Owen Jones Quotes

Political reporting is too often trivialised, treated as a soap opera based in Westminster, rather than placed in a broader social or economic context.

The market fundamentalist ideology that dominates much of the west has attempted to indoctrinate us with a simple myth: that we all rise or fall according to our individual efforts alone; that billionaires amass vast amounts of wealth because they are entrepreneurial, plucky, go-getting geniuses.

Capitalism has proved its ability to adapt: at a time when so many younger people quite legitimately feel that the economic system doesn’t work for them, big business appealing to their sense of idealism is a savvy move.

Jobs have become more precarious and staff turnover has increased while union membership has plummeted, weakening workplace solidarity.

One of the greatest own goals in modern British political history helped create one of the biggest political parties in the western world, but one committed to socialism rather than rehashed Blairite triangulation.

In a society rigged in favour of landlords over tenants, to rent privately is to be deprived of security.

Yes, we need action to deal with online hatred and abuse. But let’s make sure there are clear safeguards, or history will repeat itself, and peaceful opponents of an unjust status quo will suffer the consequences.

From a genuine living wage to a mass housebuilding programme and strong workers‘ and trade unions rights preventing a race to the bottom, our answers to the grievances that help drive anti-immigrant sentiment must be front and centre.

The passenger pigeon, the golden toad, the Caspian tiger: they are all gone, and other species hang by a thread. Our actions are not merely driving other species to extinction: we threaten our own survival, too, by destabilising ecosystems and destroying biodiversity.

A desire for social connection is fundamentally hardwired into our psychology, and so being deprived of it has devastating mental and physical consequences. Yet we live in a society which has become ever more fragmented and atomised.

Although economic grievances were critical in delivering the referendum result, Brexit has fomented an all-out culture war.

Neoliberalism has left Britain‘s boss classes drunk on triumphalism, paying themselves record salaries and bonuses while their workers are imprisoned by poverty and insecurity. It was never going to last.

Britain’s end-of-life and palliative care services are a national travesty. That a public debate on this crisis is so sorely lacking has much to do with our fear of confronting dying and death.

For decades, life expectancy steadily rose in Britain: and then, suddenly, just as the Tories took power and imposed austerity, this improvement ground to a halt.

University should foster imagination and creativity, enriching society in the process.

Britain in 2018 has the feel of a Netflix drama approaching its season finale. It’s the classic ‘how on earth does anyone get out of this one?’ kind of cliffhanger, with all of the key protagonists confronted by their nemesis.

Freedom of movement in Europe has been all but abandoned as a cause in British politics. Brexit was far more about freedom of movement than our exact trading relationship with the EU, and the electorate rejected it.

We recognise that, like us, other humans have insecurities and ambitions; we fall in love and have relationships that end in heartbreak; we worry about our children‘s wellbeing; we say things we regret; we’re occasionally kept awake by fears or worries; and we try to impress people we look up to.

Nonbelievers may welcome the collapse in British religiosity, but the decline in church attendance has meant that the chance to chat each week with other people has vanished.

The vast majority of people back higher taxes on the rich. Yet these are fringe ideas within most of the mainstream media, which marginalises those who support them.

Austerity is literally a matter of life and death. Unless it is stopped, lives will continue to be unnecessarily shortened.

From a very young age, boys are taught that real men get into fights, say demeaning things about girls and women, show extraordinary athletic prowess, avoid looking studious, don’t do anything to display supposed emotional ‘weakness‘ and prioritise competition over cooperation.

If only Brexit would go away. It sucks the political oxygen away from the issues we should all be discussing: like low wages, insecure jobs and the housing crisis.

Grief is like wandering through a minefield, as my mother puts it: however carefully you tread, a sudden detonation can happen out of nowhere. A song played in a supermarket; an overheard phrase; someone in the distance who your mind cruelly suggests is your loved one for a fleeting moment.

If you are dim but have rich parents, a life of comfort, affluence and power is almost inevitable – while the bright but poor are systematically robbed of their potential.

Opposition to immigration is an emotional argument, and human beings are emotional, not robots powered by data.

So much of our lives is surrendered to subordinating ourselves to the needs and whims of others, turning human beings into cash cows rather than independent, well-rounded individuals.

The left’s mission isn’t simply to grant every citizen the basic means of survival, but comfort and prosperity, too, through collective means. Yet the existence of billionaires is irreconcilable with this emancipatory project.

But a rejection of freedom of movement within Europe’s own boundaries does not strengthen the case for accepting more migrants and refugees from outside: the reverse, in fact.

When those with wealth and power fear that their privilege is even mildly challenged, they invariably clothe themselves in the garbs of victimhood.

Austerity and economic insecurity have collided with the scapegoating of migrants and refugees, at a time when global instability and warfare have driven millions to flee violence and persecution, a minority of whom have arrived on European shores to be met with hostility.

Here in Britain, black people are disproportionately targeted, arrested and imprisoned for drug offences, while organised and violent crime are granted a massive source of revenue.

Britain’s police force is institutionally racist. This was the judgement of the 1999 Macpherson report, and it remains the case.

As inspirationally tireless as hospice fundraisers are, these are services that desperately need sustainable central funding. This means addressing the social care crisis too, which has inevitable knock-on effects on palliative and end-of-life services.

The liberation of workers from excessive work was one of the pioneering demands of the labour movement.

A sneer can often reveal far more about the sneerer than the object of their derision.

Tuition fees have formed part of a full-frontal assault on the living standards of a generation battered by a housing crisis, stagnating wages and slashed services.

Loneliness is devastating our mental and physical health and, at its worst, is killing us. Yet thankfully, unlike some conditions, we can easily cure it. We just need the will.