LAST Friday I debated at Glastonbury’s Left Field, Billy Bragg’s annual powwow of radical ideas. I’ve been invited down twice before and I’ve always found it to be one of the most inspiring political events in Britain. This year my session was chaired by The Guardian’s John Harris, and, since it was about Brexit, the tent was heaving, despite an extremely early start, with more than 350 people packing into every available corner.
Yes, the panel was heavily slanted towards Remain, and the others were shocked to learn that I had any doubts about the EU and the single market. But pleasingly this crowd had no problem with Labour’s insurgent socialist leader Jeremy Corbyn, who was given a rapturous reception on Saturday.
During my three days in Somerset, Corbynmania was everywhere: I couldn’t get a sleep for the endless chanting of “Oh, Jeremy Corbyn”.
This surge comes after generations of socialist political irrelevance in Britain. So, leftists should be utterly overjoyed at the sight of about 150,000 people with no overt political allegiance chanting and singing for a much-maligned and avowedly socialist politician, who quotes Shelley and dresses like my dad.
But it’s the left, isn’t it? So, of course, true to form, not everyone was impressed. Alongside the usual range of tabloid complaints – “Jeremy Corbyn turns his back on British Troops as he snubs Armed Forces Day events to ramble on stage at Glastonbury!” – there have been quite a few socialist sniffles. Corbyn has snubbed the working class, say some proletarian warriors, to ramble on stage at an event which “real people” can’t afford because it costs £243 for a ticket.
Now, let me qualify what I’ve said above with a dose of realism. Yes, there are lots of privileged people at Glastonbury, but the vast bulk of festival-goers belonged to society’s working-class majority.
They slog away in ordinary jobs and they’ve saved up every penny for months on end and borrowed a tent off a mate to come and see the best of pop culture. £243 is obviously unaffordable for some, and that’s a shocking indictment of capitalist society; but if a call centre worker (I met many) wants to escape the drudgery of work, then it’s hardly an act of class betrayal to take some time off, get wrecked in the sun and enjoy music. Corbyn had an opportunity to engage with about a hundred thousand people like this, and millions more on social media; he’d be a walking liability if he ignored it.
However, even that’s only half the point. I’ll go further. The class background of the crowd really shouldn’t matter: privileged people have always enjoyed disproportionate dominance in art and culture, and they will do for a generation to come. But socialists should be fighting this rather than letting it scare working-class people away, or we’re letting rich people win.
Indeed, forget Glastonbury; any real socialist should fighting for more subsidised tickets and more cultural education.
Why? Because being a socialist means you want the most exploited people to become the government of society. You can’t do that, you can’t beat the rich, without exposing their ideas and their culture first.
Privileged people are born to rule. Their elite schools teach the same maths and the same biology as a comprehensive, but also a hidden curriculum in "etiquette", self-confidence, negotiating skills, network-building and cultural knowledge (that’s how they justify the £10,000+ annual cost per student). They are just seven per cent of society, but they dominate the liberal professions that involve serious cultural influence. 71 percent of senior judges, 53 percent of diplomats and about half the top people in TV, film and music went to fee-paying schools.
They’ve been surrounded by the ruling culture from birth, so dominance seems natural to them. They feel entitled, at home among other “cultured” people. Their aura of belonging at the top of all fields makes their power seem invincible.
To build genuine confidence in socialism, we need millions of working-class people to see the inner workings of this patronage system.
Rich people aren’t worried about working-class people having their own culture. Indeed, they’ll often (patronisingly) capture it for their own ends. Even the Windsors have so-called “chavvy” holidays in the sun and add the odd glottal stop into their speech patterns.
Working-class cultural independence is always fragile and liable to be appropriated: it only takes a generation to get from the hip hop insurgency of Public Enemy to a 50 Cent poster on the wall of every privileged white boy.
What rich people really fear is intrusion into their culture, mastery of which makes them feel entitled to govern and to have their children govern afterwards. Storm that fortress and you’ll truly have them running scared.
So, socialists, I dare you: save up and take your pals to art galleries, the theatre, festivals and the opera. And if your presence terrifies some toff buffoon into dropping his monocle, laugh hard, because you’ve just disrupted a little bit of class power, you shameless rebel.
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