Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics

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a b Bortun, Vladimir. "Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics ⁠–⁠ review". LSE Review of Books . Retrieved 25 August 2023. It is a facet of globalisation that not only are there huge flows of people across national boundaries, there are concomitant huge flows of ideas too. And the facilitator of this flow is technology – because it is heedless of human scale notions, not just human superpositions, constructs if you like, such as nation states and national boundaries, but also the ‘constructs’ of nature like physical geography. But there’s something more – technology is shining searchlights on aspects our nature which we never knew existed and would have remained hidden otherwise. Rachman, Gideon (22 June 2023). "Best summer books of 2023: Politics". Financial Times . Retrieved 25 August 2023. Goodwin, Matthew (2011). New British Fascism: The Rise of the British National Party. Routledge. ISBN 978-0415465007.

But just as new scrutiny has been applied to that rarified economic class, others have argued that other kinds of elite wield power of their own. One influential broad definition, from the American sociologist Shamus Khan: elites are anyone who has “vastly disproportionate control over or access to a resource”. What will eventually defeat this pernicious ideology is that its ideas are manifestly contradictory. To fully support one facet of woke-dom puts you on the wrong side of another facet. If you stand up to support feminist rights you fall foul of trans-rights etc etc For Goodwin is no extremist, he makes clear early on that he is no fan of populists such as Le Pen or even Farage and Orban. Rather he sees populism as an inevitability when elite powers disregard the public will. He will present us with ‘big picture’ statistics in hope of reaching all interested parties across the polarised divides.Goodwin spoke at the 2023 National Conservatism Conference, [27] [28] where he described the Conservative Party as in a "prolonged death spiral". [29] Goodwin told CNN that conservatives needed to "decide who they are and what they want to be". [30] For The Atlantic, Helen Lewis wrote that Goodwin gave "a typically doomy speech", which "segued into 10 minutes of pure populist beat poetry". [31] Gerry Hassan wrote that "Goodwin is the populist right's academic of choice, but it seems to have escaped his notice that in the past half century right-wing Tory Governments have been in office for three-quarters of the time." [32] David Aaronovitch described Goodwin's speech as one of the two most "politically coherent" of the conference, calling him "the politics professor turned political entrepreneur". [33] Explaining his decision to participate in the conference, Goodwin wrote "I’m not a member of the Conservative Party. And unless something changes I don’t currently plan on voting Conservative at the next election." He explained that his decision was because "one of the most interesting and important debates in politics right now is where conservatism goes next – not only here in Britain but globally." [34] Since 2015, Goodwin has been professor of politics in the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Kent. [8] Other [ edit ] Bloomfield, Jon. "Toxic Friends? A Critique of Blue Labour". The Political Quarterly . Retrieved 21 August 2023. Goodwin says that a new elite has taken control of the political institutions, the think-tanks, the civil service, public bodies, the universities, creative industries, the cultural institutions and much of the media. Even if this is somewhat overstated (the largest London thinktank, Policy Exchange, is decidedly not on the side of the new elite), Goodwin’s view is one we all recognise. Such are the grisly politics of grievance. God help the young. I consider myself supremely fortunate to have grown up before Woke ideologies, “Social justice” activism and Social Media.

Goodwin describes a deeply destabilising political revolution imposed on the country and indeed other western democracies for 50 years driven by an emerging educated and largely urban elite. This elite has been the main beneficiaries of the changes they led driving deep wedges between themselves and the majority of the population whose views they ignore and distain.Match of the Day host and supposed ‘new elite’ enforcer Gary Lineker. Photograph: Henry Nicholls/Reuters Eatwell, Roger; Goodwin, Matthew (2018). National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy. Pelican Books. ISBN 9780241312001. But how much of this is true today, after four decades in which academia has gone from leaning Left to being overwhelmingly progressive? Wokeism might not yet be a term used by the masses but it is rapidly going mainstream. Take last week as an example. Excluding references to Luntz’s study, the terms “woke” or “wokeism” appeared in a large number of articles across a diverse array of UK media, from debates about sustainable investing, employee training, William Shakespeare and television advertisements to debates about local councils, Alien, Love Island, university reading lists, the England team and trigger warnings for university students, to name only a few. Willetts, David. "The populism of Matthew Goodwin—and its many problems". www.prospectmagazine.co.uk . Retrieved 2023-07-12.