Twitter blow

What a terrible power this twitter! One careless tiny microblog - and the rising star of the Labor Party of Great Britain was thrown to the political curb. The whole political country on this occasion is re -looking at itself and surprised: what is this happening to us?

It finally became clear: the Labor is no longer a working party. Conservatives were arranged by the most conservative layers of society, liberal democrats-the most liberal. Meanwhile, a new force that has broken on a political scene, sweeping out the usual way - the UKIP party, the independence party , is generally incomprehensible. Although it is clear that these "do not understand who" is a lot - almost a quarter of the population.

The victim of his own tweet-microblog was a deputy of the British parliament from the Labor Party, a prominent member of the shadow opposition office Emily Tornbury . On the eve of the missiles in the Rochester-Brud district, she inadvertently placed a photograph of a simple, poor, not too elegant house, covered with English flags and with a typical white car dunce at the door, in her account. And she wrote: "Picture from Rochester." And this tweet was considered such a political mistake, such an impossible insulting popular feelings that the leader of the Labor, Ed Miliband demanded (and achieved) the immediate resignation of his faithful ally.

All important newspapers, bodies and radio programs put the incident on the main news of the day and began to include in all ways, trying to understand what it means politically and sociologically. For the uninitiated, for any person who does not know the context, this story may generally seem to be a complete mystery. If not nonsense. Why all the cheese-brow? Well, a picture, well, a house. Well, flags, well, a van. What is the insult?

In order to understand what the scandal is, you need to know three facts. Firstly, Rochester and Strud district is considered one of the most anti-emigrants in the whole country. All surveys showed that the candidate of the Independence Party, who achieves the country's closure from emigrants and leaving the European Union, would easily win there (as a result, this candidate won there).

The second fact is: White Van Man ("Man with a White van") is an established expression. This is a person engaged in minor entrepreneurship in the field of services: a locksmith-water-conductor, repairman, glass, electrician, and the like. In one person - a hard worker, an entrepreneur, an accountant, and the owner of the means of production, by the way, too. The “man with a white van” has recently replaced the image of a typical proletarian, although Marx would hardly recognize him as such. But what to do if the classic working class is in some shortage.

The third fact: Emily Tornbury herself is a typical Labor politician, the daughter of a major international lawyer, the wife of one of the most high-ranking judges, officially, thanks to her husband, who has the Lady's title. And she lives in the London area of Islington, who earned a reputation as the geographical center of the new lalectors. From him, Tornebury was elected to the House of Commons.

Britain is changing, and politicians can hardly keep up with changes

An unsuccessful tweet has highlighted a big problem: the Labor, by inertia, who consider themselves a working class party, is now much more popular among the London intelligentsia and the middle class than among the "white fire workers", workers and unemployed. In the course of a recent sociological survey of white British, who consider themselves workers, they asked: which party is most accurately reflecting your views? Every fifth, nevertheless, called the Labor, but 29 percent prefer UKIP.

Newspapers quote sociologists claiming: when the Laborists came to power in the mid-1960s, the workers exceeded the numerically middle class, and almost half of them belonged to the classical proletariat in the Marxist sense. But by 2010, most voters have already ranked themselves in the middle class. In recent years, all three main parties sought to please mostly for this, forgetting that, those who remained on the basis of the social pyramid still mean something, especially in the year of the economic crisis, when the broad masses are sharply politicized. These rather powerful remnants are collected by the UKIP party, playing on fears before the future, in front of the dominance of emigrants and in front of "bureaucrats from Brussels." To leave the European Union, to expel foreigners, to close the country from the outside world - and prosperity will immediately return. This simple idea, born among the old aristocracy and the rich, suddenly took possession of the masses.

That's what is still interesting: in the recent past, the term White Van Man was rather a negative load. At least the English Wikipedia still claims that this is a “selfish, aggressive, little considered with other people.” Now, the White Furningman was elevated to the rank of salt of the Earth of the British. It seems that, scared by the UKIP triumphs, all three “big” parties rushed to catch up, trying to please workers and small entrepreneurs, “simple patriots”. And the Laborists are all the more unpleasant to be considered representatives of an exceptionally prosperous city intelligentsia, traitors to the social-democratic past. Therefore, their leader, according to one of the colleagues, was “angry like never in life”, having read the microblog Emily Tornbury.

Opponents of the Labor tried to extract maximum benefits from the scandal. Not only conservatives, but also the leader of the liberal democrats, Nick Klegg accused the unfortunate Emily (and, by definition, the entire Labor Party) of "despising patriots." “That's what, apparently, is happening when you become a deputy from Islington,” he said. Well, the leader of the UKIP Nigel Faraju even announced that what happened proves: the Labor is the "anti -English party".

In general, Britain is changing, and politicians can hardly keep up with changes. If you add to all this that one of the main English patriots in parliament is perhaps the emotional exposure of "rootless Labor Cosmopolites" was born in Baghdad , and his name is Nazim Zahavi, then his head will completely go around. And what is the involuntary hero of the commotion, the owner of the house, flags and the white car? It turned out to be a certain Dan Wair, a 37-year-old car merchant who considers himself a worker. He hung out the flags, it turns out, back in May, in the support of the English football team. Yes, so since then he did not bother to remove them. As for political preferences, he could not clearly formulate them, admitting that he did not remember when he voted for the last time.

Andrey Ostalsky - London journalist and political commentator

Opinions expressed under the heading "Law" may not reflect the point of view of the editorial office