It was Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats who first coined the Armando Iannucci-like phrase “Heroes of the Alarm Clock”. Reminiscent of The Quiet Men of Bats, the political satirist has his hapless imaginary shadow cabinet pondering in Its thick“Heroes of the alarm clock” and “Alarm clock Britain” were the phrases the former deputy prime minister used to try and signal that his party was standing up for hard-working Britons.
Fast forward 15 years, and Reform UK are the new tribunes of Alarm Clock Britain – or the slogan, at least. Not only does reform leader Nigel Farage talk about “Alarm Clock Britain” but he also seems happy to show disdain for those who don’t work. He has expressed astonishment that Angela Rayner even has a CV, has accused Green voters in Gorton and Denton of being out of work and his response to protesters at his press conferences seems to be that they “don’t have a job” and should “get back to work”.
The truth is that this rhetoric is at odds with the reality that the Reform is actually disproportionately popular among unemployed people. The reform also performs better in countries with high unemployment, according to new analysis of local election results shared exclusively with Young statesman by political analyst Chris Clarke.
A new picture is emerging of an England as a country of “Two Deprivations”. The first, going back to Reforma, is a country with health deprivation (high levels of disability, lower life expectancy), education deprivation (less skilled, poorer access to training, low school achievement) and employment deprivation (unemployment). The second, turning increasingly to the Greens, is environmental deprivation (fewer gardens, dense construction, air pollution), housing deprivation (unsafe, expensive and poor quality housing) and income deprivation – leading to in-work poverty.
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Data visualization from Chris Clarke
“These are two relatively or very different ways in which poverty is experienced in Britain, both are challenges and are almost completely unrecognizable to each other in a strange way,” said Clarke, who mapped the local election results using the Indices of Multiple Deprivation. “Both inner-city areas and those more ‘left behind’ tend to see themselves as being at the bottom of the queue, when in fact regional inequality has created these two very different forms that deprivation takes, and the government is, in a sense, torn between the two.”
Framing Two Deprivations, which began life as a survey-based theory during the Gorton and Denton by-elections, also debunks political myths about the support bases of left-wing and right-wing populism. “It’s a rebuttal to the idea that inner-city areas are now all kinds of hipster areas that don’t know they were born,” as well as the idea that Reform is simply replacing conservative votes that “don’t have a real problem.”
Of course, it does not necessarily mean that Farage and other reform politicians will deceive their base by poking fun at unemployed people. In fact, this kind of rhetoric may resonate more in countries with higher unemployment and thus capacity for resentment towards out-of-work benefit claimants.
This is in the same way that narratives about super-rich corporations and inequality may resonate more in what Clarke describes as places “behind the glass” – where inequality is most visible visually (Tower Hamlets is a classic example, with deprived neighborhoods like Poplar alongside the glittering towers of Canary Wharf).
But reform will eventually have to deal with unemployment-promoting tendencies in their fast-forming heartlands. When I visited Clacton in Essex, the seat of Nigel Farage, it was clear that the simple remedy of reducing immigration was not going to cut it.
Set back from the seafront, on a high street between cosy-looking cafes with names like Nancy’s and Rosie’s, is a charity shop the size of a small supermarket. Her window display – beach balls, floral skirts, sunglasses – promises a sunnier season than the windy gray of the city outside.
The shop is light and spacious, with easy-to-use shelves of retired neckties, Mardi Gras masks, silver stilettos and full porcelain tea sets in forgotten blue. “Charity shop or not, we still want to be Marks and Spencer,” smiled Alison Brown, who works on the shop floor.
The shop is run by a Citizens Advice scheme to help people get back into work; people are either referred or can simply go out of their way to volunteer here for a year to build their confidence and skills.
Eighty percent of participants end up in paid or volunteer work at the end of it; a phenomenal success rate as return-to-work programs go. About a third of people who join have never worked and half are long-term unemployed. Not only do they move into retail – but bartending, grooming, cleaning, wait work, landscaping, construction, social media management and even tattoo art.
A combination of poor mental health and a limited local labor market was driving economic inactivity in the city.
I met Teri, 38, who didn’t go outside for ten years after her mental health collapsed. Having never worked before, she joined the service in 2021, was finally prescribed the right medication and therapy after an ADHD diagnosis, and now works a paid job at the store and even built the service an app.
Others had fallen out of the workforce and needed a resume and self-esteem overhaul. “I was at a pretty low ebb, I remember walking in the first day and burst into tears,” said Angie, who had lost her job after 28 years in childcare. She has worked at the store since joining the service three years ago.
Clacton has some of the highest rates of economic inactivity in the country. Like many English seaside towns where Reforma has a presence, her work is seasonal and low-paid. “You have caravan parks, tourism, care homes, not much else,” said Emma Funnell, who runs Citizens Advice Tendring. “You also have low educational attainment, you need to leave Clacton to pursue further education.”
Locals also complain about the lack of buses and poor connections to London – with only one train an hour and expensive. “This is not long-term supportive to reduce any reliance on benefits that may exist,” Funnell said. Far from the “snowflake” or “group” narrative of the political right, she noted that people entering her scheme had gone through “normal things”. “That’s life when it can hit you, and then it can lead to being out of a job.”
No two Deprivations are created equal. All 20 areas offering the best prospects of social mobility (eg getting into a higher-paid occupation) for poor young people are in London, according to Grace Lordan of the LSE. And inner city deprivation has fallen by almost a fifth since 2010, new research from the Center for Cities finds. However, deprivation in the UK remains concentrated in cities: around two-thirds of the most deprived neighborhoods are in urban areas.
Politics in Britain may be shifting, but the Two Deprivations reveal a profound truth: this is, in many ways, a poor country. Blaming citizens for this, rather than helping them through it, is unlikely to wake Alarm Clock Britain from its slumber. As Teri, who overcame a decade of joblessness when she was given the chance for flexible working at Clacton charity shop, told me: “I literally wouldn’t see sunlight all winter, just because I was asleep. Since I started working, I’ve had to change my sleeping pattern to be somewhat normal. Now I wake up without a huge difference.”
(Further reading: Keir Starmer is a dishonest man)
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