To think that Owen Jones is a fraud.

[soul2000]

I watched the R.T.S Lecture he gave last night on representation of the Working Class on Television, i have never heard such opinionated rubbish.
There are three questions i would like to act Owen Jones

1. Despite having an Oxford Education why do you deliberately mispronounce

certain words, in a kind of "STOCKNEY" accent.

1. Which Comprehensive did he attend , anybody who knows Stockport knows there is a huge gap between Poynton/Bramhall and Brinnington.

3. What class does he think he is with is Oxford education and two University lecturer parents.

Owen Jones has always been open about his middle class background.

Why do you think this should prevent him from caring about social inequality?

What Lime said.

Still, good to see you really engaging with the issues and raising such salient points.

Rather than address any of the points he made, you've chosen to go after the person. That's pathetic & indicates that you perhaps haven't understood what he was saying.

And what on earth is wrong with being "opinionated"? It's better than not having any opinions.

Owen Jones has always said he is middle class. I'm sure he'd tell you his school if asked, as it's hardly a surprise that he's had a good education.

What exactly are you trying to prove?

He doesn't claim to be working class.

I'm not chinese but i care that chinese people are being exploited to create consumables.

I was a baby in the 1980s & an environmentalist now,.but i still care a huge amount about the plight of former mining communities.

I'm not a dolphin but i only buy line caught tuna.

It's called empathy, OP; & Owen Jones has more than your average newspaper columnist. Maybe that's why you're confused.

I'm puzzled. Can one only care about inequality if one is capable of proving at least 4 generations of 'solidly' working class background or something.

He's never pretended to be anything he's not - but is using the platform his education has granted him to raise some serious issues.

What exactly is wrong with that?

It's not exactly hard to find out what school he went to - Wikipedia entry on Owen Jones.

And fwiw, going to Oxford or Cambridge does not automatically give you an 'Oxford' accent. Did you think there were compulsory elocution lessons in the first term for everyone who arrives there from outside the home counties? Friends of mine who started out with accents from Lancashire, Yorkshire, Essex etc left with pretty much the same accents they arrived with, as far as I can remember, whether they were working-class or middle-class.

What WithRedWine said

Ever heard of Tony Benn, OP? His class origins don't seem to have stopped him being a major figure in the labour movement.

I really am fascinated for the OP to come back. I can't work out if she thinks Owen Jones is a sell-out and only wants to see authentic fourth generation miners on TV, or if she's actually pissed off at a positive representation of working class people by anyone?

Someone described him as the Peter Hitchins of the left.

"Bramhall High" very funny Owen.... I did not say an Oxford accent just deliberately mispronouncing certain words. That must have taken some practice Owen, seeming as everyone else from Bramhall is desperate to lose any trace of a working class accent.

Thanks for that link exexpat am secretly pleased to see he went to the same sixth form as me - can assure the OP that it was a) very clearly a state college, and b) not especially posh or middle class. So now even more baffled at to what the actual point might be...

snort at "I'm not a Dolphin". Now if Owen Jones had claimed to have gone to a sink school and been educated at the University of Life you might have a point regarding him being a fraud - but an Oxbridge degree doesn't prevent him from writing about working class people.

Chair I don't think the OP knows we're here, she seems to think she's speaking to Owen Jones...

So what did he actually say that you took exception to?

Or were you not listening and just want a rant about him?

I had better stop caring about social inequality now I am no longer the poor child of a poor lone parent and its not 1976 any more

Or am I allowed, despite now having a professional career, masters and having lost my scouse accent due to 20 years in the midlands, still allowed to give a Shit

Quite gordy perhaps I better get on with oppressing the lower orders now I've successfully 'passed' from working class upbringing in small northern town to middle class professional.

I must have missed the memo that said my values and ethics must vary with my education, profession and postcode.

Owen Jones is a fraud, but not for any of the rather silly reasons you cite. Everyone who commentates on politics is a fraud, it's a circus of bollocks, they're making shit up on the basis of being slightly better informed than the average punter. The better and cleverer ones know this, and don't make a pretence of being being serious researchers. Jones is one of those who does make a pretence of it, and doesn't (yet anyway) really have the intellectual heavies to back it up. It's open to review though.

How does he represent Working Class people . I read his book on "Chavs" it
made me laugh, best bit of comedy this year. Seriously has Jones come up with one realistic or workable way to help people at the bottom of society.

The only thing Jones does is talk about Benefit cuts , he has never come up with constructive ideas how as a country we can make people's lives better.

I have to write 1000 words for my O.U Degree on life chances and the poverty of aspiration in education that people in lowest social circumstances suffer from.

Unlike Jones and many on this site,i believe one of the biggest reasons effecting poverty and lack of life chances today was the destruction of grammar Schools.

P.S the best bit of comedy i have ever read was Peter Hitchens book "The Abolition of Britain" . we need people with sensible and workable ideas , not people trying to make names for themselves.

Psssst, OP. Owen Jones isn't the one who has to come up with ideas on how to make people's lives better.

That'd be the government.

Did you only read Chavs this year?

It's rather passé really.

I read his book on "Chavs" it
made me laugh, best bit of comedy this year

Honestly, why do people do this? It's infantile. OP, I bet you didn't crack a smile once reading it, let alone laugh. Is pretending to find something funny an effective debate tactic for you?

Good luck with that degree

(Pst: Google the definition of "ad hominem" before you launch yourself into critical analysis. It could save you a lot of grief).

I'd quite like it if Owen Jones got into politics - I'd vote for him. Way more than Russell 'I AM egalitarian until me cock gets in the way' Brand anyway...