Michael Collins, he tells us, was brought up in a terraced street south of the River Thames in Southwark, a district I don’t know very well. I have been there a few times, usually visiting west African friends and acquaintances, a fact that might strike Michael Collins as ironic. For if you look closely at his book’s title, you will not see ‘A biography of the working class’ but ‘A biography of the white working class’.
Infirm of purpose, Collins wavers between a history of the entire working class, an autobiography, a history of Southwark, and a biography of his grandmother, spiced up with quotes from other authors. This confused book seems to have been inspired by a Julie Burchill article in the Guardian of 5 May 2001.
The quote from Miss Burchill’s article begins: ‘The white English working class is now the only group of people that the chattering classes are happy to hear mocked and attacked.’
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