Who is popular today?

With populist figures weaponising the language of class, the politics of the second wave is likely to be treacherous

Coronavirus – latest updates
See all our coronavirus coverage

Covid-19’s relentless immiseration of the British working poor was laid bare last week in a report released by the Office of National Statistics. Surveying the impact of the first lockdown, the ONS found that the biggest falls in pay and hours were at the bottom of the earnings scale. Young people and part-time workers were clobbered particularly badly. Two million employees earned less than the statutory minimum wage as a result of being furloughed. The revision, reduction and planned abandonment of furlough payments by Rishi Sunak – until last week’s U-turn – has contributed to an ever-rising toll of redundancies.
Across Europe and in the US, as a double-dip recession looms, the story is a similar one. The biggest victims of lockdowns and curfews have been blue-collar workers, the self-employed and those whose livelihoods depend on servicing the better-heeled in the metropolises of early 21st-century capitalism. Hairdressers, bar workers, shop workers, taxi drivers and waiters were all on the frontline of the battle against the R number. If you have to leave home to do your job, you are probably in trouble. If you are securely ensconced in the better-paid knowledge economy, and able to retreat to the virtual world of Zoom, you’re probably still in business. Continue reading...