Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics

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Seven new Social Mobility Commissioners appointed". Government Equalities Office . Retrieved 2 September 2022. 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. Lewis, Helen (18 May 2023). "Why So Many Conservatives Feel Like Losers". The Atlantic . Retrieved 18 August 2023.

National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy

The vacuum left by the collapse of the trade unions has been filled, as Goodwin says, by university graduates who marry other university graduates, seldom talk to anyone outside their own class, and with insufferable self-righteousness try to impose their trendy opinions on the rest of us. 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] Goodwin was the director of the Centre for UK Prosperity, itself an offshoot of the Legatum Institute, a pro-Brexit, libertarian think-tank funded by a New Zealand-born billionaire. He has had support for his thesis from fellow anti-elitists Lord Frost, the former diplomat and civil servant who was Boris Johnson’s chief Brexit negotiator; Melanie Phillips, a newspaper columnist since 1987; and Piers Morgan, a television presenter.Hassan also criticised the book' failure include even a single sentence on Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland: "Goodwin, it turns out, is not really talking about “British politics” on populism. Rather he is talking about English populism. Critically and unstated, Goodwin poses this English populism as speaking for and representing Britain, without once noting the fissures and tensions that brings forth." [15] Good morning. There’s a new lefty elite running Britain, and they hate you because they think you’re a racist. That is the central contention advanced by the scholar of populist politics Matthew Goodwin, and if the idea was already looming in the Overton window before his attention-hoovering new book came out, it is now hauling itself onto the balcony and clambering through.

Book Review: Goodwin fails to realise that we have already Book Review: Goodwin fails to realise that we have already

No doubt many of them do, but Goodwin is Professor of Politics at the University of Kent, and does not think the same as every one of his colleagues.The irony is that by adopting this view of the British public as inherently hostile to other nationalities, Goodwin reproduces the discourse of the moralising Remainers whom he claims to loathe. For both these strands of opinion, material grievances – falling wages, gutted public services, decimated trade unions – have little to do with the ascent of Farage and Johnson. Rather, prejudice is thought to be embedded deep in the psyches of ordinary voters outside major cities. The chauvinist impulses of this proletarian layer are incurable. The only difference is that Goodwin defends them while liberal cosmopolitans condemn them.

Values, Voice and Virtue by Matthew Goodwin | Waterstones

There are several premises in Goodwin’s argumentation that, albeit not original, one would struggle to disagree with. For one, he is right to point out the erosion of significant differences between the two main political parties, Conservative and Labour, which have coalesced around the liberal consensus set up by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. He is also correct in linking that to the relative reduction in social mobility (from accountancy to architecture to acting), coupled with the rise of a new middle class that has benefitted from that liberal consensus and that has been increasingly detached from other social groups. Indeed, a significant part of this social group displays a broad liberal orientation on both economic and cultural matters. However, Goodwin uses these widely accepted observations to perform a series of logical and empirical leaps in the attempt to push a very transparent political agenda. Goodwin, Matt (28 May 2023). "Matt Goodwin: The revolution of liberal economics and woke cultural extremism has failed and left Britain broken". Belfast News Letter . Retrieved 21 August 2023. a b Malik, Kenan (16 April 2023). "This obsession with a 'new elite' hides the real roots of power". The Observer . Retrieved 24 April 2023. It would be hard to come up with a better line-up of analysts to dig into both the long- and short-term drivers of Britain's decision to leave the EU. Whether you're a Leaver or a Remainer, the vote for Brexit needs explaining - and this is just the book to do it.' Tim Bale, Queen Mary University of London and author of The Conservative Party from Thatcher to CameronForceful ... 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 One of the other features of this definition of a new elite is how easily it can flex to accommodate the politics of those it needs to include: so Jeremy Corbyn is a member, and Boris Johnson is not. To explain this, Goodwin says that “most of all, they are defined by their very liberal if not radical ‘woke’ values”. So if you’re a rich, prestigiously educated Londoner but you don’t like footballers taking the knee, you’re probably not part of this “new governing class”. The trade unions founded the Parliamentary Labour Party, and for generations provided political education for working-class organisers and negotiators who went on to become MPs, and in Callaghan’s case Prime Minister. 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.