Saturday 22 November 2014

Who is White Van Dan?

There I was talking about the absurdity of British politics and it goes and takes an even sillier turn. After Dan Ware, or 'White Van Dan' as he'll forever now be known, became the unwitting figure at the heart of Westminster's most stupid resignation ever, the Currant Bun have now given him a 'voice of the nation' platform. Our Dan is the epitome of the working class London Labour luvvies only encounter at the checkout and when the cleaner comes round. Or so we're told.

Plastering Dan all over their paper, however, is unlikely to repeat a Gillian Duffy moment despite their best effort. Knowing a thing or two about the Sun-reading working class - it's where I come from, after all - I can tell you what their army of readers are likely to think. They see a skinhead with a thuggish appearance, a first impression they'll probably stick with when they learn he's a some-time cage fighter. Compounding the unfavourable vibes is his occupation - he owns and runs a used car dealership. And last of all, Ed Miliband might feel respect when he walks by a house festooned like Dan's. Most Sun readers on the other hand would barely notice, or at best think the resident is a bit of a nob. Contrary to what the hacks and the politicians think, the majority of working class people feel that showy displays of patriotism outside of European/World Cup tournaments is tacky and vulgar. So stick that in your pandering, patronising pipe and smoke it.

Let there be no doubt. White Van Dan is not typical of the working class. Nor is he typical of Sun readers.

Nevertheless, now The Sun have set him up as a voice of authenticity, he's been given room to expound his views in his pun-tastic 'Danifesto'. It's pretty much what you'd expect: bash the scroungers, keep out immigrants, a steel rod in the classroom, lock 'em up and throw away the key, sort out public transport and lower taxes. At this point, some fellow lefties might pour scorn on Dan as a racist ("I will continue to fly the flags. I know there is a lot of ethnic minorities that don't like it"), uncultured backwoods reactionary, but they would be mistaken to do so.

Atypical Dan may be, his views most certainly are not. Vilifying him as a knuckle dragger from the multicolour bubble of lefty identity politics is only going to alienate the millions who share these sorts of opinions from progressive politics. Leave the snobbery to the Tories and ex-shadow ministers, our movement should have no truck with it. The alternative is not to crawl before these views (please, please don't let Ed Miliband turn up on Dan's doorstep to offer an apology), but attack the common root of the problems he identifies.

You know what that is, right? It's insecurity anxiety. Dan is a small businessman and as such insecurity is part of his everyday life. Hoping that sales will be enough to keep his head above water. That the bank won't call in its loans. That the new dealership round the corner won't cut into his business. Is it any wonder then his wee manifesto is suffused with a rigid sense of order and stability? And this is precisely why these sorts of views are widespread among working class people. In fact, given the breadth of the housing crisis, low paid work, zero hour contracts, temporary working, unemployment and underemployment, the shrinking of tax credits and the capping of social security support it's a miracle UKIP's 1950s nostalgia-fest doesn't have greater support.

This is why Labour, if it wants to win the general election (which, admittedly, looks a bit sketchy at times) then the party and the labour movement have to put the fight against insecurity at the heart of its politics. That's how it can win over working class voters, petit-bourgeois types like Dan, and the much-genuflected-to swing voters of the "squeezed middle". If it doesn't, then we will lose.

17 comments:

David Timoney said...

Surely that's "knob", not "nob".

asquith said...

These right-wing journos were never in Goldenhill on one of the nights when an excuse is found to let off fireworks when most people (Sun-readers included) are in bed.

They wouldn't be eulogising people like Dan Ware if, like me, they actually had them for neighbours. That's what I'm saying.

Chris said...

I come from the same white working class background, we even had the Daily Star in our house, and with no sense of snobbery I reckon this guy is an absolute tosser of the highest order. And as you say not at all typical of the people I know. He is the cousin you hope doesn't came round this Christmas.

Anonymous said...

Interesting as always.

I would just like to point out though that many working class people like me fly St Georges Cross for St Georges Day.

Oh and we are not all football fans either.

Phil said...

A knob is something that you find on a door. I'm guessing it's a regional thing.

Phil said...

Yes, we had The Star too. My parents would get The Sun everyday and my grandparents the other, and the day after they'd swap yesterday's papers which were then used for cutting up spuds and wrapping up food waste. They'd have been much better off if they just skipped the bit that involved them reading it.

Phil said...

Is that a relatively recent thing? No one round our way used to bother with St George's. It might have had a mention in school from time to time IIRC.

Anonymous said...

Wasn't it the IPPR report The Dog that Barked that found there was a huge increase in English National feeling?

Anonymous said...

The only way you'd win the Dans of this world over is if you betrayed Labour's actual voters...then he probably would not be arsed to vote. I feel betrayed by the way he is being presented as 'the working class' and Miliband stupid 'respect' comment when he knew f all about him. It made Labour look ludicrous

Jim Denham said...

Phil: I understand from a mutual friend that you attended the Stoke Labour Party event on Friday at which Alistair Campbell made an intersting speech on these issues; Care to post a report?

Phil said...

Alas no, I wasn't taking notes. And I'd had a little bit to drink.

asquith said...

Having got off at the wrong bus station, I had quite a long walk through Sandyford and Goldenhill, where I observed that not one household was displaying an England flag, in spite of Rupert Murdoch's attempts to make us all do so. Perhaps we've all joined the metropolitan liberal elite and are sneering at such horny-handed sons of toil as Dan Ware and Simon Danczuk.

Also Ed Miliband doesn't feel any respect for us, although this was already apparent from his appointment of Liam Byrne, Yvette Cooper-Balls, Rachel Reeve/Reeves, etc.

Boffy said...

I grew up in the same Goldenhill that Asquith refers to, and apart from 2 and a half years living in Tunstall, lived either in Goldenhill, Sandyford or Acres Nook.

As I've blogged today none of the genuine working class people I grew up with, or that my parents or grandparents grew up with would recognise the sympathy for the kind of elements the picture emblematises.

If those elements reflect what Ed Miliband, the Tories or the media think represent the real working-class, it shows just how out of touch they really are. It also shows why they see most of the real working-class as being "middle class", who can only be appealed to by Blairite or soft Thatcherite policies.

treborc said...

I had a white van because of my job as an electrician I hired it and kept it for a year hired a new one, my kids were England fans so flag out the window.

I play rugby and was fifteen stone hooker, so we have to be careful, of course I've never bought the Tory rag the Sun if I needed to have Boobs in the morning well I was good enough to get the real things until of course I got married.

But if the Sun came around and said hold this up and I'll pay you £500 quid which we are told is what they did, I'd be a fool to say no.

I suppose Mondeo man and white van man and of course working class man your always open to be called thick stupid and socialist

asquith said...

Excellent post, that, Boffy. I'm actually a liberal, not a socialist, so I won't be agreering with your economic analysis but I agree culturally.

I really should develop these thoughts myself. But not now, due to my tea being in the oven :)

Anonymous said...

Damn, I way desperate to know what that wise old sage Alistair Campbell thought on the subject. Alas it was not to be. How will be able to fully judge this now?

Curtly said...

I'm surprised his Xmas lights weren't up already.