You have nothing to lose but your van

Phraow. Look at him. He's a real man. Not like Ed Miliband.

Well, if nothing else, Britain now has its very own version of Joe the Plumber. Dan the Van, the emblematic man (and, really, notice he's a man - a manly man at that) on the street. He'd be the man on the Clapham omnibus, were it not for the fact that he has a van, and therefore doesn't need to get the bus. But not just any old man, oh no. He's a common-or-garden salt of the earth working class man. And if you diss Dan, and don't you dare diss Dan, you hate the working class. You're a snob. And probably a member of the metropolitan elite. So don't diss Dan, OK?

There is, of course, a metropolitan elite in Britain. It does indeed make up the social base of New Labour, whose rejection of its core electorate partially explains the exit of a minority of that electorate to UKIP.  Emily Thornberry, a decent soft-left sort from a working class background, isn't really part of it. But then car salesman Dan isn't really part of the working class on any reasonable definition either. Core reality isn't important here. This is about narrative.

Richard Seymour here is good on the details of the class issue here; and this blogpost, which I promoted yesterday, is definitely worth a read. I'd just like to make one observation - the reason the forces around the Labour leadership have been so rattled by Vangate is that Thornberry's tweet upsets their preferred class narrative. This issues from the bowels of Blue Labour, and finds expression in the whole One Nation brand. It surfaced around the debate on Scottish independence, is a nationalistic ally orientated, culturally homogenising story about what it is to be working class. It is deeply reactionary in content, and its effect can only be to cede political terrain which UKIP will work more effectively than Labour.

And Ed Miliband's wedded to it. We're screwed.

Friday Video Corner - Emily Thornberry memorial edition

And if you want something sensible on the bizarre Thick of It style events of the past twenty four hours, I can't recommend this blogpost too much.