Readers of Left Foot Forward have voted Owen Jones, author of “Chavs: the Demonisation of the Working Class”, as the most influential left-wing thinker of the year.
Readers of Left Foot Forward have voted Owen Jones, academic and author of “Chavs: the Demonisation of the Working Class”, as the most influential leftwing thinker of the year 2010/11.
He came ahead of Caroline Lucas, Tom Watson and Polly Toynbee to take the top spot.
In their nominating piece for Jones, Fabians Olly Parker and Natan Doron wrote:
“Owen has managed re-launch the debate around class and inequality by finding new and accessible ways to make arguments that Labour thinkers have been making for years.
“He has also challenged the establishment by holding up a mirror to the way different people from different parts of the country are treated by the media and political elite in this country.
“As well as all this, Owen has often managed to argue a traditional hard-left point of view without coming across as completely mad. The media love to drop your archetypal “mad lefty” – or indeed “mad right-winger” – into TV debates for the sake of entertainment.
“Owen has not played up to this but has instead sensibly made arguments that the public can understand and relate to.
“The more we have of people like Owen discussing politics on TV, the better off and more constructive political discourse in this country will be.”
Thank you to everyone who took part in the vote. The full results are listed below:
1) Owen Jones (Academic, author and commentator)
2) Caroline Lucas (Leader of the Green Party)
3) Tom Watson (Media campaigner)
4) Polly Toynbee (Journalist)
5) Paul Krugman (Economist and opinion journalist)
6) Naomi Klein (Author and journalist)
7) Richard Murphy (Tax expert and blogger)
8) Ed Miliband (Leader of the opposition)
9) Ken Livingstone (Mayoral candidate)
10) Mehdi Hasan (Journalist)
11) Nick Davies (Guardian media journalist)
12) Ed Balls (Shadow chancellor)
13) Will Hutton (Author and commentator)
14) The Disability Rights Community
15) Barack Obama (US President)
16) Peter Tatchell (Human rights campaigner)
17) Nicholas Shaxson (Author, researcher and campaigner)
18) Maurice Glasman (Academic, author and lord)
19) Alex Salmond (First Minister of Scotland)
20) Tony Blair (Middle East peace envoy)
21) Andrew Simms (Policy director of New Economics Foundation)
22) Vince Cable (Business Secretary)
23) Neil Lawson (Chair of think tank Compass)
24) Anthony Painter (Researcher and theorist)
25) Bernard-Henri Levy (Philosopher and commentator)
26) Dani Rodrick (Academic and tweeter)
27) Elizabeth Anderson (Philosopher)
28) Deborah Mattinson (Pollster)
29) Lane Kenworthy (Sociologist and blogger)
30) Jacob Hacker (Academic and author)
Some of the original nominations can be read here: Ed Balls, The Disability Rights Community, Maurice Glasman, Owen Jones, Barack Obama, Nick Pierce’s nominations, Alex Salmond.
26 Responses to “LFF’s most influential left-wing thinker of the year 2010/11 is Owen Jones”
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AMAZING, @OwenJones84 'most influential person on the left' just rt'ed our campaign to @coldplay http://t.co/BFs00JIB
Thatcher’s corrosive legacy: The UK’s abandoned inner cities | Left Foot Forward
[…] Owen Jones points out in CHAVS, you can’t build a community around call-centre and supermarket jobs. […]
Dani Nayyar
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Janet Graham
.@OwenJones84, voted most influential left-wing thinker 2010/11 by LFF readers, is on @BBCQuestionTime on Thurs http://t.co/6VJbvIaY #bbcqt
Shamik Das
.@OwenJones84, voted most influential left-wing thinker 2010/11 by LFF readers, is on @BBCQuestionTime on Thurs http://t.co/6VJbvIaY #bbcqt