I hesitate to acknowledge this but 'chav' comes across pretty much as an unfortunate label in the US- I don't like the label and don't use it myself but... "poor white trash" is a common (no pun intended) category in the 'old' south. Everybody knows what is meant by that and all levels of society have used it. Once an older black man apologized to me for using it in reference to a neighbor of his but added, 'That is what they are.'