TRIGGERnometry - Matt Goodwin： We're in the Post Populist Era

00:00:00.000 Our institutions, not just politics, but media, creative industries, cultural institutions, universities, schools, are now in the hands of a new middle class graduate elite who hold values that are simply very different from the values that are held by millions of people out there.

00:00:20.200 I polled them and said, look, what do you think about this? The SNP are trying to pass it. Everyone looked at it and said, this is insane. 80% of people said I oppose this instantly when you actually explain what it is.

00:00:32.920 I mean, the level of disillusionment out there is palpable. You see it, right?

00:00:38.820 We feel it. The reservoir of disillusionment, the fact that everybody is sort of just out there saying, none of these people really represent me. None of these people speak for me, speak for my values, represent my voice.

00:00:51.840 We're talking about a level of demographic change and churn that the Brits have not seen before. And it's going to be very, very visible, very, very quick.

00:01:08.820 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kishin.

00:01:16.520 And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.

00:01:22.040 Our brilliant guest today returns to the show for the 700th time. He's a political scientist and one of our favourites. He's got a new book out, which is this book here, Values, Voice and Virtue.

00:01:31.680 Matthew Goodman, welcome to Trigonometry.

00:01:33.200 Thank you for having me.

00:01:34.100 Welcome back. We have had you on the show a lot.

00:01:36.320 This is my third time.

00:01:37.300 Is it? Yeah.

00:01:38.260 Yeah. It feels like more because we really, you always provide fantastic commentary on British and other politics.

00:01:44.600 Yeah. And we always bump into each other at various events.

00:01:48.020 That we do.

00:01:49.400 It's actually your fourth time, Matt.

00:01:51.300 Sorry. Maybe the one in the aftermath of the 2019 election was like a bit of a blur. So maybe I forgot that one.

00:01:57.500 Yeah. So we've done a few. But my point is, we're always really interested to hear your take on things.

00:02:02.060 Yeah. In addition to your books, you have a fantastic sub stack that I read religiously, actually.

00:02:08.660 I read yours too.

00:02:09.820 Thank you.

00:02:11.180 Do you have one?

00:02:11.840 No.

00:02:13.740 Cut.

00:02:15.260 But Matt, it's good to have you on.

00:02:16.880 And because, I mean, actually, this will go out a few weeks after we record it.

00:02:21.600 But today, your sub stack was about post-populism.

00:02:25.640 Yeah.

00:02:25.980 And this is also something you touch on in the book, of course.

00:02:29.460 And this is something I'm very interested in talking about.

00:02:32.160 Because, first of all, define for us what you mean by post-populism and where is it happening and why is it happening?

00:02:38.880 So I guess one of the things I've tried to do in the book is say we just had this remarkable decade, which has basically overturned a lot of the things we thought we knew about British politics.

00:02:49.460 We had, in my mind at least, we had these three big revolts.

00:02:52.600 We had the rise of Nigel Farage and populism.

00:02:55.560 I know you had Nigel on the show recently.

00:02:57.820 We then had the big vote for Brexit.

00:02:59.820 And then we had the Boris Johnson 2019 election and that sort of post-Brexit realignment of politics.

00:03:06.180 So in my mind, actually, what we've gone through is a sort of trilogy of acts.

00:03:10.820 And in the book, what I've tried to do is say, look, where did these come from?

00:03:14.400 What on earth made all of that possible?

00:03:16.680 And the short answer is that I argue we've got millions of people out there who are holding values that are basically not shared by this new elite in our country.

00:03:26.540 But given where we are today, I do think that, you know, we are probably beginning now to see the emergence of what we might call the sort of post-populism era.

00:03:37.340 So, you know, all of the leaders from the 2019 election, Boris Johnson, Jeremy Corbyn, Nicola Sturgeon, Nigel Farage, have either been pushed out or they're lying low.

00:03:48.680 We've got the technocrats, the grown-ups, the managers back in charge.

00:03:53.420 We've got Keir Starmer.

00:03:54.560 We've got Rishi Sunat.

00:03:55.660 We've got a new consensus in politics.

00:03:58.260 I'm sure many of your viewers will have their own opinion about it.

00:04:02.020 But big state, big spending, high immigration, embracing globalisation.

00:04:06.720 There's no really longer any difference between left and right anymore.

00:04:11.640 They're basically indistinguishable.

00:04:13.380 And voters, I mean, they're not basically being pushed apart by big divisive issues in the way that they once were.

00:04:21.360 If I ask voters in my polls, what do you care about the most?

00:04:24.300 They say cost of living, the NHS and the economy.

00:04:28.160 I mean, these are more sort of unifying issues.

00:04:30.320 We all care about those issues.

00:04:31.840 So in my mind, you know, it raises this question.

00:04:34.480 Are we actually leaving the era of populism in the 2010s?

00:04:38.720 Are we moving into, you know, this new era of post-populism?

00:04:42.000 And what's that going to look like?

00:04:43.320 And I know you've talked about post-woke.

00:04:45.720 What does the post-woke era look like?

00:04:48.380 In the same way, I think we are entering into potentially a new chapter.

00:04:52.560 It's an interesting point, though, because simultaneously with the shift in the politics,

00:04:57.820 as you alluded to in your answer there, the fact is people haven't changed how they feel about it.

00:05:03.620 And so the fissures that were expressed through Brexit and, by the way, Donald Trump in America and the raging culture wars,

00:05:12.100 that is still going on in a very powerful way.

00:05:15.060 So I'm almost questioning of your thesis, Matt, only in the sense that we've lived through this period of six or seven years

00:05:21.720 where every time, and Francis is the perpetual pessimist and I'm the perpetual,

00:05:26.300 and every time, finally, all this crap is over, something new happens and things just get crazier and crazier, 0.66

00:05:32.620 whether it's the summer of BLM, whether it's COVID and our reaction to it, 0.85

00:05:37.020 where suddenly a war breaks out in the middle of Europe and people have got all sorts of ways of looking at that.

00:05:42.040 And I'm sort of thinking if the underlying disagreements within the body politic are still there,

00:05:49.040 aren't we just waiting for another thing to go wrong and then there's going to be another big explosion?

00:05:52.640 Yeah, I mean, in my mind, the big challenge we have in our society, like all Western democracies,

00:05:58.060 is what I call in the book the new elite, that we are basically in a situation now where our institutions,

00:06:04.960 not just politics, but media, creative industries, cultural institutions, universities, schools,

00:06:11.600 are now in the hands of a new middle class graduate elite who hold values that are simply very different

00:06:20.040 from the values that are held by millions of people out there.

00:06:24.280 And one of the things I try and argue in the book, at least, is that, you know,

00:06:27.740 it's not just that over the last 10 years, this new elite have sort of drifted away from everybody else

00:06:32.880 and they've taken the institutions with them.

00:06:35.540 It's also that they openly exclude the voice of other groups in society, workers,

00:06:41.240 people who haven't passed through the elite universities,

00:06:43.540 people who hold, let's say, contrarian beliefs, maybe people who question the woke orthodoxy

00:06:51.000 or the radical progressive outlook that dominates the institutions.

00:06:55.360 And that is why people have been turning to these revolts, because they've been saying,

00:06:59.240 look, hang on a minute, I want to reassert my values.

00:07:02.080 I want to reassert my belief system.

00:07:04.680 I want to reassert my voice in the national conversation,

00:07:08.480 because I don't really feel that people like me are in this conversation.

00:07:13.560 And I think that's basically what's been happening over the last decade.

00:07:17.200 I think the evidence shows that quite clearly.

00:07:19.020 And whether it's Nigel Farage, whether it's Boris Johnson, whether it's the Brexiteers, whoever,

00:07:24.700 you know, for many voters, these were imperfect leaders for those moments.

00:07:29.680 But out there, you know, we've got, you know, large majorities of people who are saying,

00:07:34.420 look, left and right don't really speak to me anymore on these issues that you mentioned around

00:07:38.980 culture and identity, what we're teaching kids in school, borders, security, community.

00:07:45.360 A lot of voters are still saying they don't speak for me anymore.

00:07:49.300 And I think, you know, we're maybe not over populism, but I think we're sort of in a brief phase,

00:07:58.520 perhaps between moments.

00:08:00.420 And we can at least maybe take stock of the last decade.

00:08:03.980 And, you know, I'm sure we'll be back there maybe sometime soon.

00:08:08.620 Isn't it quite dangerous, though, if you think about it?

00:08:11.620 Because what you're essentially talking about, Matt, is this large swathe of the population

00:08:16.260 who are not represented by politicians.

00:08:19.400 Yeah, well, so one of the things that I show is that most of our politicians lean much further

00:08:28.100 to the cultural left and much further to the economic right than most voters out there.

00:08:35.060 So conservatives, why have conservatives responded so terribly to the realignment of politics?

00:08:41.400 And we talked about this after 2019.

00:08:43.400 I remember the conversation vividly.

00:08:44.980 We said there is a unique historic opportunity here for Boris Johnson and the conservatives

00:08:51.260 to reshape the country.

00:08:52.580 And they squandered that opportunity.

00:08:55.900 They lost that opportunity.

00:08:57.240 Why did they?

00:08:58.120 I would suggest, as I argue in the book, is that because conservative elites basically

00:09:03.440 are too culturally liberal and too economically liberal to connect with the voters who are

00:09:11.080 looking for somebody to reassert their values in the system.

00:09:14.420 And so all we've really had since Brexit is a continuation of what you might call the liberal

00:09:20.640 consensus, which has basically dominated British politics for much of the last 30, 40 years.

00:09:25.880 Margaret Thatcher, you know, was needed.

00:09:28.840 I'm open to, I accept the idea that, you know, Thatcher's reforms, in my mind, at the time,

00:09:34.140 they were needed.

00:09:34.700 But what she did is she injected this radical economic liberalism, deregulated the economy,

00:09:41.820 liberalized finance, embraced globalization, or what Danny Roderick has called hyper-globalization,

00:09:48.380 the routine prioritization of big business, of big corporates over the national community.

00:09:53.560 And that was followed by Blair.

00:09:55.080 And Blair then came along and he injected radical cultural liberalism.

00:09:58.940 He said, hey, we're going to strip away the borders of the national community.

00:10:02.500 We're going to have mass immigration. 0.98

00:10:04.200 We're going to have European integration.

00:10:06.060 We're going to take meaningful choice out of politics.

00:10:09.260 Left and right are essentially going to become the same thing.

00:10:13.960 Brexit, populism, the realignment were really an attempt by voters to break that consensus,

00:10:21.660 to challenge that consensus.

00:10:23.780 And what we can now see is that actually those revolts have failed to do that.

00:10:29.600 And that the elite, the new graduate elite, socially liberal, if not radically progressive,

00:10:36.420 has reasserted its political and cultural power and pushed back that rebellion.

00:10:44.740 Do you think that part of the reason why things aren't as heated anymore is because of the Brexit

00:10:51.120 referendum?

00:10:51.980 Yet we look at countries like Italy, like Spain, and they're very much still in the throes of populism.

00:10:57.540 Yeah, I think it's remarkable that Britain now is one of the only Western democracies to not have a

00:11:03.820 successful populist movement.

00:11:05.760 And when I wrote my last book, National Populism, a lot of people were critical.

00:11:09.920 They said, well, these movements are going to be a flash in the pan.

00:11:13.000 They're going to rapidly disappear.

00:11:15.140 Look at the elections last year.

00:11:17.080 France, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Hungary.

00:11:21.920 Record levels of support for national populist parties.

00:11:25.860 Meanwhile, the Republicans fell short in the US, but they took back the House.

00:11:31.080 Ron DeSantis now or Trump probably have a realistic chance of winning the presidency next year.

00:11:38.680 So populism is still here.

00:11:40.900 But in Britain, bizarrely, it's absent.

00:11:43.980 And the reason for that is because the Conservatives basically hoovered up Nigel Farage's vote.

00:11:49.960 They hoovered up a lot of these voters who took a punt on Boris Johnson.

00:11:54.060 And they said, look, if you're going to be the guy that's going to shake up this consensus, if you're going to deliver Brexit,

00:11:59.000 if you're going to reform immigration, if you're going to push back against the woke, we're going to give you a chance.

00:12:04.520 And what happened?

00:12:06.060 Johnson basically let them down.

00:12:08.440 Johnson did the reverse on a lot of that stuff.

00:12:11.300 I mean, one of the untold stories about British politics today, which I don't think many people out there have yet realised,

00:12:17.320 is the extent to which Boris Johnson and the Conservatives liberalised the immigration system in Britain

00:12:24.320 to the point that we now have 504,000 as a net migration level, the highest we've ever had.

00:12:33.740 And just to make the point, they promised that it would go down, David Cameron promised, to the tens of thousands.

00:12:40.760 It's now half a million.

00:12:41.620 So what's happened is British Conservatives, Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings and others,

00:12:46.440 have been gaslighting the British people because what they've been saying is we're going to control immigration,

00:12:51.660 we're going to lower immigration.

00:12:53.120 And then when they ended up in power, they said, well, actually, we didn't mean lower.

00:12:56.260 We just meant we're going to give you control.

00:12:59.020 But what is clear, and look, I'm running polls every week.

00:13:02.280 Most people out there want immigration lowered.

00:13:05.200 End of story.

00:13:05.940 Ideally around 100,000, certainly not 500,000.

00:13:09.220 And the worst bit of all of it is Johnson not only liberalises migration to this unprecedented extent,

00:13:16.520 but he even does stuff like removes the requirement for British companies to advertise jobs in Britain.

00:13:24.100 So what you see, contrary to the desire through the Brexit vote to put the national community first,

00:13:32.400 is you basically see Conservatives, perhaps best symbolised by Liz Truss,

00:13:38.960 kind of doubling down on this hyper-globalisation, mass immigration, London-centric model built around financial services,

00:13:48.240 and basically putting their fingers up at many of the voters who turned to them in 2019 and thought,

00:13:55.180 well, gee, maybe these are the people that are going to break up the consensus.

00:13:58.500 So I suspect that the real winner at the next election won't actually be the Labour Party and Keir Starmer.

00:14:04.500 It will be apathy.

00:14:05.880 It will be a lot of people saying, you know what, I tried to change the system.

00:14:10.220 I tried to regain my voice.

00:14:12.200 I tried to reassert my values.

00:14:14.620 Nobody's interested.

00:14:15.400 Matt, we had Nigel Farage sitting in that very seat a few weeks back,

00:14:19.740 and he actually said that the reason that populism, not that it failed,

00:14:24.520 but it didn't achieve what it could have achieved, and in particular UKIP,

00:14:28.400 was because of the two-party system, which is impossible to break.

00:14:33.040 Yeah.

00:14:33.740 Do you think part of the reason that populism founded is because of that?

00:14:37.500 And if you look at our European friends, they all tend to have proportional representation.

00:14:42.060 That's part of the story, and I've spent a long time following Farage's movement,

00:14:49.220 and I've written about it.

00:14:50.380 One of the first books that I did was about it.

00:14:53.280 And, you know, the European Parliament elections under a proportional system

00:14:57.600 were the springboard that he shrewdly used in 1999 to get visibility.

00:15:02.240 And then one of the ironies of Brexit is that a moment that was supposed to lead to the reform

00:15:07.800 of our politics made our politics more elitist, because it took away the European Parliament

00:15:13.160 election.

00:15:13.760 So the only way you can change a system now is through first-past-the-post-general elections,

00:15:17.920 which is an impossible thing to do, or build up through local elections, which has been

00:15:22.840 the Liberal Democrat strategy for 50 years.

00:15:25.000 And they'll tell you how difficult that is.

00:15:27.140 And that's why, I mean, only last week, in early 23, I was in a meeting with Conservatives

00:15:32.920 who are now beginning to realise the only way they can actually bring about meaningful change

00:15:38.920 within the British system is to change the dominant faction within the Conservative Party,

00:15:44.420 which is to basically spark an internal battle with Liberal Conservatives, or self-styled

00:15:51.780 progressive Conservatives, and to try and reassert the power of what we might call national

00:15:57.860 Conservatives, and to reshape the Conservative Party from within.

00:16:01.700 They are saying now that is the only way they will be able to assert power and change the

00:16:08.820 direction of the party.

00:16:10.060 And for Farage and others who are on the outside, I mean, the reality now is they are probably consigned

00:16:18.440 to taking 5% to 10% of the vote at the next election, making life much more difficult

00:16:24.280 for Rishi Sunak if they want to do that.

00:16:26.700 But the game's become a lot harder.

00:16:28.460 The barriers to entry have become a lot higher for the likes of Farage.

00:16:33.540 So you don't see reform coming in and then taking a chunk and holding the Conservatives'

00:16:38.760 feet to the fire to actually get them to be more conservative?

00:16:42.160 It's going to be very, very difficult for them because I think it's going to be difficult

00:16:47.820 for them for a couple of reasons.

00:16:49.200 But one is that I personally don't think that the populace in Britain ever truly understood

00:16:55.760 the constituency that was wanting to vote for them.

00:16:59.720 Culturally, they were in the right space.

00:17:01.420 They were saying, look, our approach on crime is a joke.

00:17:05.080 Immigration is too lax.

00:17:07.060 The institutions are disproportionately dominated by elite graduates who basically hold values

00:17:12.420 that nobody else in the country really holds.

00:17:14.940 So on the culture stuff, they were basically where they needed to be.

00:17:17.820 On the economic axis, however, a lot of them were basically Thatcherites, were basically

00:17:22.720 focused on lowering tax, deregulating financial services, being fairly comfortable with big

00:17:28.700 business.

00:17:29.500 Now, if you look at the Republicans in the US, if you look at Maloney in Italy, if you

00:17:32.980 look at what's happening in France or Sweden, actually, the nature of conservative politics

00:17:38.580 is changing.

00:17:39.180 You know, some conservatives today have grasped the fact that they cannot simply offer an anti-state,

00:17:48.060 low-tax, pro-business message that the world has moved on.

00:17:53.160 And so national conservatives are saying the time is now here to make the case for an active

00:18:00.200 state that can intervene in the economy to make things fairer, that is sceptical of business,

00:18:06.500 especially when business becomes political, especially when business starts to promote

00:18:11.760 values that are seen to be anti-conservative, and which is much more realistic about globalisation

00:18:19.260 and free trade.

00:18:20.160 I mean, this is one of the things I talk about in the book is how basically Thatcherites

00:18:24.100 became so obsessed with free trade and globalisation that they lost sight of the damage it was doing

00:18:30.440 in communities.

00:18:31.700 I mean, globalisation wasn't just negative for economic reasons.

00:18:35.900 I mean, the evidence is pretty clear.

00:18:37.660 It smashed communities in areas in Northern England that were subjected to higher imports

00:18:42.980 from China or Eastern Europe.

00:18:45.340 The result was not just lower wages, was not just a lower share of the national income

00:18:50.660 going to those areas.

00:18:52.560 It was also weaker relationships, higher rates of family breakdown, higher rates of alcoholism,

00:19:00.480 drug addiction, people being pushed onto welfare benefits.

00:19:03.820 Now, conservatives, I thought, you know, care about community, care about family.

00:19:09.400 But too often I meet conservatives who routinely prioritise the market and globalisation and free

00:19:18.160 trade over these issues around community and family.

00:19:22.720 And I think if you look at just how much territory conservatives have ceded over the last 10 years,

00:19:29.140 you can see that quite clearly.

00:19:31.160 I mean, essentially, conservatives have allowed issues such as family, children's welfare, women's

00:19:39.760 rights, history and national identity to be reframed as culture wars.

00:19:45.480 I mean, it is one of the biggest retreats in recent political history.

00:19:51.000 They've completely lost all of that territory and are now on the defensive and are having

00:19:57.100 to make the case for why we should be allowed to talk about what we teach kids or whether we

00:20:05.660 should be allowed to feel uncomfortable with kids being exposed to drag queens or whatever

00:20:10.560 it is.

00:20:10.960 So they've completely, you know, lost that space, which again goes to show how I think

00:20:19.480 they've been far too focused on these issues like globalisation and free trade.

00:20:23.300 Matt, can we come back to the economics of this?

00:20:25.040 Because, I mean, as you know, I'm not conservative, but on the economic side of it, I'm always very,

00:20:30.800 very persuaded by small state as an idea.

00:20:35.020 Because my concern is, and we've seen it with, you know, we're seeing these lockdown

00:20:38.920 files coming out.

00:20:40.140 The bigger the government, the more the, you know, the government can, you know, they'll

00:20:44.580 give you money, but they're also going to tell you what to do a lot.

00:20:46.820 And I really don't want that as much as it can be avoided.

00:20:51.280 But am I right in thinking that I'm basically in the wrong country for that world view to

00:20:56.780 ever get a fair hearing in terms of the national political conversation?

00:21:01.080 Is there any constituency of people in this country who'd quite like to, you know, make

00:21:08.160 the best of life for themselves?

00:21:11.300 There is a constituency for that.

00:21:13.460 I mean, let's take, for example, the Liz Truss worldview.

00:21:16.960 Let's have a small state, low tax, and let's roll back the frontiers of government. 0.98

00:21:23.160 When Liz Truss was in power, I looked at the data on her position and concluded it was kind

00:21:28.960 of like a 6% to 10% of the population position, roughly about 6% to 10% were holding that kind

00:21:36.240 of trussite view.

00:21:37.800 In Britain, most people today are actually pretty comfortable with the state, with spending

00:21:43.060 on, as we are, with big spending on the NHS, with public services.

00:21:47.740 You know, the libertarian instincts, if you want to call it that, are actually very fringe.

00:21:52.220 You know, this is not a mainstream position.

00:21:54.700 But I just wanted to be clear about something.

00:21:56.560 So when I say national conservatives need to revise their relationship with the state,

00:22:01.040 what I'm not saying is that national conservatives should be suddenly pro-government and have

00:22:06.720 a big state.

00:22:07.560 What I mean is, I think there's an acceptance on the right of global politics now that they

00:22:12.300 are going to have to use the state in order to intervene in institutions in the marketplace

00:22:18.140 to protect and preserve their values.

00:22:22.300 So an example might be a Ron DeSantis in Florida using the organs of the state to intervene to

00:22:30.720 try and rectify how we teach kids certain issues.

00:22:35.600 Or it might be the UK government intervening using the state to create a mechanism whereby

00:22:42.000 academics and those people who hold non-conformist views who may be a gender critical or, you know,

00:22:49.060 don't want to go along with the woke orthodoxy, that they don't get sacked.

00:22:53.280 They don't get discriminated against.

00:22:54.880 So I think that debate now about, you know, conservatives using the state in order to try

00:23:00.680 and intervene has become much more, much more prominent.

00:23:04.120 You won't meet many mainstream US Republicans today who are advocating a Reagan-type view of

00:23:10.800 the world.

00:23:11.800 Conservatism is changing in big ways, in important ways.

00:23:15.080 I know you had Yoram Hazoni on the show, and, you know, he's often made that very argument.

00:23:20.740 Matt, aren't we really just talking about the political system no longer being fit for

00:23:24.860 purpose?

00:23:25.340 If it doesn't represent the people that it should, then quite frankly, what's the point?

00:23:30.540 Well, I think the issue, and I talk a lot in this about the book, the issue is that the

00:23:34.100 institutions have basically been taken over by new middle-class graduates who tend to come

00:23:40.700 from privileged families and share the same values.

00:23:43.140 This isn't a conspiracy.

00:23:45.300 What we are seeing is what academics call education polarisation.

00:23:50.700 So graduates have gradually, graduates have moved sharply leftwards, and non-graduates

00:23:56.380 are basically moving rightwards or staying where they are on cultural issues.

00:24:00.280 But Matt, is that fair, though, saying moving gradually leftwards?

00:24:03.420 Because...

00:24:04.060 Well, in some cases over the last 10 years, they've moved very quickly to the left, the

00:24:09.800 so-called Great Awakening, where white liberals, noticeably in the US, have doubled down on

00:24:15.960 their liberalism.

00:24:16.680 They've basically become super woke.

00:24:18.400 So they have become much more convinced racism's a major problem, that African Americans and

00:24:24.020 other minority groups are being discriminated against.

00:24:26.300 And they've become more concerned about those issues than minority groups.

00:24:30.320 OK?

00:24:30.540 So this Great Awakening is really important, because if those same groups disproportionately

00:24:35.700 dominate institutions, they've taken the institutions with them too, which is where

00:24:39.780 we can see the debates about the New York Times, the BBC, and others.

00:24:43.080 Because these institutions have now really become such an echo chamber, they've become so

00:24:49.460 narrow in the range of voices that are included within them, that if you're working class, if you

00:24:55.540 haven't gone to university, if you come from the small towns, medium towns, well outside

00:24:59.840 of London, if you hold culturally conservative small C values on issues like crime, immigration,

00:25:07.460 sex and gender, Britishness, who we are, you are probably looking at our advertisements, at

00:25:15.760 our museums, at our political debates, at the bestseller lists, in the bookshops, and our

00:25:22.200 writers, and our celebrities, and you're probably thinking, what the hell's going on?

00:25:27.900 Because they are reflecting the values of this new elite, they're not reflecting the values

00:25:32.180 of the rest of the country.

00:25:34.120 And Matt, is there a, you know, because it's very hard to judge these things, because those

00:25:38.640 of us who are quote unquote, very online people, we see, I think, perhaps a slightly different

00:25:44.740 side of it.

00:25:45.320 Is, do you see in your, in your polling, and in your research, a sort of backlash forming

00:25:51.780 against all of this?

00:25:53.060 Or is that a uniquely online phenomenon?

00:25:54.720 Well, I'm interested.

00:25:55.480 I mean, what, what, what do you see differently?

00:25:58.320 I'm just curious as to how, what, what, what's the side that you see that's, uh, well, what

00:26:03.180 I see is an increasing, and it's interesting, because a lot of people weren't, wouldn't have

00:26:08.460 expected this, but we just had Lawrence Fox on the show.

00:26:10.700 And when we asked him our final question, which is what's the one thing we're not talking

00:26:14.340 about, he said, the wokification of the right.

00:26:16.440 And I do see a lot of that online, where people who oppose wokeness are now starting to feel

00:26:23.760 that the only way to deal with the problem is to become the thing that they're fighting,

00:26:28.560 to cancel people, to, um, to get offended by words, to try and, you know, prevent certain

00:26:35.640 conversation from even being had to, et cetera.

00:26:38.580 Now, this could be a completely online thing that we're not seeing, but I, but that is

00:26:43.780 the sort of thing that I'm talking about.

00:26:45.500 Yeah.

00:26:45.760 I haven't seen too much of that, but I think there's certainly a lot of evidence to suggest

00:26:51.020 that conservatives and center-right parties have not really known what to do with this

00:26:57.340 moment.

00:26:57.760 And you can see that very clearly with the British conservatives.

00:27:00.040 I mean, they have floundered, they have completely failed to understand where voters are on many

00:27:06.060 of these issues.

00:27:06.680 Take Scotland as an example, right?

00:27:08.380 We are, we are talking against the backdrop of the fall of Nicola Sturgeon and, uh, what

00:27:13.500 a remarkable, uh, week that was in, in British politics.

00:27:16.980 Um, and you know, what was interesting is before that, everybody said to me, you know,

00:27:21.120 this culture war stuff doesn't matter, doesn't make a difference.

00:27:25.220 Nobody cares about it.

00:27:26.700 It's all generated by right-wing culture warriors and nobody's interested.

00:27:31.480 Then you look at the gender recognition reform bill that was brought by the SNP and it's

00:27:36.800 true.

00:27:37.200 That was not a highly salient issue.

00:27:39.080 A lot of voters said, you know, this isn't a top five issue for me.

00:27:42.280 But then when I polled them and said, look, you know, what do you think about this?

00:27:46.480 You know, the SNP are trying to pass it.

00:27:47.900 Everyone looked at it and said, this is insane.

00:27:49.980 80% of people said, I oppose this instantly.

00:27:53.520 When you actually explain what it is, let's let 16 year olds legally change their gender 0.99

00:27:57.800 without any medical supervision.

00:27:59.580 Let's let kids change their gender after living in that new gender for only a couple of weeks. 1.00

00:28:05.660 You know, mums and dads were like looking at this thinking, this is insane.

00:28:08.820 And the moment you actually put these woke issues in front of people and they really think

00:28:15.460 about it, you begin to see the scale of the opposition to it.

00:28:18.640 Another example is let's rename pregnant women pregnant persons.

00:28:21.880 That's a 5% issue, meaning only 5% of the country think that's a good idea, right?

00:28:26.520 So I've been just polling all of these little, these policies that we associate with wokeism.

00:28:31.320 And the key point is, if you look at the US, the lesson is for politicians who want to

00:28:36.600 step into those debates and want to politicize those debates and want to turn up the volume

00:28:41.600 on those debates, as we've seen in Virginia, California, Florida, there is an ample market,

00:28:48.820 big market for that, for the space that exists for that.

00:28:52.680 It's not a culture war.

00:28:54.460 Talking about the rights of kids, talking about women's rights, it's not a culture war.

00:28:58.900 Matters, really matters.

00:29:00.500 People want to have a discussion about it.

00:29:02.260 So I think that's where our debate has gone a little bit wrong.

00:29:05.940 And why conservatives, you know, have just shot themselves in the foot, because they've

00:29:10.580 not really acknowledged where people are on a lot of these issues.

00:29:14.000 And, you know, we talk a lot about Kemi Badnock, and we talk about, you know, these individuals

00:29:18.820 who perhaps we think do have a sense.

00:29:21.240 But in reality, the whole Conservative Party should understand this.

00:29:25.640 It shouldn't be this hard to convince a Conservative Party to get involved in these debates.

00:29:31.320 We're talking about the Conservative Party.

00:29:33.640 But as it stands now, Labour stand a very good chance of winning the next election, particularly

00:29:38.220 when you see what's coming out with the telegraphs and the lockdown files, etc.

00:29:43.260 It's only going to weaken the Conservatives' chance of winning.

00:29:46.920 So that being the case, things are only going to get worse, aren't they?

00:29:49.880 Well, the Labour Party is having a really good time, averaging just close to 50% in the polls,

00:29:55.640 doing really well.

00:29:58.840 You ask voters, who do you want to be Prime Minister?

00:30:01.820 Keir Starmer's ahead of Rishi Sunak.

00:30:03.460 Who do you want to manage the economy? 1.00

00:30:04.860 Labour's ahead of Conservatives.

00:30:06.080 Who do you want to manage immigration? 1.00

00:30:07.520 Labour's ahead of Conservatives.

00:30:08.900 Who do you want to manage Brexit?

00:30:10.260 Labour's ahead of Conservatives.

00:30:11.700 But here's the thing.

00:30:13.040 Who's ahead of all of them?

00:30:14.620 None of them.

00:30:15.500 None of the above.

00:30:16.640 I mean, the level of disillusionment out there is palpable.

00:30:21.760 You see it, right?

00:30:22.780 You see it.

00:30:23.100 But the reservoir of disillusionment, the fact that everybody is sort of just out there

00:30:28.720 saying, none of these people really represent me.

00:30:31.060 None of these people speak for me, speak for my values, represent my voice.

00:30:35.500 I was running focus groups in the Red Wall a couple of weeks ago.

00:30:39.760 And I sort of said, you know, OK, so how do you feel about how the country's going?

00:30:43.860 First 20 minutes, everybody's screaming at the Conservatives, can't stand the Conservatives,

00:30:48.900 want the Conservatives out of power.

00:30:50.900 So you're going to be voting Labour.

00:30:52.100 Well, oh, not sure.

00:30:55.360 What about Keir Starmer?

00:30:56.640 Who?

00:30:57.260 Not sure.

00:30:57.860 Who is that guy?

00:30:58.640 Don't really know him.

00:30:59.700 There's still a disconnect, I think, between Labour and the country.

00:31:02.900 And I think there are two areas where people are suspicious of Labour.

00:31:05.860 One is, can Labour manage the economy?

00:31:08.400 And the other is, can Labour manage immigration?

00:31:11.000 And those two issues obviously really matter for people.

00:31:14.180 Sunak is sort of cultivating an image.

00:31:16.420 If you talk to people around Sunak, they'll say he's cultivating an image as the quiet Prime

00:31:20.380 Minister who's getting things done.

00:31:22.400 You know, he's delivering in Scotland.

00:31:24.220 He's standing up to Nicola Sturgeon.

00:31:26.080 He's delivering in Northern Ireland.

00:31:28.100 He's got the Brexit deal.

00:31:29.440 He's bringing legislation for the small boats.

00:31:32.180 He's gambling that inflation will fall from 10% to below 5% by the end of the year.

00:31:38.440 And then interest rates will begin to fall.

00:31:40.700 The cost of living will ease.

00:31:42.340 He'll go into 24 and he'll say to people, you know, we're turning the corner.

00:31:47.620 Don't let the Labour Party ruin it.

00:31:49.160 That will be the sort of, you know, the narrative.

00:31:52.120 But I still, every time I talk about Sunak and the Conservatives, and you can see it in the data,

00:31:57.760 there's a great degree of scepticism.

00:32:00.540 And there's a great degree of apathy.

00:32:02.780 You know, I think people are just frustrated, utterly frustrated with the political class.

00:32:07.300 And it goes back to what I talk about in the book.

00:32:09.400 I mean, we've never really had a political class that has been this dominated by people from particular groups.

00:32:18.660 I mean, university graduates and political careerists, people who have only ever worked in politics.

00:32:25.260 I mean, we've always had an elite in Britain.

00:32:27.440 But, you know, in the old days, the elite also typically went into politics having done other things.

00:32:34.460 You know, different jobs, different things, you know, running companies, being out there.

00:32:39.920 Today, I think that's less the case.

00:32:41.920 And so this, the political class in my book has become much more homogenous, much more uniform, very narrow.

00:32:49.320 The range of voices in Parliament, the range of voices in the media, in our culture has become much narrower.

00:32:55.540 And maybe, as you say, maybe you're right, maybe the conversation really is happening online, rather than in the public square, in the main arena.

00:33:04.660 And Matt, this dominance by a particular worldview, if we assume that Labour are going to win the next election, which is not guaranteed.

00:33:11.560 When we interviewed David Davis the other day, he said, I'm very optimistic.

00:33:14.880 I think we've gone from one in 10 to one in five.

00:33:17.400 And I went, well, it's still 20%, mate.

00:33:19.180 So even Conservatives don't necessarily feel very confident about their party's chances.

00:33:25.260 But let's assume that Labour do win.

00:33:27.360 Isn't this actually a much bigger problem for Keir Starmer?

00:33:30.460 Because that elite of the middle class educated people, they are going to be expecting him to come in and deliver on all of their work priorities.

00:33:42.020 And I don't think he's going to be able to do that without sparking a major rebellion with the country at large.

00:33:46.760 I think you saw that in the reaction to Scotland.

00:33:49.300 I mean, to his credit, Starmer said, look, I think allowing 16-year-olds to legally change their gender is not the way to go.

00:33:57.840 Lisa Nandy followed up shortly afterwards saying we should allow 13-year-olds to legally change their gender.

00:34:03.340 This is exactly what I'm saying, right?

00:34:04.580 But that's a serious point.

00:34:05.960 I mean, we have entered a politics where the activist space has become dominated by the sort of Brahmin left, the high income, highly educated, not just socially liberal, but radically progressive activists. 0.65

00:34:20.500 And that is severely constraining where left-wing parties can go.

00:34:25.320 And they're also constrained by geography.

00:34:27.300 I mean, one of the problems facing Labour is most of their votes are still concentrated in the cities and the university towns, which is why Starmer's going to have to make some headway in non-London England, unless they can get big gains now in Scotland, which would offset that.

00:34:43.460 And to do that, he needs to talk to voters still about the cultural dimension.

00:34:47.040 Now, when he came out recently and said, I've got five missions, which is interesting because Rishi Sunak said he's got five tests.

00:34:54.280 So you've got, you know, these big five pledges on both sides.

00:34:58.160 Starmer didn't mention immigration at all, didn't mention small boats, talked about crime, a little bit like Blair, tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.

00:35:08.360 But I do think Labour still have left a big open goal for the Conservatives.

00:35:12.980 If the Conservatives were smart enough to kick a football into it, they probably would have a chance.

00:35:18.280 Because I think this issue is only going to become more important, especially as the cost of living crisis fades from view.

00:35:27.020 And it will do.

00:35:27.860 I mean, fast forward to mid-2020s, late 2020s.

00:35:31.980 You know, we get through, let's hope, the war in Ukraine, the energy crisis.

00:35:37.780 We begin to get back to some sense of normality.

00:35:40.900 And then I think people are going to realise that the pace of change in Britain, because of the things that have been unleashed, I think they're going to find that very, very difficult, very challenging.

00:35:52.700 We're talking about a level of demographic change and churn that the Brits have not seen before.

00:35:58.740 And it's going to be very, very visible, very, very quick.

00:36:03.160 And that's going to raise all kinds of political effects.

00:36:06.280 Before we go any further, I just want to say that I think it's quite unfair.

00:36:10.080 Lisa Nandy was only reflecting her constituency of Wigan and their opinions on the agenda.

00:36:14.920 I'm sure.

00:36:15.760 Yeah.

00:36:16.280 But isn't part of the problem as well is that you look at these major political parties, Conservative Labour,

00:36:23.680 and essentially they are a union of people who in many ways believe completely different things.

00:36:31.060 If you look at the old school left of Labour, typified by, let's say, you know, Tony Benn, Barbara Castle,

00:36:37.860 and then you look at Asharka, that is a union which doesn't really work because they believe completely different things.

00:36:46.180 And the same with the Conservative Party where you've got the woke progressive Conservatives

00:36:50.840 and then you've got the old school Conservatives, the One Nation Tories.

00:36:54.780 So, I mean, does it work anymore?

00:36:58.820 Well, I mean, politics has become, politics has moved into a very different era, a different chapter.

00:37:07.160 I mean, the first century of politics was primarily economic.

00:37:11.960 It was mainly left and right.

00:37:13.200 Now politics has become two-dimensional.

00:37:15.620 Culture and identity have really come into this and crossed over that economic axis.

00:37:20.600 So parties have been, you know, facing these cross-cutting divides and it's not been easy

00:37:27.040 because we're also in a majoritarian first-past-the-post system.

00:37:30.300 We don't have proportional representation where the Conservatives would be two parties,

00:37:34.580 the Labour Party would be two parties, maybe three parties.

00:37:37.620 So they're all forced to coexist uneasily and that's not an easy thing to do.

00:37:43.760 I mean, Labour and the Conservatives basically were born against the backdrop of the Industrial Revolution.

00:37:48.460 I mean, they have been shaped by a history that is very different from where we are now

00:37:54.560 and they've been struggling to adapt to this new climate.

00:37:57.480 If you look across Europe, many of the parties that have been really successful recently

00:38:01.640 have been entirely new parties that have been much more flexible, much more able to speak to the constituencies today

00:38:09.440 without those constraints.

00:38:10.920 You know, you look at whether it's Macron, whether it's Maloney, you know,

00:38:14.600 these parties are, you know, pretty new, flexible and can take on, you know, the monopoly.

00:38:21.540 We don't really have that and our system makes it much harder.

00:38:24.340 So the challenge is going to be whether the people who are within those parties can change the dominant factions within them

00:38:33.420 and can they actually try and reposition them, you know, in an important way.

00:38:38.820 It does happen.

00:38:40.000 I mean, the US Republicans would be an example of that.

00:38:42.160 I'm not saying the British Conservatives should become a Trumpian party,

00:38:45.840 but the US Republicans have fundamentally changed their axis, right?

00:38:49.480 They've moved into a very different space.

00:38:51.620 It is possible for parties to do that.

00:38:53.700 Maybe we're at a point now where both Labour and the Conservatives need to adapt

00:38:58.760 and readjust to this new reality of where we are.

00:39:04.140 Do you think as well we're going to see a rise of the hard right,

00:39:10.020 as typified by Marie Le Pen, who did very well in the French general election?

00:39:14.300 I don't think people were aware of how well she actually did 0.75

00:39:18.200 and what a threat she posed to Macron.

00:39:20.780 Do you think we're going to see that in the UK?

00:39:22.300 I don't think we are, no.

00:39:24.000 I think one of the things I've talked about in the book is the restoration of our civic culture.

00:39:29.560 And it's worth remembering what is it that makes Britain different from the French and the Germans and the Italians. 0.89

00:39:35.040 And one of the arguments from the 50s is that we have a very different political culture.

00:39:40.740 And we do.

00:39:41.460 I mean, we need to remember this.

00:39:43.020 I mean, you know, we have historically prioritised consensus over conflict.

00:39:48.200 We've prioritised moderation over messianic figures.

00:39:51.760 We have prioritised politeness over polarisation.

00:39:56.140 And that was one of the big arguments in the 50s.

00:39:58.380 Why is it that Germany descended into Nazism?

00:40:01.560 Italy descended into fascism.

00:40:03.320 Spain and Portugal would descend into authoritarianism.

00:40:06.520 And why is it that the Brits have never really done that?

00:40:10.680 You know, the British Union of fascists went nowhere.

00:40:13.300 I mean, Mosley never won a seat.

00:40:16.480 The National Front in the 70s never won a seat in the first part of the post-election.

00:40:20.480 The BNP never came close to winning a seat.

00:40:25.380 So, you know, we have had a very different politics.

00:40:28.620 And the argument is not just about the system.

00:40:30.440 It is about our culture that we have historically put an emphasis on this civic culture.

00:40:36.020 And I do think maybe that is beginning to return in some way that after the last decade,

00:40:42.160 the polarisation, the division, I think, you know, maybe, you know,

00:40:46.180 the Brits are returning to that culture and maybe saying, you know what, okay, 0.81

00:40:50.160 there are these loony wokesters on Twitter and these nutters over here.

00:40:54.980 But actually, the moderate middle, you know, is perhaps beginning to say,

00:41:01.280 I'm just tired of this division.

00:41:03.880 I want to return to some sense of normality.

00:41:06.820 Well, that is why I talk, as you mentioned, about the post-woke and how that comes about.

00:41:12.060 And that will take new institutions and ecosystems. 0.92

00:41:14.340 And I'm very hopeful and I hope that what you're saying is correct.

00:41:17.760 The one challenge to what you and I are both saying, I suppose,

00:41:22.580 is the extent to which our culture is now dominated by American culture.

00:41:27.820 Right, yeah.

00:41:28.500 And all it takes is the big orange menace to run, which he will.

00:41:33.680 Of course.

00:41:34.040 Of course he will.

00:41:34.940 He's about to.

00:41:35.820 The primaries are starting soon.

00:41:37.620 Yeah, yeah.

00:41:38.340 And, I mean, God only knows what happens then, right? 0.96

00:41:41.960 And then before you know it, we've got all the same crap here in the UK. 0.97

00:41:46.380 I don't think we, well, I don't think we could ever have a Trumpian. 0.98

00:41:50.040 No, I don't mean that.

00:41:50.840 But culturally, we'll import all, like, Sadiq Khan spends more, during the Trump era,

00:41:55.140 spend more time talking about Trump than he did about London, right?

00:41:57.580 Yeah.

00:41:57.860 The mayor of London.

00:41:58.640 So you get into this place where we did download a lot of the-

00:42:03.520 I moved out of London.

00:42:06.180 Couldn't deal with it anymore.

00:42:07.420 So did I.

00:42:07.920 I don't blame you.

00:42:08.460 Couldn't deal with it.

00:42:09.200 But you know what I'm saying, right?

00:42:10.740 We download a lot of our cultural conversation from America.

00:42:13.840 Of course, yeah.

00:42:14.480 And they are going to get even more polarised than they already are.

00:42:17.120 Especially the elite class.

00:42:18.580 Yes.

00:42:18.820 And the reality, I think, is white graduate liberals in Britain have sort of co-opted the

00:42:24.640 same belief system as their counterparts in the US.

00:42:28.480 And it's important to try and think, why is that the case?

00:42:32.460 Why have they done that?

00:42:33.400 Well, the main reason, I think, is because wokeism has become a new status system for this

00:42:39.340 new graduate elite.

00:42:40.540 It has become a new source of status, of moral righteousness.

00:42:44.400 And it's become a system that the elite can use to send a signal to other elites that

00:42:49.980 they are virtuous.

00:42:51.940 They are righteous.

00:42:53.200 They've got the vocabulary to show off the new knowledge, to show people they went to

00:42:58.060 the right schools and the right universities.

00:43:00.160 It's cisgender, heteronormative, white guilt, white privilege. 0.52

00:43:03.860 I mean, it comes with its whole vocabulary. 0.67

00:43:06.480 It is, as John McWater and others have noted, it is essentially a new religion for the new elite. 1.00

00:43:11.560 And along the way, I don't think voters are idiots. 1.00

00:43:14.980 I think they can see that. 0.99

00:43:16.120 And I think they can sense that there's a new moral hierarchy in society.

00:43:20.800 And guess what?

00:43:21.600 They're not at the top of it.

00:43:23.000 You know, and the way in which the elite project this now, you know, in the old days, it was

00:43:27.240 money, it was leisure, it was going on holiday, it was showing off fashion.

00:43:31.600 Now it is very much about showing off their sense of virtue.

00:43:36.140 And it's a deeply narcissistic belief system.

00:43:38.580 I mean, it is a very sort of inward looking kind of self-righteous belief system that inevitably

00:43:47.660 entails looking down on those other groups that you now perceive to be morally inferior.

00:43:54.580 And the evidence on this, which I talk about in the book, is now clear that, you know, a

00:43:58.960 reason Labour lost a lot of white working class voters over the last decade is because those 0.99

00:44:04.180 voters came to the conclusion that Labour was prioritising minority groups over the majority.

00:44:11.960 You look at the US, similar studies have found Trump did very well among white non-graduate 0.55

00:44:19.040 Americans who felt, had a keen sense that they had been pushed to the bottom of the social

00:44:25.060 ladder or that, to quote one study, minorities were basically cutting in line for the American

00:44:30.700 dream. You know, and there was this sense that they were now sort of being pushed down

00:44:35.460 this ladder simply because of their fixed group identity.

00:44:38.740 And I think that's what Michael Sandel has called the politics of humiliation.

00:44:42.660 And I think a lot of people out there can feel that.

00:44:45.100 And it's very visceral.

00:44:47.180 You know, the recent study, recent report from Cambridge found that now we have universities

00:44:52.400 that are offering courses only to children from minority ethnic families and not offering

00:44:59.180 them to white working class kids.

00:45:01.220 You know, people read this, they pick up on this and they have a, I think they conclude

00:45:05.180 that, you know, they're, they're, they're no longer seen by the elite as being virtuous

00:45:09.540 and morally righteous.

00:45:11.100 So coming back to my question, are you not concerned that...

00:45:15.140 Sorry, did I not answer your question?

00:45:16.900 You did not, but that's fine.

00:45:17.980 It was a great answer to a different question, which we love.

00:45:20.440 But my question to you is this, if the culture war and the actual political discussion gets

00:45:28.060 re-inflamed, as it will do in the United States imminently, are we not going to take that 0.99

00:45:33.280 and download it over here?

00:45:34.860 And the example I always use, because it just, I found it mind boggling, but also illustrates

00:45:39.460 the point very well is the summer of 2020, when in central London, you have protesters saying

00:45:44.460 hands up, don't shoot to police officers who don't have guns.

00:45:47.640 And to me, that is the encapsulation of just how much we are infected with everything that

00:45:54.100 comes out of the United States.

00:45:55.340 Yeah, I agree.

00:45:55.980 I mean, I think there is a lot of that.

00:45:57.400 And I think Trump too would, would again, put that on steroids.

00:46:01.020 I mean, the great awokening, you know, the kind of sharp leftward turn among white, white 1.00

00:46:05.600 graduate liberals basically tracked the Trump presidency.

00:46:08.900 It kind of began, it began in 2012, 2013, but then accelerated through the Trump presidency.

00:46:14.780 And I think we had something similar here with Brexit.

00:46:17.420 I think if you look at the folks who dominate the national conversation, the BBC presenters,

00:46:23.320 the columnists, the editors, and so forth, the kind of new middle class graduate elite

00:46:27.900 became much more supportive, much more positive about immigration, diversity, all of those things

00:46:33.400 in the aftermath of Brexit.

00:46:34.980 So it's what academics have sometimes called the populist paradox.

00:46:39.020 On the one hand, Britain becomes more populist.

00:46:41.620 On the other hand, we become way more socially liberal.

00:46:44.380 Why is that?

00:46:45.240 Well, one big reason is because the graduate elite basically doubled down.

00:46:50.260 They doubled down on their own values and they kind of went off a cliff with a lot of this

00:46:54.320 stuff.

00:46:54.980 And so I think there is a very real risk that culturally they'll continue to embrace what

00:47:00.600 we see in America.

00:47:01.840 Absolutely.

00:47:02.320 But I think that's also partly inflamed by social media and the fact that a lot of people

00:47:07.600 don't read anymore.

00:47:09.480 They're sort of, we're all just out there with no attention span and we're just, you

00:47:13.320 know, reading international media.

00:47:14.540 We're in the shared online space.

00:47:17.500 And we're very ignorant of historical context.

00:47:21.400 So a lot of people in the debate in the UK around race and slavery and discrimination, you know,

00:47:28.260 you often hear will sort of lapse into this belief that we are somehow comparable to US

00:47:33.700 history, which is crazy.

00:47:35.960 I mean, it's insane.

00:47:37.340 And Nigel Bigger's book, and I know you've got Nigel coming on the show, you know, he does

00:47:41.660 a very good job of explaining just the difference between the two.

00:47:45.300 But we are now at a point in our cultural debate where we have to explain this to people.

00:47:49.080 We have to say, actually, we have completely different histories.

00:47:53.000 We have completely different institutions.

00:47:56.240 We have a very different history when it comes to race integration.

00:48:00.880 When it comes to prejudice, we are actually one of the least prejudiced societies in the

00:48:06.160 world.

00:48:06.920 The evidence, I think, is quite clear on that.

00:48:09.180 I talk about it in the book. 0.71

00:48:10.800 But for the kind of white graduate liberals, that is, you know, blasphemous. 0.89

00:48:15.860 That's heretic. 0.93

00:48:17.740 I mean, I'm a heretic for saying that because it challenges the new creed. 0.99

00:48:21.960 It challenges a new belief system.

00:48:24.040 But isn't that a failure of education as well, Matt?

00:48:26.460 Because you can, you know, blame the kids, blame the young people all you want.

00:48:30.720 But if that's what you've been taught since year dot, is it really their fault?

00:48:34.080 I think the education system has a lot to answer for, yeah.

00:48:38.640 I think the way we're teaching kids, primary, secondary and university, I think we've got

00:48:45.120 a real problem.

00:48:46.300 And you're a university professor yourself.

00:48:48.260 We are not exposing students to a diverse range of views, beliefs and perspectives.

00:48:55.020 We are not developing critical thinking as much as we should.

00:49:01.360 I think COVID exacerbated this.

00:49:03.100 I think the lockdown also exacerbated this.

00:49:06.400 I think we have, in the universities, we've been far too quick to embrace online learning,

00:49:11.640 remote learning, whereby the interactions with students have become pretty minimal, actually.

00:49:19.120 Many universities have carried on using the practices they developed during COVID, hybrid

00:49:24.240 learning, blended learning.

00:49:25.680 So the social interaction aspect of university life, where you are exposed to those different

00:49:31.500 views and beliefs has become much less visible, much less regular.

00:49:36.940 I think that's contributed to it too.

00:49:39.660 But also, to be blunt, the politicization of institutions.

00:49:43.460 I mean, if you look at the ratio of left to right academics, and from the 1960s, it's gone

00:49:49.620 from three to one to closer to 10 to one.

00:49:52.920 So if you are a student, the likelihood of you meeting a professor who isn't kind of radically

00:50:01.040 progressive or just very socially liberal is minimal.

00:50:05.100 I mean, it is unlikely.

00:50:07.900 So I think that's contributed to it as well.

00:50:10.940 And then we've got all of the evidence of self-censorship on campus, where we know from

00:50:16.700 the surveys about 40% of students now say, I'm not going to share my views because I'm

00:50:22.140 scared of the impact that will have on my social networks or my reputation, because we're now

00:50:29.120 in this kind of culture whereby, you know, you will lose status and friends and standing if you

00:50:35.640 are seen to endorse particular views.

00:50:39.360 And I do think the institutions have a lot to answer for.

00:50:42.700 I mean, gender identity theory is a great example of that.

00:50:46.280 I mean, we are being asked to embrace something that is a belief system.

00:50:51.620 It's not fact.

00:50:52.860 It's not science.

00:50:53.820 It's a belief system.

00:50:55.000 And some people will support it and others don't.

00:50:57.640 And if you don't, you should be allowed to say, I don't believe in this.

00:51:01.320 I'm not going to use gender pronouns.

00:51:03.100 I'm not going to use this language.

00:51:04.920 I'm not going to embrace this vocabulary.

00:51:08.220 But many people feel they can't do that.

00:51:10.480 But isn't it also their duty to push back?

00:51:13.960 Because if no one pushes back, then the ideology just runs rampant.

00:51:17.280 Yeah.

00:51:17.420 But what do you do if you don't have financial security or you don't have seniority?

00:51:21.880 I cannot tell you, Francis, how many emails I've had from junior academics who have already

00:51:29.820 spent 10 years making no money, studying for a PhD, doing a postdoc, trying to get one

00:51:37.420 of the very few positions that are available, and have then come into universities, have often

00:51:42.860 been horrified at the extent to which they are openly political.

00:51:47.600 I mean, there's political insignia everywhere.

00:51:49.460 What do you mean by political insignia?

00:51:51.680 I mean, it is, well, I mean, in the same way that you walk into the National Health Service

00:51:55.620 and you realise that it's a political project.

00:51:59.180 I mean, there's from lanyards to flags to posters.

00:52:02.440 I mean, it is a sort of, it's an experiment in cultural, in sort of almost revolutionary

00:52:08.600 spirit is in the air.

00:52:09.920 I mean, it is quite remarkable, you know, sort of flags hanging around.

00:52:13.200 And it's kind of interesting.

00:52:16.680 But junior academics, I think, are coming into these institutions and saying, well, if I want

00:52:21.200 to get job security, if I want to make professor, I can't really say what I think.

00:52:26.580 So they're not going to talk.

00:52:28.360 Administrators aren't going to talk because they want to expand a lot of the diversity,

00:52:32.500 equity, inclusion, bureaucracy, because it's good for them, sort of justifies position.

00:52:36.780 So recently, Florida, it was revealed that public universities, state universities in

00:52:42.660 Florida are now spending $35 million every year on diversity, equity, inclusion initiatives.

00:52:48.520 $35 million.

00:52:49.840 Michigan is spending $18 million, which is equivalent to sending about 1,000 kids through college

00:52:56.760 to get degrees.

00:52:58.120 So this has become a massive industry, as you know.

00:53:00.900 So the administrators don't really have any incentive.

00:53:02.860 The vice chancellors don't really have any incentive to change it because they're deriving

00:53:06.840 status and they've got all of these internal pressures to keep doing it.

00:53:11.440 And so the whole thing kind of continues to carry on.

00:53:15.560 Meanwhile, we are routinely prioritizing ideology above the things that universities were set

00:53:21.500 up to do, which is search for truth, to be objective, to study subjects, you know, in

00:53:29.880 a rigorous way, because now social justice is a priority.

00:53:35.100 So if you want to apply for a job, you submit a diversity statement, which you have a page

00:53:40.240 of A4 and you have to explain to me how you are committed to diversity.

00:53:44.820 If you want to apply for a research grant, which you need to win grants to be successful

00:53:50.020 in universities, in order to do that, you have to write a diversity statement.

00:53:54.000 You have to tell me why you believe in these, in the goals of this political project.

00:53:59.400 You have to tell me in what way have you advanced the goals of diversity, equity and

00:54:04.560 inclusion.

00:54:05.560 This is political.

00:54:07.360 This is openly political.

00:54:09.020 But it's happening at every major university.

00:54:11.180 No one has a problem with this, right?

00:54:13.320 I've surveyed academics.

00:54:14.680 60% of academics say they support this.

00:54:16.720 It's a good idea.

00:54:18.280 Universities are not supposed to be political projects.

00:54:21.340 Schools are not supposed to be political projects.

00:54:24.440 But that's unfortunately what they've become.

00:54:26.560 And that explains very much the new elite and how it's becoming more and more culturally

00:54:31.560 entrenched and more dominant over time.

00:54:33.380 Because if you go to university and this is what you are exposed to, then of course, you're

00:54:38.420 more likely to end up being that way in the long run.

00:54:43.060 There might be a flip back to that, though.

00:54:44.460 Yeah, there will be some.

00:54:46.160 You've also made this point that maybe if this becomes the orthodoxy, and also culturally,

00:54:51.340 it's very boring.

00:54:53.200 And kids, Zoomer students or Gen Alpha or whoever's coming next, I suspect there will 1.00

00:54:58.780 be a generation that comes along and thinks, this is just really naff.

00:55:02.660 It's going to be cool to kind of call some of this stuff out.

00:55:05.760 And also, I think the evidence is going to undermine it.

00:55:08.560 We are on the cusp of developments with genetic coding and science that are going to be complete

00:55:16.700 game changers in how we understand health, medicine, life expectancy, all of that stuff.

00:55:22.900 So the idea that there are not inherent differences between groups is just going to be completely

00:55:30.060 unsustainable.

00:55:30.960 I mean, it already is, if you look at the evidence.

00:55:32.980 But over the next five to 10 years, it's just going to look utterly ridiculous as a lot of 0.97

00:55:36.820 this research and evidence comes through.

00:55:38.320 Matt, should the government step in?

00:55:41.220 Because if this is going on, and as you say, and look, I fully believe you that this is

00:55:46.940 what is happening.

00:55:48.200 Shouldn't the government step in?

00:55:49.600 These are publicly funded institutions.

00:55:51.640 If they're being overtly political, then something needs to be done, some type of reform.

00:55:57.220 The government is stepping in.

00:55:58.760 I mean, the one good thing that the Boris Johnson Conservative government did was bring the Higher

00:56:03.680 Education Academic Freedom Bill, which will do two things.

00:56:06.780 It will require universities to protect and promote academic freedom.

00:56:13.760 And secondly, it will create an independent body that academics who are being persecuted,

00:56:21.340 like Kathleen Stock and others, can go to and essentially sue the university for harassing

00:56:27.660 them because of their political views.

00:56:29.620 Now, a lot of liberal conservatives have spent the last two years saying, well,

00:56:33.680 you know, this is unnecessary, we don't need this, then why are people getting sacked?

00:56:38.180 Why are people getting harassed?

00:56:39.660 Why are people getting discriminated against?

00:56:41.380 That legislation is about to receive royal assent in 2023.

00:56:45.660 That will become the first significant pushback against wokeism in higher education in the Western

00:56:54.520 world.

00:56:55.360 Sweden is watching us.

00:56:56.960 Quebec is watching us.

00:56:58.680 America is watching us.

00:57:00.540 And in that sense, I think actually, you know, I'm an optimist.

00:57:03.540 I do think that will make a big difference.

00:57:05.380 Nothing moves universities like the fear of being sued.

00:57:09.680 And also league tables.

00:57:11.520 You create a league table for academic freedom and commitment to free speech.

00:57:15.340 Every university will want to be at the top of it.

00:57:17.500 So I do think culturally we can begin to change things.

00:57:21.700 And you might think I'm being naive, but I do genuinely think the fight is not over, which

00:57:27.120 is why I would just say I've always opposed the idea of setting up parallel institutions,

00:57:32.920 because I think it's too early to leave the legacy institutions.

00:57:37.480 You know, this move in America to set up entirely new universities.

00:57:40.540 I think it's too early to be retreating from the old ones.

00:57:44.660 I think, you know, I think the fight is still on.

00:57:46.760 I think it depends on the institution.

00:57:48.860 I mean, obviously not to compare ourselves to a national broadcaster, but you are kind

00:57:53.900 of participating in a small part of a set of new institutions that are an alternative

00:58:00.420 to the mainstream media.

00:58:02.000 And in terms of mainstream comedy and all of these things, I mean, they're eating themselves

00:58:09.140 out from the inside.

00:58:10.400 And so I think it really depends.

00:58:12.700 But a university is a very big project.

00:58:14.800 I agree.

00:58:15.760 Yeah.

00:58:16.440 And it'd be interesting to see how that fight plays out.

00:58:19.000 I mean, Christopher Rufo, who we've had on the show, there's a lot of debate about what

00:58:22.700 he's doing.

00:58:24.620 And it's just interesting to watch how these things are going to play out.

00:58:27.980 Chris Rufo is in some ways a mirror image of the people that he is campaigning against.

00:58:34.940 And I don't mean that in an insulting way.

00:58:38.140 But what he has shown is what you can do if you are highly organized, well-resourced, connected,

00:58:46.880 and highly active.

00:58:48.840 And we tend to forget this, but take Britain, and I talk about this in the book, the woke

00:58:53.260 percentage of the population, right, is about 15%.

00:58:56.300 It's a significant number, but they're very much in the minority.

00:59:02.140 But when you look at how they spend their days, always on social media, five times more

00:59:07.420 active on Twitter and Facebook, constantly churning out the belief system, like just there

00:59:14.100 every day, racism, racism, discrimination, white privilege, the whole thing, just out there

00:59:20.940 all the time, very active.

00:59:23.100 And so moderates often feel sort of, you know, under pressure, as if they can't speak, as

00:59:28.000 if, you know, God, look, there's so many of them, they're everywhere.

00:59:30.920 But actually, they're a very small group.

00:59:32.500 But Rufo, I think, is shown in a different way.

00:59:34.540 To the right, I think he's shown them what you can achieve if you are highly organized,

00:59:39.760 and also financially independent, right?

00:59:43.580 I mean, that's a crucial point.

00:59:44.600 I remember having this conversation with Jordan Peterson, who made the argument that you can

00:59:49.640 only really get seriously involved in, quote, unquote, the culture war, if you are completely

00:59:55.880 independent from the legacy institutions.

00:59:58.600 Because otherwise, you know, they'll destroy you.

01:00:01.340 And then you've got nowhere to go.

01:00:04.580 So lots of people who I know who have been doing, you know, outspoken things, who have

01:00:10.000 been contrarian, have only done that after getting themselves into positions, which meant

01:00:16.180 they were essentially uncancellable.

01:00:19.200 And there is a strategy that I think you do.

01:00:22.060 That is a strategy you have to pursue.

01:00:24.280 Matt, it's been great having you back.

01:00:25.720 Really recommend everybody grab the book.

01:00:27.640 Thank you.

01:00:27.940 Of course, Values, Voice and Virtue.

01:00:30.240 Appreciate it.

01:00:30.800 Thanks for coming back.

01:00:31.920 As you well know, we always have a final question, which is, what's the one thing we're not talking

01:00:37.000 about that we really should be?

01:00:39.600 Great question.

01:00:42.000 What's happened?

01:00:43.240 This is going to sound weird.

01:00:45.360 What's happening to young women? 0.99

01:00:47.480 Oh, hello.

01:00:48.120 Yeah, I think is really interesting.

01:00:50.300 If you look at all the data on young, university-educated women, something weird is happening.

01:00:57.340 They are not only outperforming their male counterparts in every part of the education system, but they

01:01:04.400 are also moving sharply to the left politically and culturally.

01:01:08.340 And I think this is going to be one of the really big, interesting trends to watch play

01:01:13.400 out over the next 20, 30 years, because it's going to have all kinds of effects.

01:01:19.140 I think men and women are going to move in quite different directions politically and culturally.

01:01:23.960 But I also think for society, we're going to be left with a group of men who have not gone

01:01:29.960 to the university system, who are very culturally conservative, maybe quite populist in their

01:01:36.360 outlook, who will also perhaps struggle to be connected to wider society and may not be

01:01:44.840 seen by women as a particularly enticing prospect.

01:01:48.740 And that also will have lots of effects.

01:01:50.780 There you go.

01:01:51.100 There's a recipe for social care. 0.96

01:01:52.520 Yes.

01:01:53.300 And let me just say, just before I go, it's been a delight to watch the show blowing up

01:01:58.540 and it's been a delight to watch the reaction to your Oxford Union talk and the success is

01:02:04.680 deserved.

01:02:05.420 So congratulations.

01:02:06.500 Well, thanks so much.

01:02:06.900 You were here from the early days, actually.

01:02:08.740 I remember you coming to what would have been our second studio in a very hot sweat box,

01:02:16.180 a small studio in West London.

01:02:20.080 Don't tell them about that.

01:02:20.920 Taking your top off.

01:02:22.740 Yeah.

01:02:23.200 No, it was great.

01:02:24.920 And, you know, you are one of our favorite guests.

01:02:27.560 Whenever anything big happens in British politics, we're always keen to get you on.

01:02:30.620 But I hope everyone gets your book.

01:02:32.140 Thank you.

01:02:32.420 I really enjoyed reading it.

01:02:33.560 Thank you guys for watching.

01:02:34.640 We're going to obviously, as always, ask Matt a couple of questions from our supporters

01:02:38.700 that they've already submitted that only they will get to see the answers to.

01:02:42.020 But for now, thank you for watching and listening.

01:02:43.880 We'll see you very soon with another brilliant episode like this one or Raw Show.

01:02:48.380 All of them go out at 7pm UK time.

01:02:50.140 And for those of you who like your trigonometry on the go, it's also available as a podcast.

01:02:54.780 Take care and see you soon, guys.

01:02:58.000 Can you ask Matt why populism seems to be viewed as a right-wing manifestation by the mainstream media?

TRIGGERnometry - April 02, 2023

Matt Goodwin： We're in the Post Populist Era

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