Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics

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Goodwin’s dichotomy seems to stand empirical scrutiny, but in the reverse: a conservative ruling elite governing an increasingly progressive country. The idea that Gary Lineker or the US-based British journalist Mehdi Hasan or Sam Freedman, a fellow at the Institute for Government thinktank (all of whom Goodwin has namechecked as key members of the new elite) shape our lives more than Rishi Sunak or Andrew Bailey, the governor of the Bank of England is, to put it politely, stretching credulity. Football | Two late own goals from Tyrell Malacia and Harry Maguire (above) snatched victory from Manchester United in the first leg of their Europa League quarter-final against Sevilla.

The defenestration of Boris Johnson led to a Tory attempt under Truss and Kwarteng to put back the clock to a pure Thatcherism that commands the support of a tiny minority even within Tory voters. On Brexit, we are told that almost half of the working class wanted to leave the EU (72); but that means that almost half did not want to leave. Moreover, graduates may well be at opposite ends of the socioeconomic scale, as young graduates are facing the toughest job market in recent times. These value conflicts are also being exacerbated by the second big divide over voice, namely who has one and who does not.Woke versus Not Woke” increasingly looks set to become the latest proxy of this deeper fault line, much like Remainers versus Leavers became a more recent proxy of the older divide between social liberals and cultural conservatives. Given all of that, it might seem bold to argue that it is the sneering cognoscenti who rule the roost. Daniel Lavelle spoke to people who have decided, or been forced, to live in caravans as rising rents and section 21 evictions make housing increasingly precarious for many. It exposes the postliberal concern for the working class as being as performative as the antiracism of the “new elite”.

There was a growing divergence between metropolitan liberals and other Britons, who felt increasingly ignored by this new establishment. You can already see this in the data, which points to how these groups are oceans apart not simply on Brexit but many of the debates that hang off wokeism: anti-racism, free speech, diversity and equality. Matthew Goodwin is author of Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics, which is published by Penguin. America’s elite, he observed, forms a “compact social and psychological entity” that “towers over the underlying population of clerks and wage earners” and whose “values” are “differentiated” from those of the “lower classes”. Equally, no one hoping to convince a non-believer of Metallica’s greatness will reach for it over the classics.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. Like the young Ukrainian men who have just stepped off a plane, we are tossed in and must quickly adjust.

What has caused the recent seismic changes in British politics, including Brexit and a series of populist revolts against the elite? This amounts, according to Goodwin, to around 15% of the population, which renders the very notion of elite rather meaningless. Did you know the UK runs a scheme that flies Ukrainian civilians here, gives them intensive military training, then sends them back as rookie soldiers with the basic skills they need to fight Russia? Since 2015, Goodwin has been professor of politics in the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Kent. Goodwin’s book is the best we know in analysing the strong tides in current politics and we offer the following paragraphs as brief guide to his ideas.

But I was even more surprised to read some of the reaction to the book from our media and political class.