Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics

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Having made all the arguments here for more than half a decade, he needed a new peg on which to hang them. He's plumped for a clear division between the 'old elite' and the 'new elite'. Apparently, the 'new elite' are different from the old because they have Oxbridge educations, have a 'loud and dominant' voice in institutions, and have a sense of moral righteousness that makes them believe they are superior to non-elites. An academic review of the cultural changes , the wokism if you like, that has caused such a disconnect between the left and the working class. It may not be the best read but it's spot on with its analysis particularly the exploration of the theory that the language and celebration of this new belief system is part of a new way the elite signal their status, without it impacting on them even if it does harm the non elite. Britain is in the midst of an historic transformation. Over the past decade, a country once known around the globe for its stable politics has seemingly descended into chaos. Through a series of upheavals, the country's liberal establishment has been outflanked and a new alliance of voters has emerged, weakening the traditional divide between left and right. In trying to make sense of this, many commentators have turned to short-term explanations: dark money, the recession, the personalities of party leaders. But, as acclaimed political scientist Matthew Goodwin reveals in this strikingly original study, the remarkable turbulence of recent years has been a long time in the making-and it is set to continue for many years to come.

Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics - Goodreads Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics - Goodreads

The last decade was the most volatile in British politics since the introduction of universal suffrage. But to what extent was there a political realignment? Matthew Goodwin’s argument is that the vote for Brexit in 2016 and the general election result of 2019 were just part of a broader rebellion against the ‘new ruling class and the political project they have imposed on the country over the last fifty years’. I found this analysis of the breakdown in traditional voting patterns both fascinating and comforting. Fascinating in that it brought into focus the conditions which can give rise to populist political figures and comforting in that it shed light on my feelings of political dismay about political discourse and my changing relationship to politics and how we are governed. An increasingly liberalised, globalised ruling class has lost touch with millions, who found their values ignored, their voices unheard and their virtue denied.

I found this to be a fascinating and determinedly objective analysis of the changing political alignments in Britain today. It examines the widening gulf between the ‘new elite (typically liberal progressive graduates with left leaning views)that runs the country and its institutions and the ‘Traditionalist’ majority (mostly non-graduate, patriotic, culturally conservative). It charts the rise of this new elite over the past 60 years as they supplanted the old land owning, aristocratic elite of the previous era. An excellent book for understanding the current state of play in British politics. Matthew Goodwin argues that the economic liberalism of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government combined with the cultural liberalism of Tony Blair's New Labour regime has created a political culture in the United Kingdom that is now just as polarised as that of America or continental Europe. The divide is now mainly between the university-educated, socially liberal, and pro-mass immigration elite on the one hand and the culturally conservative national populists on the other. The latter group tend to be more right-wing on cultural issues, but more left-wing on economics. As an exercise, I followed up a random citation. On p101 of the Kindle edition, he says: 'These changes played a direct role in Labour's electoral collapse[...] Political appeals to the working class', conclude professors Geoff Evans and James Tilley, in their insightful study of how Labour's electorate unravelled over the last ten years, 'have now effectively disappeared from the lexicon of party politics.' The meaning of what he's saying is clear: that Labour, primarily under Miliband and Corbyn, have lost sight of the working class, with catastrophic consequences (ie the 2019 election). Change the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the “Settings & Account” section. What happens at the end of my trial?

Values, Voice and Virtue - Penguin Books Australia Values, Voice and Virtue - Penguin Books Australia

Towards the end, Goodwin laughs at people who continue to see class as important in British politics. He must have forgotten some of his earlier chapters. Arguably, I had no need to read this book. Having had my world view up-ended already, my time would have been better spent reading something to challenge my current beliefs. But V,V&V has been included in an online reading group, so I figured I may as well have a look at it. Carrying on from National Populism, Goodwin brings his argument right up to date, painting a clear picture of the “left behind” working class’s justifiable feeling of abandonment and resentment. It clearly explains the collapsing Red Wall and just as clearly explains the impending collapse of those newly-blue seats in the next election. These ‘hyper-globalists’ have lost touch with the electorate they purport to represent and cater to. The values from unfashionable non-urban regions are undesirable and excluded in the voice of institutions such as academia, media, creative cultural institutions. Virtues of certain groups are upheld as desirable, honourable and rewarded with high status while others are slammed as ignorant ‘Karens and Gammons.’Funder reveals how O’Shaughnessy Blair self-effacingly supported Orwell intellectually, emotionally, medically and financially ... why didn’t Orwell do the same for his wife in her equally serious time of need?’ Well-written and cogently argued ... [Goodwin] understands the broad forces that spurred the surprising changes and tumult in the politics of the West, and he writes about them without villainizing or heroizing ... a crucial one to read. Bo Winegard, Aporia

The New Elite is in complete denial - spiked

Not sure what’s happened to Goodwin in recent years*, but this (ironically polemic) anti-“woke” / anti-“liberal elite” rant is a horribly far cry from the legitimately rigorous work he previously produced on the British far-right. You’re better off reading (for example) Aurelien Mondon instead. The dissatisfaction has been fermenting for decades. There is little public trust left in social media so Russian bots aren’t to blame either. Rather there is a distinct period (begun under Margaret Thatcher|) that has culminated in a paper thin difference between the two political parties and leaves little in the way of traditional left/right democratic alternative.It doesn't take a genius to work out that all of these three elements, particularly the first two, were present among British elites for most of the twentieth century. The one element of the 'new elite' that I think does distinguish them from earlier elites is their 'liberal cosmopolitanism' - but the crass distinction between new/old elites means that Goodwin never really focuses on the question of WHY elites are increasingly inclined to those views. He makes a start by pointing out the massive rise in the number of people attending university, but universities are themselves becoming ever more 'liberal'. Ok so I started writing a llllllooonnnnnngggggg review here and realised that those who ought to read this book would not be swayed - after all I am not too far removed from the demographic that they have been ignoring or demonising for over three decades now. Universities have proven to be a hotbed of ideological indoctrination and are generally monocultures in which marginalised voices are silenced or discriminated against. 75% of rightwing academics feel they must hide their views and one third admit they would openly discriminate against a Brexit voter. Two thirds are positive about leftwing voters, with only 10% feeling the same about the right. This western trend for Frankfurt School-style echo chambers has seen political enfranchisement become a preserve of wealth and status. Where might the real centre ground of British politics lie? “We love our NHS, hang the paedos” — that was a tongue-in-cheek formula sketched out in 2018 by Jeremy Driver, a tweeter who might just be the most influential political philosopher you’ve never heard of. His viral tweet came at the height of the excitement about a new centrist party, but little did Driver know that Boris Johnson would soon seize his mantra as the ideological path to power.