I'm Worried About Deano

As the anonymous author of In The Sight of the Unwise has betrayed us by getting a job or something and so slowed his writing, there’s a pertinent question going unanswered during the cost of living squeeze.

Is Deano screwed?

If you have no idea who I’m talking about, go here and here to read about the marginal voter who is likely to decide a bunch of swing seats at the next election.

Everyone thinks that the Tory majority is based on the old, but between the 2017 and 2019 elections, the age at which people were more likely to vote Tory actually fell. The current majority and its red wall seats owe as much to Deano inhabited new build estates as to the white working class abandoning Labour.

If the route to a majority goes through Deano, how is he getting on?

Is he fucked?

Deano wants low taxes and low inflation just like every other voter, but what he really needs are low interest rates. The only thing he wants to be high is growth which should be trend or better. 

Uh oh.

Growth is bad. The OBR already expected lower than trend growth once the post covid snap back was over, and the snap back isn’t panning out as we hoped. Low growth means his low status, regional, boring, but pretty nice and fairly well remunerated job is suddenly not as secure as before. Deano is a creature of credit, he needs to service that debt. Rising unemployment matters to Deano as it does to the rest of us, except Deano is more highly geared than you are and he has two kids.

Deano’s contentment comes not only from the security of owning his Barrett home, but also from the fact his material well-being has increased throughout his life (yes, even during austerity). We’re potentially going to see ten percent inflation this year, and his 24 month iPhone 13 Pro Max contract is RPI linked. The heating costs of his Deanobox are about to double. For the first time in his life his cost of living is about to outstrip his increase in wages.

It is worth really labouring this point. Deano has never seen inflation before. The highest CPI has been since the year 2000 is 3.8%, and was less than 2% for 11 of the years between 2000 and 2020. I’d take a wild guess and say Deano’s basket of goods may have even fallen in real terms over that period, with the exception of Boxing PPVs. 

Similarly, Deano is used to his taxes not having an impact on the direction of travel of his life. Taxes are going up, regardless of if you’re an employee, or a business owner, Deano can be either and he is about to feel his income getting squeezed by the government for the first time ever.  

Deano sceptics think that Deano is living his life on “the never, never” - that credit allows him to live a life he can’t afford. However, credit simply allows Deano to bring his consumption forward, and that’s great! The low interest rate environment has allowed him to do that for free (practically). 

However, if you imagine Deano with £10k on his credit card you’ve misunderstood. What he does have is a car on PCP, an iPad spread over 24 months from John Lewis and his DFS settee on interest-free credit. As these financing products get more expensive over the next 18 months, his ability to enjoy the benefits of modern life falls.

All of this adds up to one thing - Deano is broadly much more exposed than the rest of the country to the cost of living crisis you’ve been reading about in the news. Is he fucked? No, but he’s in for a more miserable time than you are.

Let’s imagine a Deano, call him Michael. Michael lives in a charming three bed with his Fiat 500 driving girlfriend and their two young kids.He commutes the five miles into Nottingham everyday day in his PCP Audi A3, for his £30k a year job. After work he goes and works out at the PureGym next to his office (“I’d love an outdoor gym though mate, hahaha”). He’s got a £225k mortgage and splits his bills:

Well that trip to Dubai at half term is cancelled for a start.

The political question here is interesting - how will Deano, who has for so long been cheating the system by not living in London and not status chasing, react to his life getting materially shitter? This is a question I’ll leave open except to add a thought experiment; what would British politics look like if Deano developed a class consciousness, in the way that Pensioners have? 

Finally some (more) misconceptions about Deano

ITSotU did a good job of clearing up the major misconceptions about Deano taxonomy, however, there are some more… vibey things it is worth dealing with.

Deano bullied me at school

Maybe a mini-Deano was horrible to you when you were a kid. I’m afraid that’s not because he was a Deano but because you’re the sort of person who as an adult reads weird blogs. Deano is a lifestyle not a personality type.

Deano is stupid/bad/worthy of my scorn

There’s only one legitimate reason to dislike Deano; snobbery. He lives in an ugly house, drives a flashy car, does a low status job and has no taste - no taste in clothes, holidays, restaurants, wallpaper, anything. Besides that though it isn’t possible to ascribe any consistent morality to Deano. 

If you were to bump into Deano on his monthly Friday night out in town with his mates (“missus let you out for once? hahahaha”), he’s more likely to buy you a shot and shout in your ear about the new BMW 3 Series than start a fight or do anything actively unpleasant. 

Deano is a minor or irrelevant subgroup

The situation is the opposite. Deano is interesting because there are millions of him yet he is under discussed. He has no champions in the mainstream media, his lifestyle has no visibility. Where a Deano has a media profile such as a Love Island thot or boxing promoter Eddie Hearn the media doesn’t really accept they are a core type of normie. 

If there was a genuinely representative soap opera in Britain, it wouldn’t be the laughably anachronistic Eastenders, it would be set on a Redrow estate 5 miles outside Nottingham.

Deano is a binary distinction

Of course there are millions of Deanos, but there are millions more people with at least some significant Deano characteristics.Thousands of couples leave London every year because they want kids and can’t afford a house, so end up in an uncharming box in a new build estate. Millions of people have a car on finance - I’m one of them and I got a great deal from a nice man whose name was literally Dean. Unless you’re the sort of person who thinks Sam Bowman is a pretty neat guy you almost certainly have your mobile phone on finance agreement through the network provider, or at least did to start with.

If you’re under 40 you’re certainly a little bit Deano, and what a fine thing to be.