Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics

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Each of these revolts won considerable support from ex-Labour voters who wanted less immigration, slower social change and more political influence, while no longer believing Labour represented “people like them”. Yet, too often, they were labelled racists, “ gammons” and “ Karens” for thinking this way.

Values, Voice and Virtue is certainly a work of sociological insight. But it’s also a much-needed corrective. It gives voice to those whose values are scarcely heard or represented by the media. As Goodwin writes of these members of the devalued majority, ‘they no longer feel their voice is represented in the institutions; and they no longer feel that, relative to others, their group is recognised as having the same amount of social status, prestige, dignity and moral worth’. Kenan Malik wrote that Goodwin's argument that members of what he portrays as the "new elite", including Gary Lineker, Mehdi Hasan and Sam Freedman, shape people's lives more than figures such as Rishi Sunak or Andrew Bailey, the governor of the Bank of England "is, to put it politely, stretching credulity". [8] Similarly, Vladimir Bortun wrote that Goodwin "fails to demonstrate that the people occupying the most influential positions in British economic and political spheres share a “radically progressive” outlook." [9] Matthew D'Ancona asked "Are Hugh Grant and Emma Watson really running Britain into the ground?", arguing "Maybe it helps the populist right and their cheerleaders to believe such nonsense." [10] Malik asserted that it was plausible that "Goodwin himself shapes public debate more than most of the "new elite" to whom he points". [8] Sunder Katwala suggested that Goodwin employs evidence selectively and argued that "The wish to rebut one-dimensional caricatures of the Leave tribe is a valid one, but Goodwin is not above dishing out caricatures of the other half of the country all the same." [11] Archie Bland has written that when critics point out that those in positions of political power have actively pursued the type of "anti-woke" politics that Goodwin approves of, "Goodwin and his allies argue that these developments are all part of a rearguard action to defend traditional values against an agenda driven by a shadowy minority" and that disagreement with this view is portrayed as "simply proof of their original thesis: that the new elite is out of touch." [12] Goodwin describes a deeply destabilising political revolution imposed on the country and indeed other western democracies for 50 years driven by an emerging educated and largely urban elite. This elite has been the main beneficiaries of the changes they led driving deep wedges between themselves and the majority of the population whose views they ignore and distain. It is a facet of globalisation that not only are there huge flows of people across national boundaries, there are concomitant huge flows of ideas too. And the facilitator of this flow is technology – because it is heedless of human scale notions, not just human superpositions, constructs if you like, such as nation states and national boundaries, but also the ‘constructs’ of nature like physical geography. But there’s something more – technology is shining searchlights on aspects our nature which we never knew existed and would have remained hidden otherwise.Prashant, this is true, but needs the addition that these flows of Ideas are almost entirely from the West. The West basically created Philosophy and Psychology and individualism and Marx, existentialism, Feminism, and on and on.. Bloomfield, Jon. "Toxic Friends? A Critique of Blue Labour". The Political Quarterly . Retrieved 21 August 2023. 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. Goodwin was an associate professor of politics at the University of Nottingham from 2010 to 2015, a research fellow at the Institute for Political and Economic Governance at the University of Manchester from 2008 to 2010, and, between 2010 and 2020, associate fellow at Chatham House (The Royal Institute of International Affairs) where he authored research reports on the rise of populism, [4] Euroscepticism ahead of the Brexit vote, [5] the different political tribes of Europe, [6] and the future of Europe. [7]

Framing ethnic diversity as a 'threat' will normalise far-right hate, say academics". openDemocracy . Retrieved 12 July 2023. Ultimately, Labour has done remarkably well to stage such a recovery, but in both Britain and beyond it will be these lingering divides over values, voice and virtue that will determine whether this fragile recovery morphs into a much stronger and more sustainable position of power. When the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities (Sewell Report) argued that structural racism didn't exist in the UK (a claim that was subject to extensive criticism), Goodwin claimed this "dismantles the woke mob’s central claim that we are living in a fundamentally racist society". [11] Books [ edit ]Football | Premier League clubs have agreed to ban gambling sponsors on the front of shirts from the start of the 2026-27 season. But while campaigners welcomes the move, they also said it was “incoherent” as gambling brands will still be able to advertise on sleeves and pitch side hoardings. Goodwin and his National Populism coauthor Roger Eatwell have argued about the USA that political polarization has been caused by "an increasing fixation or near-total obsession among Democrats and the liberal left with race, gender and ‘diversity’". [41] The sharp political divide that Luntz finds, whereby Labour voters are more than twice as likely as Conservative voters to describe themselves as woke, is magnified in Britain’s higher education institutions where Labour supporters outnumber their conservative counterparts by a ratio of about 8 to 1 among academics. Goodwin replies to Cummings over new political party". Reaction. 16 August 2023 . Retrieved 26 August 2023.

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.

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These changes have pushed many people into a counter-revolution changing the direction of British politics but the new coalition forged by Boris Johnson in 2019 has been allowed to fracture by a Tory party consisting of MPs mainly drawn from the same elite that did not really understand the political and cultural forces that underlay their historic victory. And over the past decade, many of these voters have felt pushed away from Labour by their growing awareness of the third big divide over virtue, how some institutions and activists today have simply come to see some groups in British society as more virtuous, more morally worthy, than others. Many still believe that the vote and will of the majority should count and that the emphasis on differences isn’t culturally cohesive. This often shows itself as a divide in pride over being British, a censoring of alternative views and the idea that the floundering British working class have somehow squandered their “white privilege.” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks at a news conference after signing the ‘Stop Woke Act’. Photograph: Miami Herald/TNS In 2018, Goodwin along with other commentators including Eric Kaufmann, Claire Fox, Trevor Phillips and David Aaronovitch was due to take part in an event titled "Is Rising Ethnic Diversity a Threat to the West?" Some researchers argued that the event would encourage "normalisation of far right ideas" and criticised the framing of the title; [42] [43] [44] the debate was retitled "Immigration and Diversity Politics: A Challenge to Liberal Democracy?" [45]