Underdogs

A Financial Times Summer Read 2025
A BBC Radio 4 'Book of the Week'

'Essential reading' - The Daily Telegraph
'Not just well timed but admirably powerful' - The Guardian
'Packed with revealing content' - Independent

Underdogs is a surprising journey into the heart of the misunderstood white working class. And it might just change how you see Britain.

Brexit helped to turn the white working class into a social and political force, but in its aftermath one-third of the population has been reduced to a caricature. Portrayed as angry and hostile to change, as xenophobic, even racist, it's a tired narrative favoured by both politicians and the press. The truth is far more compelling.

In Underdogs, Economist journalist Joel Budd takes us across the UK, from Teesside to the Isle of Wight, from the Valleys of South Wales to the fields of Lincolnshire, talking with a diverse group of people about their jobs, their families and neighbourhoods, their struggles and hopes.

Offering an eye-opening corrective to the familiar stereotype, Budd shows that white working- class people are not just grumbling about the transformation of Britain. Instead, with warmth and determination, they are pushing the country forward.