I just came across your substack through Matt Goodwin's latest piece. Absolutely love what you have to say. As a former idealistic leftie, I am now politically homeless. As many people have said 'I didn't leave the left, the left left me!' I now live in Hungary and despite all the bad press about this place, and our populist PM, I can tell you it is nothing like the MSM make it out to be. It's the safest, friendliest and most socially harmonious place I've ever lived in. Hungarians are unashamed to prioritise their country, traditions, family and value education, hard work, and social mobility. What's more, we've been mostly insulated from Wokemania here in Hungary, especially since Hungarians my age and older really do remember when words were policed and people reported on.
Thanks Nicky. That’s very kind of you to say. I think we all feel politically homeless now. Maybe because what was once idealistic and leftie is now considered ultra MAGA right wing by some…weird. I love Hungary. I’ve been to Budapest a couple of times and loved it on both occasions. I found it exactly as you say. Funny how being proud of your country and heritage is OK for Scotland and Ukraine (and rightly so), but for England and Hungary, not so much. Sounds like you’re prospering out there, good luck to you, and thanks so much for taking the time to comment.
Great piece that comes eloquently from your own background.
Interesting to highlight the lack of connection between the 2 main parties and the 'working class'. My own view is that this disconnect is not because of a lack of interest but a lack of definition of who stands behind this label. I would suggest that the 'working class' as a label is hopelessly out of date to the point of being almost meaningless.
If I can find the time, I may start my own Substack to explore this idea. In the meantime, good luck with your writing. BW Phil
Thank you Phil. Much appreciated. You are correct of course. To be honest I wrestled with the term ‘working class’ when I was writing that piece. But went with it in the end because it fit with the historical context at least. I felt that most people would understand the demographic I was referring to. Usually I just say ‘regular people’ or similar. However I stand by my assertion that whatever you call this demographic, the two main parties have no real time for it, all their supposed concerns seem tokenistic and fake. Also. Definitely start a Substack-it’s a great thing to do-you only have to post when you have something to say, there’s no pressure. Good luck if you do. Best to you.
I think the term ‘working class’ has lost its relevance but I don’t know what might take its place. My dad worked in a meat factory. He was working class. My daughter is the first person in my extended family to get a degree. She’s not working class.
I’m really interested in this idea of regular people. Do they have mortgages or do they rent? Do they work in MacDonald’s? Do they have a master’s in electronics? Do they go on holiday in Greece? Go skiing? Do they have compassion for refugees? Or would rather sink their boats?
Did regular people vote for Brexit? Were the people who voted remain not regular?
Of the top of my head, I can’t think of anything the regular people have in common in the way that those of us who lived on council estates and worked in factories had in common back in the 70s. That world has gone but I can’t think what might take it’s place. I’m sincerely interested and would love to read more if you can recommend someone who speaks about this.
‘I can’t think of anything the regular people have in common in the way that those of us who lived on council estates and worked in factories had in common back in the 70s.’ Absolutely, it’s a total sea change. Shared experience, on a cultural level is essentially a thing of the past. I am often looking for common experiences in my profession life, references that everyone in an audience will ‘get’. The range of options has shrunk dramatically over the last 20 years. The internet for one thing, has atomised, or at least helped Balkanise, our culture.
I prefer the term "aspirational worker" - everyone aspires to something, including those who work and what person who works claim not to be aspirational?
I suspect I would have been a traditional Labour voter - after all they were founded to represent the working class. But they’d vacated that stage before I could vote. I’ve spent my adult life voting either abstaining or when forced to because the alternative was even worse, voting for the lesser of two evils. A party that offered the wish list you give would get my vote as a positive thing. I see the word “Populist” as being used by our elites to tarnish the reasonable desires of the majority with the unreasonable prejudices of the extremes, in order to discredit the former. Parties such as Reform are essentially used as protest vehicles to try to drag one of the two main parties towards a particular stance. No one is actually making an offering that would have appeal to the majority of the public. Given the current power that the elites wield across most of the institutions in the UK, they probably don’t think they need to, but in doing so, they are creating a political vacuum that will eventually be filled. My fear would be by what.
I agree completely. I keep thinking I must be missing something, but as you say, the elites use the term ‘populism’ to tarnish and discredit the desires of the majority. And I can’t see that as anything but contempt for democracy. Somehow we’ve got to a position where the ‘clever people’ feel it’s OK to hold their noses when discussing the legitimate concerns of the majority of voters. I’m cautious about the fears of what will fill the political vacuum. I think that these concerns are often just another subtle tool of the elites, ‘if you don’t do what we say the country will be open to a far right takeover’. I just don’t buy it. It’s just another way of saying the majority of voters are bestial and can’t be trusted. But maybe I’m wrong about that. Thanks so much for taking the trip over here. And for taking the time to comment. Best to you.
Just read it. Truly bizarre as you say. Almost like he’s blaming voters for being annoyed that the elites are not delivering on democracy. Or maybe I’m missing something.
Meanwhile across the pond. . . Exact same issues. Do you ever wonder if the covid virus or perhaps the mandated vaccine included a virus that caused mental dysphoria of sheeplike symptoms for some and authoritarianism for government officials?
The reality is Deidre K the only ‘extra’ virus they ever needed was to scare the pants off everyone! It seemed to work perfectly and we’re still all suffering from the side effects!
Ah yes, fear. I witnessed that up close and personal, as I worked with the public through out it all. Any fear of the virus quickly disappeared into skepticism, replaced by fear of government overreach.
I’m catching up on my Low Status Opinions. You are a great writer and I find you challenging because I disagree with you so much. You are making me think.
I made plans to leave the USA after 25 years because they elected a populist president who is a charlatan and a malevolent conman. His toilets are made of gold. Trump is who I think of when you say we should vote for populists. Berlusconi, maybe. Or Erdoğan. Mussolini, perhaps. I cannot imagine voting for any of those people. And yet, your list of populist policies that regular people might vote for are appealing to me. Am I regular people? But I think the NHS and the BBC are both national treasures that have become tarnished in recent years and they are under attack from people who you would probably think of as populists. I would like to restore the NHS and the BBC to their former glory. Am I regular people yet?
I mentioned on another post that I think we came out of WW1 with a particular alignment. We did away with the aristocrats (at last!) and politics divided us roughly into rich and poor, officers and privates, people who owned their houses and people who lived in council houses, people who owned factories and people who worked in factories. For all those dichotomies, you belonged to one team but not the other and you voted Tory or Labour. That all changed after Thatcher and Blair and we never figured out the categories to replace them. We don’t have a new alignment.
Regular people go to university these days and they own their own houses. They also leave school at 18 and they rent shared houses because they can’t afford to buy. One of the richest men in the world owns 100s of newspapers and the most popular TV stations in America. He is a populist and all of his newspapers supported the War in Iraq (coincidence, no doubt). Another populist calls himself a Viscount and his newspapers tells constant lies on the front page. It seems like many of the populist politicians went to Eton or Winchester or Dulwich College. I think of them the way I think of Trump and Berlusconi. All these populist leaders seem to be billionaires and I think they are pulling a fast one. I don’t think these populist leaders are regular people but I think they have figured out a way to con regular people into supporting them.
The alignment that seemed to divide us recently was Brexit but my hunch is that the vast majority were casting protest votes against the awful state of our politics. Sure, there are plenty of sincere and thoughtful Brexit voters like Mr LSO but there were a lot more who were just fed up with status quo. I barely missed the Brexit vote so I missed all the arguments for it. I still barely understand it despite reading several books on it (I recommend Professor Tombs’). From my point of view, the Brexit campaign was the worst kind of populist campaign. Brexit was going to save us from all those Muslim refugees and immigrants but Brexit did the opposite and immigration went up and Muslim immigration went up and refugee arrivals went up under the watchful eye of the populists who campaigned for Brexit. We have a billionaire prime minister now but it’s the other people that we accuse Of being elite.
A final thought. I am a patriotic Englishman. I served in the military. When America elected a charlatan, all I wanted was to come home to my country - Brexit and all. I crossed the class line when I was promoted to officer, when I bought my own house, when I worked on Wall Street and now I’m studying for a degree. But that line doesn’t exist any more and we haven’t yet figured out where to draw the new line yet. One thing I am sure of: it’s not populists vs elites. Not when the populists are billionaires and politicians who went to Eton and Australians who own all the media (except the paper owned by a Viscount). Those people are conmen.
Firstly Ragged thanks for taking the trouble to write such a thoughtful response. I really appreciate your input to LSO.
I think I set out my views on populism in the piece. But essentially I think we need politicians who see their primary job as enacting the will of the people. Not, from a self appointed position of moral and intellectual superiority, as a mission to impose their will ON the people. Usually this imposition involves removing some layer of freedom or another on the pretext that this is being done for people’s ’own good’.
I have more faith in common humanity than that. Yes, we can make mistakes, but these are our mistakes to make.
The idea that voters are tricked, brainwashed or bamboozled to vote for the likes of Trump or for policies such as Brexit, just reinforces my view of the elites as sanctimonious and anti-demos. Voters in America didn’t vote for Trump simply because they were tricked into it by his golden tongued lies. They voted for him because, among other reasons, the working American had been let down by the previous administrations, which had promised ‘change’ and ‘yes we can’ optimism but had actually off shored their jobs and insulted them while doing it -‘clinging to their guns and bibles’. A similar thing happened with Brexit. It is convenient to claim a vote to leave the EU was an ‘anti Muslim’ vote but I don’t think it was. In fact I never once heard that claim during the campaign. The failure to control our borders post Brexit is not a failure of Brexit. It is a failure of government.
Again people weren’t somehow tricked by a single advert on a bus. ( You are not claiming this but it’s pretty much all I hear to this day) To believe that is to believe that voters are bovine husks, monkey see-monkey do idiots. It betrays a dim view of humanity which I do not share. And I cannot remember being made any promises whatsoever about what would come after a vote to leave the EU. A little more forethought from Cameron about what should happen if Leave won would have I think saved us all a lot of misery.
We will never agree on Brexit. I don’t want to endlessly rehash my reasons for voting Brexit. But here goes anyway. Essentially I don’t think we need big government. I certainly don’t think Britain requires two of them. Also. The laws that govern this country should be written in this country. I believe in the nation state. And specifically the inherent goodness, despite what children are taught these days, of this one.
It is clear that anti-democratic forces on both sides of the Atlantic are promoting the idea that the common man/woman is too stupid to be trusted with their vote. As a populist I abhor this slow slip into technocracy. I don’t expect Trump or Brexit to save us. But I passionately reject the idea that someone else should have the right to tell me who or what I am ‘allowed’ to vote for.
I’m not in thrall to, a word I think you have used, demagogues. But I am wedded, and always will be, to the idea that in a democracy, the people, not the bosses, are sovereign. The bosses are busy at the moment, trying to convince, cajole and bully us, into giving up that sovereignty. This is something I will never accept.
Finally I don’t believe billionaire automatically equals ‘villain’ or even ‘liar’. Yes of course a billionaire’s interests are different to mine. But so are the interests of students, and perhaps most civil servants. Equally I don’t think most politicians, populists or not, on ‘my side’ or the other side are ‘conmen’. I just don’t think they are that Machiavellian. They might be driven by ego or self interest but I think few set out to actively hoodwink the electorate. In most cases I think they often try to do the ‘right thing’, interfere where they are not needed, impose rules where none are required and just assume they ‘know best’. It’s patronising, anti-democratic and wrong.
The BBC seems beyond saving to me. I feel the same about the NHS, which displays all the unfixable failures of a broken socialist bureaucracy. However I (think I) know that you are reliant on it at the moment Ragged. So fingers crossed I am wrong about that one.
Ultimately I expect it’s about semantics. We imagine different things when we think of the word ‘populist’. But I suspect we would broadly like to see society moving in a similar direction.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I have no desire to argue with your reasons but I just want to quickly clarify a couple of my own perceptions.
First of all, your position seems to be very similar to the one that Robert Tombs describes in the excellent This Sovereign Isle. I think I understand it now, though I don’t share it. I won't argue against it here.
Secondly, I was living in America during the run-up to Brexit so I missed many of the arguments and the whole thing caught me totally by surprise. The subtle parts of the Brexit argument never crossed the Atlantic but when I referred to Muslim immigration, I was thinking of Merkel inviting a million Afghan and Syrian refugees to Germany just before the Brexit vote. I think that had a big impact on the outcome. Similarly, I believe that Farage’s Breaking Point poster and the suggestion that Turkey’s membership was imminent had a big influence. I understand that there were sincere arguments for Brexit and that most voters were not racist but I do believe that many people believed Brexit was the way to prevent us from being overrun by Syrians, Turks and Afghanis. Certainly, my friends believed that. They believed the promises that we would not leave the Single Market too.
Lastly, my criticism of populism was formed in America over the last 20 or 30 years. The Republicans moved further and further to the old-fashioned right with pro-rich people financial policies but populism in the culture wars. But my narrative is that American politics is now just Team Red versus Team Blue and the actual policies don't matter very much any more. The Team Red voters were perpetually disappointed by their leaders: Gingrich, Dole, Delay, Bush, McCain, and Romney followed by a whole gaggle of awful candidates in 2016 who campaign on populist policies but implement the same pro-rich financial policies that they always implement. I think electing Trump was Team Red throwing up their hands with regular Republicans. This is what I think of when I think about populism.
I think British politics is, unlike America, still *about* something but the Tories are headed in the same direction as the Republicans. I think the best thing that could happen in the next election is for the Tories to get totally wiped out and for Labour to divide in two in response. We need a realignment because Labour vs Tories does not mirror the real divides in the country. I expect that, after the realignment, you and i might even end up voting for the same party. None of the current lot are appealing to me though.
I think it will be the Tories, who will divide into after the next election Ragged. One half of the Labour Party will not be seeking to cut themselves out of power, when they have only just gained it again after 13 years in the wilderness. I’m certainly not denying that immigration had a big role to play in the Brexit vote. But people’s legitimate concerns about mass immigration were, and still are, dismissed as simple xenophobia. It’s much more complicated than that. And dismissing people whose towns have been transformed in incredibly short amounts of time as knuckle dragging bigots ( I am absolutely not suggesting you are doing that) has only fuelled the rise of populism. I look forward to voting with you!
A dose of 'populism' is, as you say, overdue. Someone I read recently described the Tory Party as "Left Liberalism with a slight time delay". That, for me anyway, pretty well sums up their record in office both before Thatcher and since Thatcher. Both they and Labour (when they have held office) have been a kind of monocultural party serving the perceived interests of an ever growing 'socially liberal' and 'economically liberal', university-educated section of society. Serving the interests of anyone else has largely been confined to disingenuous sloganising and platitudes.
I like Mr Clouston but his party is just too small to make any inroads. They've got a working arrangement with Reform UK who are much bigger and are capable of having candidates everywhere. The SDP's PR is poor they need Reform to give them a leg up.
I'll be voting Reform as they're bigger and could have a greater impact but I suspect it'll be the disaffected Tories in 2024 closely followed by disaffected Labour by 2026/27. The election 2028 with PR in place might be exciting.
Fair point. I genuinely think I’ll be sitting the next one out. But I agree with you about 2028, and I do think we’ll have PR by then. Although maybe if Labour gets the landslide we all expect next year, they will cool on it.
Hilarious. I agree with everything that you say. I would just add one thing. In a war, and that's what we're in, you first need implacable force to win the war, then a period of autocratic rule to stabilise the situation and finally the reintroduction of democracy. The nearest you can get to this in our situation is to help Farage with his undemocratically structured Reform Party to win the war (i.e. win an election) and start the period of autocratic rule during which he very carefully democratises Reform before calling a new election in which he or his successor hopefully returns with a workable majority intact. I will therefore support Farage until he gets the first part of the job done (to ape Boris Johnson - aaarrrggghhh!!!) and then see what happens before deciding who to support after that.
Thanks JS. I have concerns about Farage which I lay out in my most recent piece Suicide Squad. But I might also ‘lend him my vote’ this time round. Thanks for reading and commenting.
I came here to write my angry comment but I see that I already wrote that last year! I will quickly add though that I am currently reading the marvellous Who Dares Wins by Dominic Sandbrook.
The book is a history of the UK between 1979 and 1983. It covers culture and sports and British life but it is mostly a biography of Mrs Thatcher and it weaves in and out of her politics. It's amazing.
As someone who previously saw her as The Milk Snatcher, the book helped me see a new side of Mrs Thatcher that I deeply admire. Her genuine patriotism and respect for the hard working public was admirable and I loved her commitment to rewarding people who strive. But she had MASSIVE contempt for anyone who was struggling and she almost destroyed British industry and services and the slices of society that didn't quite make it into the middle class.
Do you remember the news headlines from those days? 3,000 jobs lost in Coventry. 18,000 jobs lost in Newcastle. Night after night after night. 40,000 jobs lost in Sheffield. All of this came directly from Thatcher's policies that almost eliminated our ability to manufacture and export goods with £1 = $2.50 and inflation of 22% and interest rates of 16% and unemployment of 3,000,000. These were all the results of choices that Thatcher made. These were not populist policies. Quite the opposite.
Yes, she tried to help some working class families cross the line into the middle class with Right-to-Buy but the net result — along with restrictions on allowing councils to replace their lost council houses — was that there were no more council houses and anyone who couldn't afford to buy a house was screwed. Labour of those years was horrible but Thatcher didn't do the working class any favours either.
I love those Sandbrook books. Just re reading State of Emergency.
Sure. Thatcher wasn’t all good. Or all bad. But a lot of what she did was absolutely necessary. A much needed reset. Just like we need today. But we’ll never see eye to eye on Britain in the 80s I think. Our experiences were very different.
I’m a member of the SDP. So appreciate you mentioning the party.
You’ve written a great article of which I agree with. I’m commenting here after your reply to Matt Goodwin’s article on 31st August 2023.
It really is desperation stakes for this country and like you see only one of the smaller cultural conservative parties who have the policies we could support. Most people are sleep walking into a despotic future, where like in the Soviet Union there’ll be different levels of truth you’ll have to juggle. Worst case the real truth will be in your mind only, which you dear not mention even in your own home. A truly sad and frightening state of affairs.
Thanks Simon. And thanks for subscribing. Yes I worry are correct. It seems already the real truth only exists in many people’s minds, they say nothing out loud and self censor daily, for fear of being punished and rebuked for speaking out. And I count myself among them. Best to you.
Dominic Frisby is a genius. I thoroughly recommend his books 'Daylight Robbery' (re taxation) and 'Life After The State'. He is so right: the State is now humongous; it taxes more, borrows more, prints more (money) and spends more. And everything is worse. But it's difficult to see what catalyst will enable change where (as of 2022) 54% of adults in the UK take more from the State than they give. That's an awful lot of people with a stake in the status quo.
Please don’t tell him that! We’ll never hear the end of it! Agreed. The ever growing state seems at the root of many of our problems. But not just the size, it’s the expectation that the state is a one stop shop to fix all our everyday problems, which feeds that growth. Hopefully Dominic will have a new book for us soon. In the meantime Kisses on a Postcard is well worth a listen. Thanks for your comment Richard.
Tories slid into the void created by leftward lurch of Labour party (after changing their internal voting system). Starmer appears to be reclaiming that void but Tories have not, correspondingly, moved back to home turf. That'll take a dose of Labour government to effect.
So true and so amusingly expressed, I laughed out loud. Even though the future looks very unfunny.
Thank you Bettina. That’s very kind of you. Fingers crossed we’re wrong about the future!
I just came across your substack through Matt Goodwin's latest piece. Absolutely love what you have to say. As a former idealistic leftie, I am now politically homeless. As many people have said 'I didn't leave the left, the left left me!' I now live in Hungary and despite all the bad press about this place, and our populist PM, I can tell you it is nothing like the MSM make it out to be. It's the safest, friendliest and most socially harmonious place I've ever lived in. Hungarians are unashamed to prioritise their country, traditions, family and value education, hard work, and social mobility. What's more, we've been mostly insulated from Wokemania here in Hungary, especially since Hungarians my age and older really do remember when words were policed and people reported on.
Thanks Nicky. That’s very kind of you to say. I think we all feel politically homeless now. Maybe because what was once idealistic and leftie is now considered ultra MAGA right wing by some…weird. I love Hungary. I’ve been to Budapest a couple of times and loved it on both occasions. I found it exactly as you say. Funny how being proud of your country and heritage is OK for Scotland and Ukraine (and rightly so), but for England and Hungary, not so much. Sounds like you’re prospering out there, good luck to you, and thanks so much for taking the time to comment.
Great piece that comes eloquently from your own background.
Interesting to highlight the lack of connection between the 2 main parties and the 'working class'. My own view is that this disconnect is not because of a lack of interest but a lack of definition of who stands behind this label. I would suggest that the 'working class' as a label is hopelessly out of date to the point of being almost meaningless.
If I can find the time, I may start my own Substack to explore this idea. In the meantime, good luck with your writing. BW Phil
Thank you Phil. Much appreciated. You are correct of course. To be honest I wrestled with the term ‘working class’ when I was writing that piece. But went with it in the end because it fit with the historical context at least. I felt that most people would understand the demographic I was referring to. Usually I just say ‘regular people’ or similar. However I stand by my assertion that whatever you call this demographic, the two main parties have no real time for it, all their supposed concerns seem tokenistic and fake. Also. Definitely start a Substack-it’s a great thing to do-you only have to post when you have something to say, there’s no pressure. Good luck if you do. Best to you.
I think the term ‘working class’ has lost its relevance but I don’t know what might take its place. My dad worked in a meat factory. He was working class. My daughter is the first person in my extended family to get a degree. She’s not working class.
I’m really interested in this idea of regular people. Do they have mortgages or do they rent? Do they work in MacDonald’s? Do they have a master’s in electronics? Do they go on holiday in Greece? Go skiing? Do they have compassion for refugees? Or would rather sink their boats?
Did regular people vote for Brexit? Were the people who voted remain not regular?
Of the top of my head, I can’t think of anything the regular people have in common in the way that those of us who lived on council estates and worked in factories had in common back in the 70s. That world has gone but I can’t think what might take it’s place. I’m sincerely interested and would love to read more if you can recommend someone who speaks about this.
‘I can’t think of anything the regular people have in common in the way that those of us who lived on council estates and worked in factories had in common back in the 70s.’ Absolutely, it’s a total sea change. Shared experience, on a cultural level is essentially a thing of the past. I am often looking for common experiences in my profession life, references that everyone in an audience will ‘get’. The range of options has shrunk dramatically over the last 20 years. The internet for one thing, has atomised, or at least helped Balkanise, our culture.
I prefer the term "aspirational worker" - everyone aspires to something, including those who work and what person who works claim not to be aspirational?
I suspect I would have been a traditional Labour voter - after all they were founded to represent the working class. But they’d vacated that stage before I could vote. I’ve spent my adult life voting either abstaining or when forced to because the alternative was even worse, voting for the lesser of two evils. A party that offered the wish list you give would get my vote as a positive thing. I see the word “Populist” as being used by our elites to tarnish the reasonable desires of the majority with the unreasonable prejudices of the extremes, in order to discredit the former. Parties such as Reform are essentially used as protest vehicles to try to drag one of the two main parties towards a particular stance. No one is actually making an offering that would have appeal to the majority of the public. Given the current power that the elites wield across most of the institutions in the UK, they probably don’t think they need to, but in doing so, they are creating a political vacuum that will eventually be filled. My fear would be by what.
I agree completely. I keep thinking I must be missing something, but as you say, the elites use the term ‘populism’ to tarnish and discredit the desires of the majority. And I can’t see that as anything but contempt for democracy. Somehow we’ve got to a position where the ‘clever people’ feel it’s OK to hold their noses when discussing the legitimate concerns of the majority of voters. I’m cautious about the fears of what will fill the political vacuum. I think that these concerns are often just another subtle tool of the elites, ‘if you don’t do what we say the country will be open to a far right takeover’. I just don’t buy it. It’s just another way of saying the majority of voters are bestial and can’t be trusted. But maybe I’m wrong about that. Thanks so much for taking the trip over here. And for taking the time to comment. Best to you.
Interesting (i.e. bizarre and insane) article in today's Financial Times, by notorious Janen Ganesh. "Don’t blame the elites alone for populism".
Their deplorable Populism is the rabble's own fault, don't you see.
Just read it. Truly bizarre as you say. Almost like he’s blaming voters for being annoyed that the elites are not delivering on democracy. Or maybe I’m missing something.
Meanwhile across the pond. . . Exact same issues. Do you ever wonder if the covid virus or perhaps the mandated vaccine included a virus that caused mental dysphoria of sheeplike symptoms for some and authoritarianism for government officials?
The reality is Deidre K the only ‘extra’ virus they ever needed was to scare the pants off everyone! It seemed to work perfectly and we’re still all suffering from the side effects!
Ah yes, fear. I witnessed that up close and personal, as I worked with the public through out it all. Any fear of the virus quickly disappeared into skepticism, replaced by fear of government overreach.
Good article Dominic. Any party promising to bring back the Anglo-Saxon heptarchy gets my vote.
Thanks Dominic. Of course you’re right. I’m all about the heptarchy.
I’m catching up on my Low Status Opinions. You are a great writer and I find you challenging because I disagree with you so much. You are making me think.
I made plans to leave the USA after 25 years because they elected a populist president who is a charlatan and a malevolent conman. His toilets are made of gold. Trump is who I think of when you say we should vote for populists. Berlusconi, maybe. Or Erdoğan. Mussolini, perhaps. I cannot imagine voting for any of those people. And yet, your list of populist policies that regular people might vote for are appealing to me. Am I regular people? But I think the NHS and the BBC are both national treasures that have become tarnished in recent years and they are under attack from people who you would probably think of as populists. I would like to restore the NHS and the BBC to their former glory. Am I regular people yet?
I mentioned on another post that I think we came out of WW1 with a particular alignment. We did away with the aristocrats (at last!) and politics divided us roughly into rich and poor, officers and privates, people who owned their houses and people who lived in council houses, people who owned factories and people who worked in factories. For all those dichotomies, you belonged to one team but not the other and you voted Tory or Labour. That all changed after Thatcher and Blair and we never figured out the categories to replace them. We don’t have a new alignment.
Regular people go to university these days and they own their own houses. They also leave school at 18 and they rent shared houses because they can’t afford to buy. One of the richest men in the world owns 100s of newspapers and the most popular TV stations in America. He is a populist and all of his newspapers supported the War in Iraq (coincidence, no doubt). Another populist calls himself a Viscount and his newspapers tells constant lies on the front page. It seems like many of the populist politicians went to Eton or Winchester or Dulwich College. I think of them the way I think of Trump and Berlusconi. All these populist leaders seem to be billionaires and I think they are pulling a fast one. I don’t think these populist leaders are regular people but I think they have figured out a way to con regular people into supporting them.
The alignment that seemed to divide us recently was Brexit but my hunch is that the vast majority were casting protest votes against the awful state of our politics. Sure, there are plenty of sincere and thoughtful Brexit voters like Mr LSO but there were a lot more who were just fed up with status quo. I barely missed the Brexit vote so I missed all the arguments for it. I still barely understand it despite reading several books on it (I recommend Professor Tombs’). From my point of view, the Brexit campaign was the worst kind of populist campaign. Brexit was going to save us from all those Muslim refugees and immigrants but Brexit did the opposite and immigration went up and Muslim immigration went up and refugee arrivals went up under the watchful eye of the populists who campaigned for Brexit. We have a billionaire prime minister now but it’s the other people that we accuse Of being elite.
A final thought. I am a patriotic Englishman. I served in the military. When America elected a charlatan, all I wanted was to come home to my country - Brexit and all. I crossed the class line when I was promoted to officer, when I bought my own house, when I worked on Wall Street and now I’m studying for a degree. But that line doesn’t exist any more and we haven’t yet figured out where to draw the new line yet. One thing I am sure of: it’s not populists vs elites. Not when the populists are billionaires and politicians who went to Eton and Australians who own all the media (except the paper owned by a Viscount). Those people are conmen.
Firstly Ragged thanks for taking the trouble to write such a thoughtful response. I really appreciate your input to LSO.
I think I set out my views on populism in the piece. But essentially I think we need politicians who see their primary job as enacting the will of the people. Not, from a self appointed position of moral and intellectual superiority, as a mission to impose their will ON the people. Usually this imposition involves removing some layer of freedom or another on the pretext that this is being done for people’s ’own good’.
I have more faith in common humanity than that. Yes, we can make mistakes, but these are our mistakes to make.
The idea that voters are tricked, brainwashed or bamboozled to vote for the likes of Trump or for policies such as Brexit, just reinforces my view of the elites as sanctimonious and anti-demos. Voters in America didn’t vote for Trump simply because they were tricked into it by his golden tongued lies. They voted for him because, among other reasons, the working American had been let down by the previous administrations, which had promised ‘change’ and ‘yes we can’ optimism but had actually off shored their jobs and insulted them while doing it -‘clinging to their guns and bibles’. A similar thing happened with Brexit. It is convenient to claim a vote to leave the EU was an ‘anti Muslim’ vote but I don’t think it was. In fact I never once heard that claim during the campaign. The failure to control our borders post Brexit is not a failure of Brexit. It is a failure of government.
Again people weren’t somehow tricked by a single advert on a bus. ( You are not claiming this but it’s pretty much all I hear to this day) To believe that is to believe that voters are bovine husks, monkey see-monkey do idiots. It betrays a dim view of humanity which I do not share. And I cannot remember being made any promises whatsoever about what would come after a vote to leave the EU. A little more forethought from Cameron about what should happen if Leave won would have I think saved us all a lot of misery.
We will never agree on Brexit. I don’t want to endlessly rehash my reasons for voting Brexit. But here goes anyway. Essentially I don’t think we need big government. I certainly don’t think Britain requires two of them. Also. The laws that govern this country should be written in this country. I believe in the nation state. And specifically the inherent goodness, despite what children are taught these days, of this one.
It is clear that anti-democratic forces on both sides of the Atlantic are promoting the idea that the common man/woman is too stupid to be trusted with their vote. As a populist I abhor this slow slip into technocracy. I don’t expect Trump or Brexit to save us. But I passionately reject the idea that someone else should have the right to tell me who or what I am ‘allowed’ to vote for.
I’m not in thrall to, a word I think you have used, demagogues. But I am wedded, and always will be, to the idea that in a democracy, the people, not the bosses, are sovereign. The bosses are busy at the moment, trying to convince, cajole and bully us, into giving up that sovereignty. This is something I will never accept.
Finally I don’t believe billionaire automatically equals ‘villain’ or even ‘liar’. Yes of course a billionaire’s interests are different to mine. But so are the interests of students, and perhaps most civil servants. Equally I don’t think most politicians, populists or not, on ‘my side’ or the other side are ‘conmen’. I just don’t think they are that Machiavellian. They might be driven by ego or self interest but I think few set out to actively hoodwink the electorate. In most cases I think they often try to do the ‘right thing’, interfere where they are not needed, impose rules where none are required and just assume they ‘know best’. It’s patronising, anti-democratic and wrong.
The BBC seems beyond saving to me. I feel the same about the NHS, which displays all the unfixable failures of a broken socialist bureaucracy. However I (think I) know that you are reliant on it at the moment Ragged. So fingers crossed I am wrong about that one.
Ultimately I expect it’s about semantics. We imagine different things when we think of the word ‘populist’. But I suspect we would broadly like to see society moving in a similar direction.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I have no desire to argue with your reasons but I just want to quickly clarify a couple of my own perceptions.
First of all, your position seems to be very similar to the one that Robert Tombs describes in the excellent This Sovereign Isle. I think I understand it now, though I don’t share it. I won't argue against it here.
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/53403858
Secondly, I was living in America during the run-up to Brexit so I missed many of the arguments and the whole thing caught me totally by surprise. The subtle parts of the Brexit argument never crossed the Atlantic but when I referred to Muslim immigration, I was thinking of Merkel inviting a million Afghan and Syrian refugees to Germany just before the Brexit vote. I think that had a big impact on the outcome. Similarly, I believe that Farage’s Breaking Point poster and the suggestion that Turkey’s membership was imminent had a big influence. I understand that there were sincere arguments for Brexit and that most voters were not racist but I do believe that many people believed Brexit was the way to prevent us from being overrun by Syrians, Turks and Afghanis. Certainly, my friends believed that. They believed the promises that we would not leave the Single Market too.
Lastly, my criticism of populism was formed in America over the last 20 or 30 years. The Republicans moved further and further to the old-fashioned right with pro-rich people financial policies but populism in the culture wars. But my narrative is that American politics is now just Team Red versus Team Blue and the actual policies don't matter very much any more. The Team Red voters were perpetually disappointed by their leaders: Gingrich, Dole, Delay, Bush, McCain, and Romney followed by a whole gaggle of awful candidates in 2016 who campaign on populist policies but implement the same pro-rich financial policies that they always implement. I think electing Trump was Team Red throwing up their hands with regular Republicans. This is what I think of when I think about populism.
I think British politics is, unlike America, still *about* something but the Tories are headed in the same direction as the Republicans. I think the best thing that could happen in the next election is for the Tories to get totally wiped out and for Labour to divide in two in response. We need a realignment because Labour vs Tories does not mirror the real divides in the country. I expect that, after the realignment, you and i might even end up voting for the same party. None of the current lot are appealing to me though.
I think it will be the Tories, who will divide into after the next election Ragged. One half of the Labour Party will not be seeking to cut themselves out of power, when they have only just gained it again after 13 years in the wilderness. I’m certainly not denying that immigration had a big role to play in the Brexit vote. But people’s legitimate concerns about mass immigration were, and still are, dismissed as simple xenophobia. It’s much more complicated than that. And dismissing people whose towns have been transformed in incredibly short amounts of time as knuckle dragging bigots ( I am absolutely not suggesting you are doing that) has only fuelled the rise of populism. I look forward to voting with you!
A dose of 'populism' is, as you say, overdue. Someone I read recently described the Tory Party as "Left Liberalism with a slight time delay". That, for me anyway, pretty well sums up their record in office both before Thatcher and since Thatcher. Both they and Labour (when they have held office) have been a kind of monocultural party serving the perceived interests of an ever growing 'socially liberal' and 'economically liberal', university-educated section of society. Serving the interests of anyone else has largely been confined to disingenuous sloganising and platitudes.
Exactly that. And when you suggest those platitudes are just that, they just invent some new ones.
I like Mr Clouston but his party is just too small to make any inroads. They've got a working arrangement with Reform UK who are much bigger and are capable of having candidates everywhere. The SDP's PR is poor they need Reform to give them a leg up.
I'll be voting Reform as they're bigger and could have a greater impact but I suspect it'll be the disaffected Tories in 2024 closely followed by disaffected Labour by 2026/27. The election 2028 with PR in place might be exciting.
Fair point. I genuinely think I’ll be sitting the next one out. But I agree with you about 2028, and I do think we’ll have PR by then. Although maybe if Labour gets the landslide we all expect next year, they will cool on it.
Hilarious. I agree with everything that you say. I would just add one thing. In a war, and that's what we're in, you first need implacable force to win the war, then a period of autocratic rule to stabilise the situation and finally the reintroduction of democracy. The nearest you can get to this in our situation is to help Farage with his undemocratically structured Reform Party to win the war (i.e. win an election) and start the period of autocratic rule during which he very carefully democratises Reform before calling a new election in which he or his successor hopefully returns with a workable majority intact. I will therefore support Farage until he gets the first part of the job done (to ape Boris Johnson - aaarrrggghhh!!!) and then see what happens before deciding who to support after that.
Thanks JS. I have concerns about Farage which I lay out in my most recent piece Suicide Squad. But I might also ‘lend him my vote’ this time round. Thanks for reading and commenting.
I came here to write my angry comment but I see that I already wrote that last year! I will quickly add though that I am currently reading the marvellous Who Dares Wins by Dominic Sandbrook.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43389716-who-dares-wins
The book is a history of the UK between 1979 and 1983. It covers culture and sports and British life but it is mostly a biography of Mrs Thatcher and it weaves in and out of her politics. It's amazing.
As someone who previously saw her as The Milk Snatcher, the book helped me see a new side of Mrs Thatcher that I deeply admire. Her genuine patriotism and respect for the hard working public was admirable and I loved her commitment to rewarding people who strive. But she had MASSIVE contempt for anyone who was struggling and she almost destroyed British industry and services and the slices of society that didn't quite make it into the middle class.
Do you remember the news headlines from those days? 3,000 jobs lost in Coventry. 18,000 jobs lost in Newcastle. Night after night after night. 40,000 jobs lost in Sheffield. All of this came directly from Thatcher's policies that almost eliminated our ability to manufacture and export goods with £1 = $2.50 and inflation of 22% and interest rates of 16% and unemployment of 3,000,000. These were all the results of choices that Thatcher made. These were not populist policies. Quite the opposite.
Yes, she tried to help some working class families cross the line into the middle class with Right-to-Buy but the net result — along with restrictions on allowing councils to replace their lost council houses — was that there were no more council houses and anyone who couldn't afford to buy a house was screwed. Labour of those years was horrible but Thatcher didn't do the working class any favours either.
I love those Sandbrook books. Just re reading State of Emergency.
Sure. Thatcher wasn’t all good. Or all bad. But a lot of what she did was absolutely necessary. A much needed reset. Just like we need today. But we’ll never see eye to eye on Britain in the 80s I think. Our experiences were very different.
Thanks for reading this twice anyway.
I’m a member of the SDP. So appreciate you mentioning the party.
You’ve written a great article of which I agree with. I’m commenting here after your reply to Matt Goodwin’s article on 31st August 2023.
It really is desperation stakes for this country and like you see only one of the smaller cultural conservative parties who have the policies we could support. Most people are sleep walking into a despotic future, where like in the Soviet Union there’ll be different levels of truth you’ll have to juggle. Worst case the real truth will be in your mind only, which you dear not mention even in your own home. A truly sad and frightening state of affairs.
Happy to subscribe and support. 👍🏻
Thanks Simon. And thanks for subscribing. Yes I worry are correct. It seems already the real truth only exists in many people’s minds, they say nothing out loud and self censor daily, for fear of being punished and rebuked for speaking out. And I count myself among them. Best to you.
Excellent article Thank You. I agres that the SDP is the onlyknly party wothey
Dominic Frisby is a genius. I thoroughly recommend his books 'Daylight Robbery' (re taxation) and 'Life After The State'. He is so right: the State is now humongous; it taxes more, borrows more, prints more (money) and spends more. And everything is worse. But it's difficult to see what catalyst will enable change where (as of 2022) 54% of adults in the UK take more from the State than they give. That's an awful lot of people with a stake in the status quo.
Please don’t tell him that! We’ll never hear the end of it! Agreed. The ever growing state seems at the root of many of our problems. But not just the size, it’s the expectation that the state is a one stop shop to fix all our everyday problems, which feeds that growth. Hopefully Dominic will have a new book for us soon. In the meantime Kisses on a Postcard is well worth a listen. Thanks for your comment Richard.
Tories slid into the void created by leftward lurch of Labour party (after changing their internal voting system). Starmer appears to be reclaiming that void but Tories have not, correspondingly, moved back to home turf. That'll take a dose of Labour government to effect.
I think your analysis is spot on. Though I expect ‘dose’ means ten years. By which time there’s no telling which way the electorate will jump.