Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics

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Eatwell, Roger; Goodwin, Matthew (2018). National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy. Pelican Books. ISBN 9780241312001. If you believed academics are no longer relevant beyond their own professional bubble, Matthew Goodwin’s latest book has come to challenge that perception. Although it has been passionately praised and criticised across mainstream and social media, one shortcoming of most reactions has been to treat the book as a scholarly work.

Goodwin, Matthew; Milazzo, Caitlin (2015). UKIP: Inside the Campaign to Redraw the Map of British Politics. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198736110. As politics has become increasingly “two-dimensional”, shaped not just by debates about the economy and public services but also by new debates over culture, identity and belonging, Labour’s decision to go all in on the more liberal graduate class has left it dangerously exposed.

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As of September 2022 [update] he serves on the Social Mobility Commission. [2] Early life and education [ edit ]

That there are such echoes across the decades should not surprise us. The image of a distinct, new elite, defined by its education and values, and standing over the common people, has a long history, popping up throughout the 20th century. The roots of the contemporary debate about the new elite lie in the 1970s. The late Barbara Ehrenreich published with her husband, John, an essay in 1977 in which they coined the term “ professional-managerial class” (PMC). There had developed, they argued, a new class of college-educated professionals, from engineers and middle managers to social workers and culture producers, that was distinct from the middle class of old but essential to the functioning of capitalism. The Ehrenreichs were hopeful that this class could be mobilised for progressive causes. They warned, however, that it could also give rise to “what may at first sight seem to be a contradiction in terms: anti-working class radicalism”.It is true that a new generation of thinkers and activists has helped consolidate a culture more given to identitarian thinking and more censorious in its outlook (though also one that is less racist, more accepting of women’s equality and more welcoming of gay people). To confuse that, however, with the claim that it constitutes the new ruling class is to have a weak understanding of how power works and where it lies. It has been 26 years since the British children’s television show Teletubbies aired on TV for the first time, with its infamous grassy hill, Sun Baby and 10ft tall aliens capturing the hearts of children all over. Like with so much TV aimed at infants, Teletubbies made no sense, but its saturated colours and catchy songs made it a mainstay in children’s entertainment. Forceful ... The fundamental thrust of Goodwin's argument is right ... a new centre ground of British politics is being formed - even if both parties have yet to fully comprehend it' The Times As Goodwin defines it, the New Elite largely comprises graduates with liberal inclinations, who live in London and also in places like Manchester, Bristol, Cambridge and Edinburgh. They are likely to hold ‘progressive’ views on race, gender and immigration. They dominate cultural and other public institutions, such as the BBC, the civil service, universities, museums and galleries. They effectively shape and supervise much of public discourse.

That woke “intersectional pyramid” is a hierarchy of victim status. In fact the entire concept of identity politics – which purports to be about inclusivity and equality – is in reality divisive and intolerant. It silos people and silences people. Identity Politics tells us what groups we belong to and that our whole identity is defined by that group and dependent on that group, this drives a wedge between people who would previously have felt kinship with one another. It is hard to retain solidarity with your community when parts of that community are being taught that it is ‘right’ to mistrust the motives of another. 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. Police | Eight serving and former Metropolitan police officers have been found guilty of gross misconduct after they were found to have sent sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic and ableist comments in a Whatsapp group between 2016 and 2018. So you would have to be pretty ignorant of the wider, well-known literature on the New Elite to think that what I’m arguing in Values, Voice and Virtue is particularly unique or outrageous. And yet, based on their reaction over the past week, many members of the New Elite clearly do think this about my argument. Their reaction has been very revealing. This group “creates, filters and determines what is or what is not acceptable or desirable within the national conversation”, Goodwin writes. “The new elite watched the prevailing culture be completely reshaped around their far more socially liberal values, tastes, political priorities, and interests.”What has caused the recent seismic changes in British politics, including Brexit and a series of populist revolts against the elite? Why did so many people want to overturn the status quo? Where have the Left gone wrong? And what deeper trends are driving these changes? Matt has published several other academic books with Oxford and Cambridge University Press, including the first major study of the Brexit vote and dozens of peer-reviewed papers in top-ranked journals such as the British Journal of Political Science,the European Journal of Political Researchand Electoral Studies.He has published highly cited research reports with think tanks such as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Chatham House, and the Legatum Institute. That isn't an issue in itself, obviously. My own politics are pretty similar to his in many respects. But he lets them into his work, making the book less effective as an argument. Funnily enough, he mentions 'confirmation bias' in his introduction and this is exactly what happens in this book. Gerry Hassan: Matthew Goodwin's take on the current state of Britain is flawed". The National. 2023-04-11 . Retrieved 2023-07-12. People who study cults sometimes end up joining them. Has this fate befallen Matthew Goodwin, one of Britain’s most visible scholars of the hard right? Since the release of his debut monograph on Ukip, Revolt on the Right (2014), Goodwin has scaled the heights of academic stardom: a professorship at Kent, a fellowship at Chatham House, advisory roles with the UK government, regular media appearances and lucrative after-dinner speeches. Shot to prominence by the boom in “populism studies”, he has joined the crop of political scientists who counsel mainstream policymakers on defusing challenges from the margins. Yet, while mapping the contours of Farageism over the past decade, he has steadily mutated into an advocate for its most crankish tendencies.