This is a passionate raging against class privilege and the growing inequality fuelled by politicians who are an elitist part of the problem. This is not a book that looks at ‘both sides of the debate’. It is a meticulously researched call to arms for those who believe in justice to really understand what’s happening in Britain today.
McGarvey unpicks apparent ‘truths’ and what’s behind them. For example, why a child may be conditioned to ‘challenge’ teachers at school because of what the deprivation and trauma they experience at home.
This huge book - set largely in Scotland - looks in detail at many areas of inequality including health, benefits, housing and education.
It does discuss solutions but this is a small section towards the end of the book.
This is essential reading for anyone who wonders why some social groups are kept down and in a cycle of deprivation and poverty.
Highly recommended.

This book breathes fury. Every corner of Britain’s loathsome class system is dissected and analysed; every injustice considered to see how they interact and make this country a place so utterly devoid of hope for the working class. It brilliantly bursts open the myth of meritocracy. It looks to the right, the left and to populist political movements to question how we got here and where on earth we could turn for change. It is carefully researched, thoughtful and surprising; packed with statistics, case studies and rage. It made me furious too. As soon as I’d finished my review copy I bought the hardback,: I couldn’t bear to be without it. This should be compulsory reading for every schoolchild, parent, employee, politician; anyone baffled and incensed by the unfairness in opportunity and outcome from which every facet of British life suffers. Buy it.

You can't fault the passion, rage and commitment that drive Darren McGarvey's wide-ranging anatomy of Britain's current problems. He draws on a combination of personal experience and longstanding engagement with people who have experienced problems like homelessness, poverty and becoming a victim of the criminal justice system. He's strongest when he's in Scotland, which he knows really well, and is convincing in his thesis that prosperous members of society, and politicians in particular, are too distant from those who suffer from the issues he so vividly depicts (although that thesis would have been more convincing if he had described it in more depth). The strength of the book is also its weakness in the second half (Act Two) where his solutions, although also impressively wide in scope, seem often rather generalised and under-theorised, for example in relation to areas like education and social mobility. It would be a shame if this puts people off what is a really important book.

This book is angry, and rightly so.

Charting a route through many inequalities in society, McGarvey's argument is deceptively simple- that the social distance we think of now from Covid is only a more modern version of what has been happening societally for centuries, namely that the lives of the poorest and most vulnerable in society are almost never seen by those on the other end of fortune.

The book covers topics such as unequal health outcomes, addiction, aspiration, class and much more, using this lens to show how inured many people's lives are from seeing the reality around them.

This distance multiplies over time, as those who pass laws and oversee programmes to support the most vulnerable often live the kinds of lives that rarely interact with those who they are aiming to support.

This book is raging fire of the best kind, designed to burn down and start again.

I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was an interesting and well-researched book, but I found it very long, and repetitive in parts. The numerous spelling and grammar errors also made this a frustrating read. I also found it hard to determine who exactly is meant by the terms "working class" "middle class" and "upper class".
Whilst there is much in the book to shock, and be angry about, I don't really feel that the rather sketchy solutions proposed are terribly feasible. Apart from a brief reference to a wealth tax there is no real consideration of the financial implications of the author's proposals.

This is such an important book, printed at a time where social injustice and the gulf between rich and poor is under the spotlight. It examines the many differences in cities where some people are living hand to mouth, struggling to make ends meet, and a 5 minute bus journey away people are financially thriving. It's crazy to think of the levels of deprivation in the world and the contrast of the privilege that some people live with. Darren McGarvey writes well, and is definitely an ambassador for change. Highly recommend. Thanks to Darren McGarvey, Ebury and Netgalley for the ARC.

Wow, talk about making me think and reevaluate my social standing, perspective. Thankfully I had no political allegiance or it could of rocked one of my foundation stones of belief.
Could of been split into two books as felt a weighty tomb or would it have lost some of its momentum.
Anyone who believes in social class, benefit scroungers, or meritocratic society needs to read this book.

This was a fascinating and highly topical read about divisions in society, those with all the money and power and those who have nothing. And the divisions those in power sow amongst "the rest of us".
Everyone should read this book. It should be made reading material for schools. People need to know what's happening, only that way can they truly know who and what they are voting for. The injustice makes me so angry, so I did have to limit myself on how much a day I read but it's a must read for anyone interested in society, social classes and politics.

This book lays bare the facts that confirm Britain is a country divided, one that is still in the grasp of class warfare. Reading this book really annoyed me & not because it was a bad read, but because so much of what I read showed exactly how the system is still loaded against those in poverty, the working class, long term sick, & those with disabilities. As someone with long term health issues I live it but it still surprised me how insidious class privilege is in twenty-first century Britain. Where you are born & who your parents are still play a huge part in your health & life expectancy, your education prospects, & how successful you are likely to be, & the veneer of meritocracy is exposed to be a smokescreen, a mirage.

The rules are decided a group of people, many of whom are privately educated, personally wealthy & from the middle & upper classes, who have rarely suffered through the severe hardship that poverty brings, some even being 'parachuted' into safe parliament seats. The author asks: how can those who are socially removed or at a distance to those experiencing these problems fully empathise & legislate accordingly? For example, how can a millionaire Chancellor of the Exchequer know how it feels to try & survive on Job Seekers? The author doesn't tirade against the middle & upper classes as being deliberately harmful or fundamentally bad people but argues that this "social distance" disproportionately harms those who are already the most vulnerable.

Towards the end, the author makes some suggestions as to what would need to happen to get Britain back on a more even keel, such as scrapping the two-tier education system, & ensuring workers are represented on company boards. I'm not sure about making voting mandatory, but I do believe that our politicians need more real life experience before carving out a career in politics. .Anyone who has seen the deeply unjust way that the working class, the unemployed, & those with disabilities were treated both during & after the Covid pandemic knows that something needs to change. Read this it's a damning indictment of all that is wrong with modern Britain.

My thanks to NetGalley & publishers, Ebury Publishing/Penguin Random House UK, for the opportunity to read an ARC.

A well-researched and interesting book, identifies why different levels of society develop beliefs about the causes of inequality, and how they have been exploited by politicians and social media to make society more divided.

Whilst reading this book my anger at the platitudes politicians trot out when interviewed on the subject of poverty made me more angry than ever. Of course I was aware of the ever-widening gap between rich and poor, but the exposé of just how deliberately this has been pursued by successive governments shocked me.

My big criticism of the book is that it is just too long. About a third of the way into each chapter, I felt myself thinking: 'yes, I get it'. Constant repetition became tedious to the point that I decided to read enough to understand the topic, then skipped to the next chapter.

The writer is capable of great clarity of expression, but some of his his sentences are wordy and ponderous, they are difficult to disentangle. Moreover, there are errors of grammar and spelling which need to be corrected before publication, otherwise Mr McGarvey's assertion that he has a great command of the English language will have little credibility.

I’m going to start with the last chapter of the book, because in this chapter the author offers his suggestions and thoughts on what he would do if he was ever in charge of the country in order to turn around the fortunes of the working class. Ideas that would put society on a more equal footing. There are some excellent thoughts in that last chapter, they wouldn’t be unaffordable, much of it would be an investment in people – all people, giving everyone an equal chance of making it in life. He painted a wonderful picture of what life could be like for everyone, it’s a pity we can’t have someone with this kind of vision as Prime Minister, he would definitely get my vote.

Sadly, in my lifetime (or what is left of it) that is never going to happen. Career politicians, opportunists, the rich and the already powerful are never going to give up without a fight and right now, they make the rules to suit themselves as we see in parliament on an all too regular basis.

It has taken a lot of reading hours to get through this book, but it is never dry, always compelling. It’s nice to know I haven’t been alone in my thinking for all these years. Much of what is discussed in the book I already knew, or suspected, and definitely agreed with just about everything that’s said. However, to see it all written down in all it’s glaring unfairness can at times make for difficult reading. The man with severe Tourette’s at the hands of the DWP was truly shocking.

Everyone needs to read this book. I found it a complex book to read, there were many sentences and paragraphs I had to re-read to make things sink in, but the huge disparity in quality of life between those at the top who control the economy, who make the laws and are responsible for providing what few public services we have left and those on the receiving end of it is a complex matter, worthy of long and indepth explanation. Once you’ve read it, you will be in no doubt of the social distance between us.

A well written and hard hitting book outlining the distance between those with power in the country and those with none. The latter often, for various reasons, become reliant on the State for an income and are then judged in a negative way. For anyone vaguely interested in the way the UK works none of this will be surprising but the author's use of statistics and interviews helps to ram home the facts and his solutions are food for thought.
It's a very long and quite dense book, but I did hear parts of it read by the author as book of the week on radio 4 which I really enjoyed and felt was easier to engage with. Hopefully his messages will reach a wider audience through this medium.
Thank you to netgalley and Ebury publishing for an advance copy of this book

What's the book about?

An articulate and passionate argument about Britain's political class's estrangement from the people and how their decisions have a direct impact on the country's citizens.

My thoughts:
There are so many things that I just didn't consider despite living in the UK. I think it's because I'm here as a dependent and just didn't see the need to explore issues until they directly affected me. It's so ineresting to read about class and society in UK as opposed to my understanding of it from India. This one's a mandatory read for sure. It's got hard hitting topics and backs them up with uncomfortable statistics.

The Social Distance Between Us examines the widening of the poverty gap that was occurred due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Focusing mainly on Glasgow and Scotland, Darren McGarvey looks at the different ways in which poorer people have suffered disproportionately because of the pandemic. It's quite a tough read as a lot of the situations are really upsetting but its definitely an essential read.

I'm not a big reader of non-fiction books preferring to lose myself in a world free from the doom and gloom of modern Britain - poverty, homelessness, privilege of the rich. But I am glad I took a chance on this one.

This book should be mandatory reading for everyone interested in how the world we live in actual works.

A fantastic read and a big thanks to Netgalley and Ebury Publishing, Penguin Random House, Ebury Press for the ARC

Let me start by saying this: if Poverty Safari absolutely deserved its Orwell Prize, I think Darren McGarvey should be awarded a second one of those for this new book. Written with remarquable fluidity, acuteness and precision, The Social Distance Between Us focuses on the social class inequalities that are the real problem in Britain (and not the pandemic or the geopolitical current context as some would have it). Darren McGarvey analyses these inequalities in great detail, broaching subjects as diverse as education, working conditions, property ownership, health or social connection. He then goes on to depict the recent (catastrophic) British political landscape in all its failures but, rather than merely telling us what's wrong, he's offering his intake on what could be done better, and, even more importantly, encouraging readers to get thinking, talking and acting. The Social Distance Between Us is full of compassion, intelligence and acuity; to put it simply, it's an essential read.