reality. A ravine cuts through it, partitioning the powerful from the powerless, the vocal from the voiceless, the fortunate from those too often forgotten. This distance dictates how we identify and relate to society's biggest issues - from homelessness and poverty to policing and overrun prisons - ultimately determining how, and whether, we strive to resolve them. So why, for generations, has a select group of people with very limited experience of social inequality been charged with discussing and debating it? I've sat on cold pavements with beggars, asking them why they would rather wander the streets than live in supported accommodation. I've pleaded with alcoholics to give sobriety one last shot before they end up dead - and read their obituaries in the paper weeks later. I've sat with youth workers at their wits' end as diversionary services are cut amid a surge in gang and knife violence. Too many people remain so far from this nightmarish social reality that even when they would earnestly wish to bring about change, they don't know where to start. So start here. The poet Jo Clement gives voice to the stories and people of her family’s Romany past. In her collection Outlandish she has no time for Romantic impressions of British Gypsy ethnicity as she moves from ancient stopping-places to decaying council estates. Her poems are imaginative protests that cast light on a hidden and threatened culture. The rules are decided a group of people, many of whom are privately educated, personally wealthy & from the middle & upper classes, who have rarely suffered through the severe hardship that poverty brings, some even being 'parachuted' into safe parliament seats. The author asks: how can those who are socially removed or at a distance to those experiencing these problems fully empathise & legislate accordingly? For example, how can a millionaire Chancellor of the Exchequer know how it feels to try & survive on Job Seekers? The author doesn't tirade against the middle & upper classes as being deliberately harmful or fundamentally bad people but argues that this "social distance" disproportionately harms those who are already the most vulnerable. A troubling tale of disaffection between classes in Britain – it's resolute in its class-based analysis, despite how out of fashion that is, and after reading this book it's difficult to disagree. That makes it an uncomfortable read for any middle-class person, since it's the middle class who takes the brunt of Garvey's assignment of blame. By allowing the working class to be demonised, and by allowing the creation of a benefits and support environment at least as "hostile" as that facing immigrants, the stage has been set for a breach between people that allows everyone to be manipulated by those in power.

Having now had over 20 years of direct Scottish control over virtually every issue that the author raises, his silence on any aspect of Scottish administration speaks more loudly than any of the other words in the book. Although I don't agree with everything Darren McGarvey says in "The Social Distance Between Us", I do think he is spot on locating where the major problems in Britain reside. Early in the book, he introduces the concept of "Proximity", which he uses to refer to the distance (politically, geographically, economically, etc) between those with the power in society and those who are either powerless or have little power. When it comes to the haves and the have-nots in Britain, you don’t have to look far to see the damage. The recent pandemic revealed a nation in a spiralling downturn, its social systems and political connections incapable of pulling up those who lie in the gutter. Working alongside several contributors and utilising a large array of sources, Darren McGarvey’s The Social Distance Between Us is a scathing release, one that demands the attention of any reader.

The book is at its best as a piece of reportage; powerful stories of individuals told with empathy. Funder reveals how O’Shaughnessy Blair self-effacingly supported Orwell intellectually, emotionally, medically and financially ... why didn’t Orwell do the same for his wife in her equally serious time of need?’ But I was able to be downwardly mobile precisely because of my education. Although I hated school, I loved learning, and was good at English, French, Biology and German. This meant that I could sustain myself morally and intellectually. this move to digitisation reveals perhaps the greatest absurdity of austerity Britain - you cannot own a phone if you’re poor but you can’t access benefits without the internet." Offer[s] an antidote to populist anger that transcends left and right... articulate and emotional' Financial Times

David Gelber: Chancellors & Chancers - Austria Behind the Mask: Politics of a Nation since 1945 by Paul Lendvai ITV’s Robert Peston - a man so middle class he ought to have a reed diffuser scent named after him."

My main issue is this. As an immigrant myself and from own experience Britain's concept of poverty seems to be through the a capitalist lense, excessive materialism and consumerism. Overall I felt like it was trying to cover too much ground, and ended up being a bit scattergun. The second half of the book was more interesting and it was strongest when debating the ideas of class in British society. Whether the people concerned are “posh politicians who’ve never tasted desperation” or “thin-skinned idealists, too short in the tooth to understand the real world”, McGarvey insists that their actions are usually based on groundless assumptions and false beliefs. What we really need, therefore, is a return of the kind of rooted working-class voices that might reorientate government towards everyday reality: an update of the spirit of Aneurin Bevan, rather than more George Osbornes, David Camerons and Boris Johnsons. But even starting such a turnaround will be a huge and onerous task.

Eileen M Hunt: Feminism vs Big Brother - Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life by Anna Funder; Julia by Sandra Newman The book covers topics such as unequal health outcomes, addiction, aspiration, class and much more, using this lens to show how inured many people's lives are from seeing the reality around them.

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For me so called immigration anxieties are projections and pretexts that would take some other form if it were not for immigration. As the author put it in plain speak 'a political red herring '. During those ten years, I was paid shitty wages to form a bridge between the people I’d grown up amongst, and the people I wanted to become. I had aspirations of management, of rising within the industry and getting a decent wage. But I couldn’t lose sight of the fact that I was quite literally the only person who “got” where the more difficult tenants were coming from. I was promoted to the point that all I was used for was sorting out conflict and complaint for every contract across the region. Every time, I was seen by both parties as the representative of the “other” side.