In the UK 70% of children from the richest tenth of families earn 5 or more good GCSEs when leaving school. GCSEs are the qualifications at the end of leaving high school they used to be easier but having seen a nephew’s a few years ago they were more difficult - or at least had bits where it was possible to go higher. Fewer than 30% of children from the poorest households get similar attainment to those from richer backgrounds. I don’t think kids from from poorer backgrounds have any less inherent potential as human beings than those from richer backgrounds.

It starts early, just under half of poor 5 year old children achieve the early years development targets of their richer peers, and it carries on after GCSEs. People aren’t statistics, there are lots of exceptions, and it’d be patronising to make assumptions or feel sorry for people. But the point stands: for a person from a disadvantaged background things are systematically more difficult for you in the UK. Everything from the way you are treated by teachers to the way you are treated by the system itself, the system being broader society and the things a person has to navigate. Using a very crude metric those in the skilled manual occupations group (C2) and the lowest grade occupations (DE), including the unemployed, account for about 20 million people, out of a population of just under 70 million people.

So, for some, the idea that asylum seekers and immigrants, who arrived here illegally are being housed in hotels and given help by professionals who have often regarded them as less important, or an annoyance, is the culmination of, I think, quite legitimate resentment of the system itself. If people lack hope symbols like flags or icons become important and those resentments against a similarly, or worse, marginalised group will be used by those who want to enact changes. In many ways the politics exploiting the situation of the asylum hotel protests reminds me of Marxist theory whereby the workers discover class solidarity and rise up against the bourgeoisie, in that some want to smash the system up and replace it with something else, and those people wrapped in flags are the agents of change.

One of the more patronising things I heard said about them is “the people they want in charge will treat them even worse”, which is potentially true, but overlooks that under the current system they have so little to lose getting arrested for being unruly is a viable option.

I am, of course, talking in quite coded terms about disadvantaged white people. Who exist in large chunks in the UK and have legitimate reasons for complaint of which putting flags on things is a symptom. It’s applied as much to other social unrest across races and classes, I’m sure there’s supporters or haters across the economic, and possibly even ethnic spectrum. I’m from an economically deprived background but had all kinds of other advantages. I really can see this from both sides.

I think the protesters are wrong, but if you treat people like cunts expect arseholes.