Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics

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Revolt on the Rightis not just a timely and fascinating book; it is also an important one: the first detailed study of one of the most significant developments in modern British politics – the rise of UKIP, which not only taps into popular discontent with the European Union, but has emerged as Britain’s first major non-toxic party to the right of the Conservatives." Peter Kellner, President of YouGov a clearly visible section of the New Elite [my capitals] believe Western nations such as Britain are institutionally racist, see their British identity and history as a source of shame, feel much less pride than others in the nation, and feel much less attached to their national identity and the wider national group.” Hence, in part, Brexit. We can all agree with that. But Goodwin is reluctant to recognise that the referendum of 2016, whether or not one approves of the decision reached, was of value in giving neglected voters a voice, and thus in reducing pressure for a revolution.

Matthew Goodwin

has taken full control of the political institutions, the think tanks, the civil service, the public bodies, the universities, the creative industries, the cultural institutions and much of the media.” Do not read Brexit - unless you want truth rather than propaganda, objectivity rather than bias and evidence rather than prejudice. Harold D. Clarke, Matthew Goodwin and Paul F. Whiteley have written a book that will still be standing when the post-truth claims of those on both sides of the referendum have rightly crumbled to dust.' Peter Kellner, former President of YouGov Jim Callaghan, the in many ways admirable successor to Wilson, was brought low by the unions in the Winter of Discontent, and in April 1979 defeated by the Conservatives under Thatcher, the country’s first woman Prime Minister. We do sometimes learn from our mistakes. One would not wish to overstate this, and should note that any really serious problem is likely to take generations to sort out.The working class had a stake in the country, not just because by going on strike they could bring it to a grinding halt, but through such brilliant figures as Ernest Bevin, who had started life in rural poverty, left school at the age of 11, created the Transport and General Workers’ Union, became an indispensable member of Churchill’s War Cabinet, and as Foreign Secretary helped create NATO and West Germany. But if one does so, one sees that the New Elite is nothing like as new as Goodwin supposes it to be. It has existed in various insufferable forms for a long time, and it led Disraeli to develop a form of politics attractive to newly enfranchised members of the skilled working class:

Values, Voice and Virtue - Penguin Books UK

Ford and Goodwin haven’t just talked to everyone who counts and crunched all the data that’s out there. They’ve produced a really approachable book on a party which, by providing disoriented and disillusioned voters with the alternative they’ve been looking for, may well make a big impact at the next election and beyond." Tim Bale, Professor of Politics, Queen Mary University of London, author ofThe Conservative Party: From Thatcher to Cameron But Matthew Goodwin contends that “the new British politics” of the last decade “is far more volatile, chaotic, divisive, and unpredictable”. More usefully, they provide copious evidence that rightwing populism has been a long time in the making. They organise this evidence into four Ds: distrust in elites, destruction of national culture, deprivation in the economic sphere and dealignment in political identification and voting behaviour. Their review of postwar political and economic history is informative and often compelling, providing clarity around a number of key debates within political science and political theory for the uninitiated. The EU is presented, not unreasonably, as a fundamentally elitist and undemocratic project, while neoliberal globalisation (implausibly described as “the most significant change in terms of its impact” to have afflicted capitalism in more than 400 years) is explored as a basis of rising resentment, not so much due to its material effects as its psychological ones. Rising inequality and immigration produce a feeling of relative deprivation, that one is getting unfairly overtaken by others.

Goodwin only refers in passing to the Establishment, a term coined by Henry Fairlie in 1955, and instead describes, in his opening chapter, the “Rise of the New Elite”, which according to him 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. She with prudent boldness tamed the unions, and the country was by the 1980s ready, albeit under protest, to accept the high price of doing so.

National Populism review – compassion for supporters of Trump National Populism review – compassion for supporters of Trump

Revolt on the Rightis a rich and insightful dissection of Britain's first new major political force in a generation. Ford and Goodwin combine rigorous yet accessible statistical analysis of UKIP's supporters with unprecedented access to party activists and leaders. They paint a detailed portrait of the social forces driving UKIP's emergence and how the party itself has developed to mobilise a new mass electorate. This book is essential reading for anyone looking to understand this fascinating, and potentially disruptive, new force in British politics." Anthony Heath, University of Oxford and University of Manchester. At the time, we almost invariably find something to argue about which seems, and may even be, a matter of life and death. In 1972, the worst year of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, 479 people, including 130 British soldiers, were killed. 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. The UK Independence Party (UKIP) was the most significant new party in British politics for a generation. Its rise set the stage for the later vote for Brexit. The first serious study of UKIP and its supporters, Revolt on the Rightdrew on an unprecedented amount of survey data and interviews with party insiders to explain its rise and impact. Winner of the2015 Political Book of the Year and long-listed for the Orwell Prize, Revolt has since been selected by academics as one of the most influential twenty books in modern Britain. Just as Rishi Sunak tries to calm things down, Goodwin wishes to persuade us that “British politics is coming apart”. He says a “New Elite” consisting of university graduates with “radically progressive values” has taken control of our institutions and looks down on “the morally inferior masses”, whom it dismisses as racists and xenophobes.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. many people in the country are searching around for a radical alternative that will allow them to launch a revolt against the growing power of the New Elite. The only question that remains is what form this radical alternative will take and when it will arrive.” Goodwin’s book is admirably short, so one cannot blame him for failing to glance at the career of Benjamin Disraeli, touched on in my own recent book about Johnson. Although one cannot know what disasters are about to occur, the hysteria provoked by Boris Johnson does not seem any greater than the hysteria provoked, in their different ways, by Enoch Powell, Edward Heath, Harold Wilson or Margaret Thatcher.