Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics

by Matthew Goodwin

*THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER*
*A Financial Times 2023 book to watch*

'Forceful ... The fundamental thrust of Goodwin's argument is right ... a new centre ground of British politics is being formed - even if both parties have yet to fully comprehend it' The Times

What has caused the recent seismic changes in British politics, including Brexit and a series of populist revolts against the elite? Why did so many people want to overturn the status quo? Where have the Left gone wrong? And what deeper trends are driving these changes?

British politics is coming apart. A country once known for its stability has recently experienced a series of shocking upheavals. Matthew Goodwin, acclaimed political scientist and co-author of National Populism, shows that the reason is not economic hardship, personalities or dark money. It is a far wider political realignment that will be with us for years to come. An increasingly liberalised, globalised ruling class has lost touch with millions, who found their values ignored, their voices unheard and their virtue denied. Now, this new alliance of voters is set to determine Britain's fate.

Sunday Times bestseller, April 2023

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, History, Economics, Sociology, Society, 21st Century

254 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 30, 2023

Reviews

[Hamid · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is embarrassingly bad. Its central boogeyman, the "new elite" is so poorly defined that it either just means anyone who's gone through higher education or anyone Goodwin simply disagrees with. He laces his text with survey after survey with almost no work to suggest any drawback (or contradictory survey). The bulk of his book relies on claimed beliefs from surveys that could very well have radically different understands of what "left" and "right" are.

He claims that the "new elite" are different from what came before by virtue of education, as though the upper class hasn't used education as a differentiator for several hundred years. He could have made some valid points about education access across society but instead focuses in on traditional values as though they are per se good values. This means he contorts himself into argument by allusion. The "working class" is always treated as white and as some static block that doesn't like immigration at all and doesn't believe in supporting minority and female rights. This leads him to making some incredibly stupid claims, like 40% of the block being an "outlier" when it disagrees with opinions he holds.

But irrespective the incoherent arguments. Irrespective the turgid prose. Irrespective the abominable use of statistics. The biggest problem with his book? It is *sloppy*. I don't mean that in a vague way. I mean that Goodwin's citations are awful and inconsistent. So if you want to check on the context of his claims, he's made it more difficult for you to do so. He frequently fails to cite bold claims. When he does cite, sometimes he just references entire works with no page reference (others, he does). And even then, the citations are sometimes hilariously incorrect and misrepresented.

As an exercise, I followed up a random citation. On p101 of the Kindle edition, he says: 'These changes played a direct role in Labour's electoral collapse[...] Political appeals to the working class', conclude professors Geoff Evans and James Tilley, in their insightful study of how Labour's electorate unravelled over the last ten years, 'have now effectively disappeared from the lexicon of party politics.' The meaning of what he's saying is clear: that Labour, primarily under Miliband and Corbyn, have lost sight of the working class, with catastrophic consequences (ie the 2019 election).

Well, the citation leads to a work by Martin Lind, The New Class War: Saving Democracy from the Managerial Elite (which I own and checked and in which there is no such reference) with no page cited. Elsewhere he cites Evans and Tilley, also without page reference. I checked the book cited several pages later for a different claim, The New Politics of Class: The Political Exclusion of the British Working Class, because I also own it. There was no page reference but I looked into the quote. What Evans and Tilley say is:

'We have seen that references to the working class were particularly pronounced by Labour in the post-war era, but started to fall dramatically in both manifestos and leaders' speeches from the late 1980s onwards. Political appeals to the working class have now effectively disappeared from the lexicon of party politics. Just as discussion of class and class politics by the newspapers more or less stops by 1997, so do appeals to the working class by political parties.'

Now, what Evans and Tilley say here is very interesting but the elisions of context made by Goodwin as well as his own contextualisation and obfuscating citation, mean a very misleading use of their work. This is just an example of the way he argues and cites. It's not academic (perhaps that's too new elite?) but it's also incompetent. It's what you'd expect from a lazy first year student at university, rushing out an essay. Not some leading academic, modern political philosopher.

His style is as intellectually (and morally) bankrupt as the movement he feels he's part of. This book is worthless. It contributes nothing meaningful to the conversation and serves only for someone with an even poorer grasp of the issues than Goodwin to point to and feel they're citing something with academic rigour.

[Dr M J O'Donnell · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent analysis of how a new elite has formed in British Society, which is gradually isolating itself from mainstream thought and has largely taken over the political and professional classes. It’s a very good summary of where we are at present and the underlying alienation of the politicians from their voters. One point that is not covered is how grinding incompetence in Government Services, including, but not restricted to, healthcare and policing are affecting people’s perception of politicians and Civil Servants. Similarly it fails to cover the excessive pay at the top of many organisations and the contempt they display for their customers and employees.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book for understanding the current state of play in British politics. Matthew Goodwin argues that the economic liberalism of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government combined with the cultural liberalism of Tony Blair's New Labour regime has created a political culture in the United Kingdom that is now just as polarised as that of America or continental Europe. The divide is now mainly between the university-educated, socially liberal, and pro-mass immigration elite on the one hand and the culturally conservative national populists on the other. The latter group tend to be more right-wing on cultural issues, but more left-wing on economics.

If the political right wishes to win a large share of votes from these people, it needs to emphasise issues relating to immigration and the culture wars - rather than make the mistake of Trussonomics in thinking that we can return to Thatcherism. While the author recognises that some of Mrs Thatcher's reforms were good and necessary, the key fault of Thatcherism is that it prioritises the market over the country, which, in turn, creates the conditions for greater globalization and feeds the demand for mass immigration. Figures such as Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson were able to appeal to this constituency by emphasising issues such as national sovereignty, limiting immigration, and levelling-up parts of the country outside of London.

Although this last point highlights one of the faults of the book, which is Mr Johnson's betrayal of national conservatism, especially during COVID, to further the interests of the Globalist elite of which he is a renegade member. I did notice that some of the referencing was also a bit sloppy in that the author would cite a quote from a book, but the endnote only gave you the title and not the specific page number(s).

[T.C. Parker · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not sure what’s happened to Goodwin in recent years*, but this (ironically polemic) anti-“woke” / anti-“liberal elite” rant is a horribly far cry from the legitimately rigorous work he previously produced on the British far-right. You’re better off reading (for example) Aurelien Mondon instead.

*update - a brief bit of Googling reveals that at least a part of the ‘what’s happened’ bit is: he’s aligned now with Toby Young’s Free Speech Union, the very existence of which makes me want to combust with embarrassment.

Bad stuff all round, really.

[Robert Webber · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this to be a fascinating and determinedly objective analysis of the changing political alignments in Britain today. It examines the widening gulf between the ‘new elite (typically liberal progressive graduates with left leaning views)that runs the country and its institutions and the ‘Traditionalist’ majority (mostly non-graduate, patriotic, culturally conservative). It charts the rise of this new elite over the past 60 years as they supplanted the old land owning, aristocratic elite of the previous era.

The crux of this analysis is the counter-revolution being waged by the ‘traditionalists’ who feel that they have no say in the running of Britain and are looked upon with contempt by the ‘new elite’ who see themselves as morally and cognitively superior to the traditionalists and are embarrassed/ashamed of Britain and its history. The new elite cleaves to supra-national (and undemocratic) institutions such as the EU and cannot accept any rejection of their preferences further alienating the ‘traditionalists’ by labelling them racists, bigots, homophobes, Nazis and whatever else is available to them in the pejorative lexicon of the left.

The book further explores how the ‘traditionalist’ counter-revolution is asserting itself via the decision to leave the EU, voting overwhelmingly for Boris Johnson in 2019 etc. Neither is this counter-revolution unique to the UK with the accession of Trump to the presidency in 2016 reliant of a blue-collar and lower middle class revolt against the liberal elite epitomised by Obama. There is also the growing swing to the right in Europe with the election of Giorgia Meloni in Italy for example. The book suggests that the ‘new elite’ rather than trying to come to terms with the ‘traditionalist’ desires, for example, to slow (not stop) mass immigration is doubling down on its contempt and dismissal of the views of those they believe to be morally and cognitively beneath them. How this conflict eventually plays out and it’s consequences are, of course, the subject of speculation but what seems certain is that the fracture lines in British politics and in other western democracies will continue to widen. Recommended.

[Christopher Day · Rating 3 out of 5]

What went wrong Matt? Back when he was my lecturer, around 2016/17, he was reeling off exactly the same arguments as he makes in this book, but from a scholarly perspective rather than as a polemicist. To be honest, we mostly had him down as a centrist dad. But now he's effectively confirmed that he's a big supporter of the politics that he always framed as 'most of the country supporting'.

That isn't an issue in itself, obviously. My own politics are pretty similar to his in many respects. But he lets them into his work, making the book less effective as an argument. Funnily enough, he mentions 'confirmation bias' in his introduction and this is exactly what happens in this book.

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.

It doesn't take a genius to work out that all of these three elements, particularly the first two, were present among British elites for most of the twentieth century. The one element of the 'new elite' that I think does distinguish them from earlier elites is their 'liberal cosmopolitanism' - but the crass distinction between new/old elites means that Goodwin never really focuses on the question of WHY elites are increasingly inclined to those views. He makes a start by pointing out the massive rise in the number of people attending university, but universities are themselves becoming ever more 'liberal'.

This is also a hastily written book, with plenty of minor errors and examples of poor wording. More seriously, his addiction to packaging everything in his new/old elite framework means that hard evidence is presented in ways that make it difficult to work out whether it genuinely means what he says it does. That's a serious problem in a mass market book where most people won't be checking the footnotes.

Other things I didn't like:
1. Either Goodwin doesn't understand that the groups he talks about overlap, or he doesn't want to dig into the nuance. He talks about the working class as if it is only made up of white and straight people. There's no recognition that many people of colour/LGBT+ people are also working class.
2. Sometimes Goodwin uses an Oxbridge education as a stick to beat people with - see his definition of new elites. Yet on multiple occasions he uses 'Cambridge academic' as a way to reinforce the credibility of sources that agree with him.
3. He loves to use 'only' and 'just' to present survey data in a way that makes it APPEAR to more closely reflect his argument. Sometimes the data doesn't really show what he wants it to, and so he uses this to make you think that it does.
4. Too often, Goodwin uses anecdotes as evidence of wider trends. Douglas Murray can sometimes be guilty of this too. They make a massive claim then support it by a single example from a particular newspaper columnist or politician. As it happens, I think the claims they make when using these examples are broadly right, but it isn't going to persuade somebody who isn't already on their side.
5. When Goodwin was lecturing me (in person I mean, not in this book), he didn't understand why the major parties wouldn't move to the left economically + to the right culturally, as that's where the people (and Goodwin) are. But he never actually talks about how they should do this. HOW can either major party reconnect with 'ordinary voters' and reduce the dominance of the 'new elite'? And, to be honest, WHY would they want to? Goodwin's happy to criticise Labour for taking working class voters for granted, and assuming that those voters would stick with them while they moved to the right economically + the left culturally. But he lavishes praise on Johnson's Conservatives for moving to the left economically + the right culturally (by the way, he never recognises that these moves turned out to be largely rhetorical rather than substantiated in policy), attracting new voters but risking the loss of traditional shire support. Why is it good when Boris does it not but not when Labour do it? He also fails to recognise that any attempt by Labour to move in the direction he wants would seriously risk their support among groups that currently strongly support the party.

6. Towards the end, Goodwin laughs at people who continue to see class as important in British politics. He must have forgotten some of his earlier chapters.

Anyway, I've gone on long enough. 3* as it remains an enjoyable book to read, and Goodwin continues to be right about many of the trends he identified a number of years ago. Just a shame that he's tried to cram them into a flawed framework, that he's lost some of his scholarly credibility, and that he's suffering from such a severe case of the 'confirmation bias' that he rails against when he sees it elsewhere.

[Alan Draycott · Rating 4 out of 5]

An academic review of the cultural changes , the wokism if you like, that has caused such a disconnect between the left and the working class. It may not be the best read but it's spot on with its analysis particularly the exploration of the theory that the language and celebration of this new belief system is part of a new way the elite signal their status, without it impacting on them even if it does harm the non elite.
It's the new wearing of the finest top hat.

[Ian Partridge · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this analysis of the breakdown in traditional voting patterns both fascinating and comforting. Fascinating in that it brought into focus the conditions which can give rise to populist political figures and comforting in that it shed light on my feelings of political dismay about political discourse and my changing relationship to politics and how we are governed.

The analysis was clear, underpinned by sufficient statistics to support the analysis. Further forward looking projections would have enhanced my enjoyment.

A very readable and interesting assessment of the changing relationship between our politicians, the changing nature of political orthodoxy and how we are being governed. If you have any interest in politics, miss this book at your peril.

This book should be read by all politicians.

[Maureen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this is a fascinating analysis of the current politics of the uk. I was particularly struck by the portrayal of the liberal, graduate elite pursuing their view of the rights of minorities at the expense of the majority of the electorate, and that so many of the electorate feel their views and voices are not heard. The political system is really broken in this country, it remains to be seen what happens at the next general election. I for one have been urging everyone I know to use their vote.

[Wendy (bardsblond) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read Values, Voice and Virtue book after reading Douglas Murray's The Strange Death of Europe, which I read a few months ago and came away from with the sense that immigration means something different in Europe than it does in the United States, and I went into the reason for that in my review of that book.

I have never fully understood what Brexit was about, i.e., why it caught the attention of British voters when it did, why it was such a polarizing issue in 2016 when ten years earlier it had not been forefront in the minds of British voters, and what the British national dialogue has really been talking about when they say they are talking about Brexit. I have thought about MAGA in the same context, i.e., why did it happen when it did? What does it say about the United States that Trump was able to capture some component of the American population that he probably would have not been able to do a decade earlier?

Goodwin, who backs up his opinions with a lot of empirical research, focuses on the pace at which British citizens' physical landscape (the small towns of the UK) and sense of national identity has changed since the rise of globalism, the preeminence of the urban educated class and the relative power the major cities have over the countryside and blue-collar towns, the sense of resentment fostered by the educated classes telling the British people to be ashamed of their national culture and traditions, and more. A lot of it makes sense, and I think it's too easy to dismiss phenomena like MAGA or Brexit by writing off our fellow citizens as just being braindead or racist. That type of dialogue probably exacerbates our divisions. So if you, like me, have always puzzled a little bit over what Brexit was about and what the UK has really been fighting about since 2016, then this will provide some pretty interesting insight.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting, well researched and well argued book.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the good old days, conservatives represent conservatives; and labor represents people who labor. That’s no longer the case. The new elite are all graduates of boarding school and majority studied in Oxbridge. They have no idea how blue collared white workers in the region live. Their ideology have become the same l, so there are no differences between the 1 parties. They all want more immigration, diversity, are embarrassed about the imperial past of Britain, and think globalisation is great.

The poor white working class sees their middle class lifestyle disappear, losing their jobs to automation and China, and people who are ethnically and culturally different from them. They no longer recognize their own country.

Yet under the EU, Britain did not have control of its borders. So there were 300k immigrants to Britain every year. This strains local services and finances. Non-elite Brits became angry and bitter, and thus vote for Brexit - to take back control… it’s really not Putin or Cambridge Analytics (power overblown).

The non elites are looked down upon, branded as racists, and are ignored by the elites. So they have the wrong values, no voice and are considered valueless.

Britain politics is going to be chaotic for decades to come, unless these people’s voice is heard again and their concerns addressed.

[Lothario · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this book is worth a read if readers want to understand class structures and divides across the UK. If readers are familiar with Matt's previous books are primarily academic/research based following populism in the UK, this book whilst academic to some degree, it also felt like Matt was making a statement and planting his flag against a group he terms 'the new elite'. Which is quite evident now given his association with the Reform movement in the UK. The divisions outlined in values, voice and virtue are quite clear between more educated, urban and diverse areas which are usually more economically vibrant compared to less educated, more geographically isolated and more indigenous areas which are typically less economically robust. This has largely come about due to the professionalisation of politics, access to cheaper labour in the UK and the offshoring of industry from one industry town. Matt's own experiences from working first hand in the higher education sector have shaped his views allowing him to come to the conclusions that he comes to in the book, backing up such claims with data.

[Marcus · Rating 4 out of 5]

As you would expect from a book that focuses its criticisms on the hubris of The New Elite many reviews that are coming in for this one are negative. The New Statesman, (they of the gleeful gotcha journalism against an ailing Roger Scruton) put out an ad hominem review that focused on the trajectory of the author rather than his content. Many ideologues will have seen such calls-to-arms as enough to proceed with one star ratings. Some hopefully will actually read the book and engage with it in good faith.

For Goodwin is no extremist, he makes clear early on that he is no fan of populists such as Le Pen or even Farage and Orban. Rather he sees populism as an inevitability when elite powers disregard the public will. He will present us with ‘big picture’ statistics in hope of reaching all interested parties across the polarised divides.

Party politics this isn’t, his argument is that the two leading political parties in the UK are virtually indistinguishable in their service of a new elite and have failed to serve the values, voice and virtues of the British electorate. As such he follows in the footsteps of commentators such David Goodhart, John Gray and Eric Kaufmann.

Values

The cover displays a political schism and Goodwin hits us with stats on how many of the public consider Britain to be broken, seven in ten feel misunderstood and points to the three big revolts; namely the rise of UKIP, Brexit and Boris Johnson breaking down ‘the red wall’ in his crushing victory over Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party.

Goodwin accepts that Corbyn was certainly a singularly unelectable candidate but asserts that he is not to blame for the gradual shift in attitudes, nor can the results be attributed to gullible idiots being misled by fear and propaganda.

The dissatisfaction has been fermenting for decades. There is little public trust left in social media so Russian bots aren’t to blame either. Rather there is a distinct period (begun under Margaret Thatcher|) that has culminated in a paper thin difference between the two political parties and leaves little in the way of traditional left/right democratic alternative.

These three voting shifts don’t come from any particularly deep held belief in Brexit or any potential goals as much as a wish to lash out at The New Elite. The old elites were traditionally landowners and hereditary peers dating back to the Norman invasion of Britain. The new elite is taken to mean those of a certain type of education, ideology and metropolitan outlook. Their power is economic, political and cultural.

These ‘hyper-globalists’ have lost touch with the electorate they purport to represent and cater to. The values from unfashionable non-urban regions are undesirable and excluded in the voice of institutions such as academia, media, creative cultural institutions. Virtues of certain groups are upheld as desirable, honourable and rewarded with high status while others are slammed as ignorant ‘Karens and Gammons.’

New elite echo chambers have formed, where they reinforce one another’s outlooks: alternate voices are silenced and shamed. Ideas such as duty, traditions, borders, patriotism etc of the old elite have been cut adrift along with any sense of serving these remaining treats in the British majority.
David Goodhart used two descriptors for this divide; ‘somewheres and anywheres.’ Rooted vs global citizens. John Gray suggested that “hyper liberals” favour EU superstates and globalist priorities. The old elites flaunted their wealth and materialism but now it is values that separate The New Elite from the wrong and inferior classes. They are most likely to promote their beliefs and they signal their virtue through forums such as Twitter.

This new power is consolidated around the universities, particular Oxbridge and The Russell Group. White working class boys have found themselves most left behind, yet as the rapper Stormzy was praised for his black scholarship scheme, Bryan Thwaite was refused for attempting to aid the lower performing demographic. The British working class do not constitute a fashionable group to hashtag and form campaigns around.

Voice

Goodwin asserts that this intolerant urban elite repeatedly show they will impose their world view on the rest of the country. The much purported claims to openness, tolerance and diversity do not include maintaining friendships with those who hold alternate views. Such people often find themselves blocked and unfriended in order to maintain the purity of the said echo chamber.

Only in America was inequality higher than under Margaret Thatcher’s Britain. London was made an open hub for business, tax havens, gangsters oligarchs and kleptocrats. A stateless elite seized power accordingly and the rest were left to rot. The British working class is exemplified by statistics on poor health, low life expectancy and East European level living conditions.

Other disproportionate harms are reflected in statistics on suicide, family breakdown, depression and the abuse of drink and drugs. Cast aside by a new elite that promotes “alternate families” they are increasingly seeing single parent households. The elites meanwhile maintain secure family units, favouring marriage and similarly minded spouses.

This feeling of not being valued is compounded by power being handed to economic markets and unelected superstates like the European Union. With decisions outsourced, each vote mattered less and the democratic process became out of reach and unaccountable for the common man.

A key area in which the British public feel unheard is on immigration, the main driver of UK population growth. Against the wishes of voters the UK population is predicted to hit 72 million if immigration continues as predicted, equivalent to adding five new cities of Birmingham. The ramifications on culture, green spaces, housing, the NHS, traffic, agricultural capacity, water resources etc are obviously huge.

Tony Blair’s speechwriter Andrew Neather confirmed that this rapid sprint towards “Hyper diversity” was seen as a punishment for the conservative British public, rubbing their noses in something they didn’t want or vote for. Thus doing, New Labour alienated the interests of traditional voters who live on the front line and feel the effects first hand. The example of Sports Direct undercutting British workers is given when they moved out of town and then imported 3500 foreign workers to staff the premises.

Goodwin reminds us that these numbers are hugely underreported so the shift is even greater than official stats would suggest. Tory annual number estimates were revised upwards by 25k a year then in actual fact the total was 93k higher a year than people told. Indeed nobody is listening to voter concerns, nobody is in control and no adults seem to be at the wheel.

The end result has been two conflated options after Blair ditched the socialism of traditional Labour (in favour of the global economics of the right) and the liberalised tories ditched conservatism (in favour of culturally liberal policies). This revolutionary project on behalf of the new elites has left many voters politically adrift.

Goodwin then plays down the immediate importance of demographic shifts in UK society, suggesting that many migrants tend to be more socially conservative than indigenous Britons. Despite the Labour party’s grandstanding belief that the new, younger, immigrant base will provide votes in the bag (he quotes Guardian journalist Polly Toynbee as celebrating the dying off of the traditionally conservative generation), there were still enough dissenting voters to push back with Brexit vote and Boris Johnson’s huge mandate.

He attributes this dissent to the huge gap in values during an age of identity politics. A cosmopolitan elite sits in opposition to the traditional Labour voter and as such the so called red wall was broken. The traditionalist favours leftwing politics and a slower rate of social change while the neoliberal economists push through rapid, scorched earth measures.

This shaking up of the previous order has left identity as more significant than party allegiance. 86% of Labour cosmopolitans wanted to remain in the European Union while in the traditional base 70% wished to leave. This polarisation and cultural erosion has left many feeling left behind in a country where at least 20% of British citizens are set to be Islamic by 2050.

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.”

George Orwell famously stated that England is the only country ashamed of itself, sniggering at its own nation and institutions. Indeed CEO Kevin Craig wrote to The Economist admitting that they have all done a bad job of representing the disenfranchised working class and that as such the Brexit rebellion should come as no surprise.

Virtue

This working class used to see people like themselves in parliament, representing them from within their own communities; but now is there no true diversity. The roles are being filled by those of a very similar class, who also hold very similar values.

The red wall votes had been taken for granted and with faith in the two party system being lost, the push is now towards identifying a new populist alternative. Labour’s former Home Secretary Jack Straw accepts now that his party made a “spectacular mistake” with the rapidity of its 2004 immigration policy.

The national, public funded broadcaster the BBC is experiencing record levels of distrust. At a time when Britain could be said to be one of the most tolerant countries in the most tolerant era of western history (discrimination by most metrics is at an all time low) a manic agenda is being pushed on the public. 60% live in fear of contravening the latest speech codes and see “political correctness” as undermining their free speech.

Universities have proven to be a hotbed of ideological indoctrination and are generally monocultures in which marginalised voices are silenced or discriminated against. 75% of rightwing academics feel they must hide their views and one third admit they would openly discriminate against a Brexit voter. Two thirds are positive about leftwing voters, with only 10% feeling the same about the right. This western trend for Frankfurt School-style echo chambers has seen political enfranchisement become a preserve of wealth and status.

As I mentioned earlier this book is heavy on statistics so can start feeling a tad dry, academic and repetitive. That’s not to say Goodwin doesn’t provide decent validity to his arguments regarding this “Brahmin class” and his efforts certainly don’t justify bad faith reviews and ratings.

Goodwin feels that the aforementioned counterrevolution can continue for some time yet as disenfranchised groups such as non-graduates, the older, the working class et al continue to push back against the Londonisation of Britain.

He suggests that the majority might once again be treated with respect but Labour isn’t trusted, seemingly hitching its wagon to demographic shifts (47 out of the 50 regions with the highest muslim populations voted Labour) which has led to conflicts of interest such as covering up the industrial scale grooming gang activities that target British girls. An uneasy alliance indeed when these newcomers tend to be most conservative of all on issues such as gay/trans.

Many are unlikely to trust again in the two party system that offers very little in terms of true democratic alternatives. Goodwin concludes by expressing his frustrations with Boris Johnson’s wasted time in power. His personal failings around Partygate and the subsequent neoliberalism of Liz Truss leave him bemused.

Very little was actually done to address the concerns of the new Tory voters, so where can the electorate turn now? Likely there will just be another cycle of Labour until apathetic and disillusioned Brits decide to rock the boat.

[Globe · Rating 1 out of 5]

The man is decending into a hole of far-right madness. This writes like a cry for help.

I would highly recommend some grass touching.

[Don · Rating 1 out of 5]

Shabby, second-rate thinking drawn out to fill the pages of a whole book.

Goodwin has just one point to make and he does it over and over again in hobnailed boots. His claim that there is now a large(ish) fraction of the population that has a degree level qualification and they are found just about everywhere. As well as being overly represented in the political parties that actually run the country you also find them in employment in global institutions, as financiers, as state-appointed regulators, running independent agencies and the transnational companies that flex power across society. They are also to be found in dense concentrations in the media, the universities, the legal profession and, probably, the Church of England.

What’s new about that? You might well ask. Goodwin’s ire is directed against the fact that people with the advantages of higher education have in recent times tended to stack up on the progressive-liberal end of the political spectrum and have become proponents of faddish ideas about international obligations to the poor and downtrodden and care less about the patriotic values that once bound them to the status quo. He has lots of evidence to support this thesis which take the form of social attitude survey graphs from which we learn such things as the existence of a divide between ‘liberal cosmopolitans’ and ‘traditionalists’ on such things as equal opportunities, with the former being in favour of better treatment for groups like women, ethnic minorities, LBGT+ and transgender by several magnitudes as opposed to the latter.

But he also draws attention to the fact that the well-educated are usually better off than those without the benefit of degrees and use this economic power to build a moat between themselves and the rest of the population. Nowhere is this more evident than the relationship between London and the rest of the country, where wealth accumulates in enclaves which Goodwin labels ‘Hackney’ and ‘Shoreditch’. (Referencing the Shoreditch in this way might confuse people who unaware that is it a small neighbourhood in the London Borough of Hackney anyway.)

All this really amounts to is an argument that educated people tend to occupy positions of influence in society but because they are a diverse group they take positions which buttress their material interests, often contradicting the values thy profess to live by. But Goodwin wants to argue so much more: not only the extent of their influence but that they actually constitute a new ruling class. But in what sense is this new? The people at the top of the pile in more-or-less any social and political system have always been those who have been able to interpret the prevailing ideologies into coherent actions which constitute the practice of governing. Even the fact that liberal viewpoints are strongly represented among ruling groups ought not to surprise anyone conscious of the fact that change is endemic across most human societies and the forces of tradition always on the back foot.

For a political scientist Goodwin seems very uninterested in the question of what it is to ‘rule’ a society and what forces are at play which translate the business of ruling into a definite course of action. In this book it seems to be sufficient to reference education and presence in structures which focus social power. What is left out of the account is forms of power that derive from sources other than education and an assessment of how they stand within a powerful institution. Nothing crumples more quickly than a well-intentioned liberal who took the values of enlightened decency into their new job in a greenwashing international corporation who finds themselves under pressure to attend to the company’s ‘bottom line’. Multiply this across all the areas which Goodwin identifies as hotbeds of people with progress opinions – the civil service, the legal profession, ‘global institutions’, the media, all the assemblies of prelates and the sanctimonious – and you find brute facts-on-the-ground trumping enlightened viewpoints and the rule of cynics and the power mad set in concrete.

Goodwin makes his political agenda clear. Society will only become virtuous again if the rift between the educated elite and the traditional masses is overcome and a consensus established around patriotic love of country and a system of redistribution that goes someway to raising the plight of the have-nots. For him, Brexit opened the door to an evolution in politics that might move in this direction – the success or failure of this bold gamble depended entirely on the educated elite coming to its senses and filling in the enormous hazy space the direction of social policy created by the leave vote. The fact that this is proving not so easy ought to tell us all about the forces that are really shaping our society, which have less to do with the feeble impact of educational attainment, and more about the brute force of an social system driven by the forces of exploitation of labour and the expropriation of wealth once owned by the whole of society.

[David Steele · Rating 5 out of 5]

A few years ago, I read National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy, because I was baffled why so many people had voted for Brexit, and I thought that book might help me to understand the mindset of these misguided lunatics. At the same time, I also read The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam, which, at the time, I thought was about the politics of the EU.
Both these books opened my world view to an entirely different way of thinking, helping me not just to understand the patriotic/populist argument but (to my amazement) find myself agreeing with large portions of it.
From there, my journey of discovery continued, through studies of the rising extremism in the western education system in books such as The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure, to insightful books such as The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics, and Despised: Why the Modern Left Loathes the Working Class. All of these titles (and lots more on my “blue” shelf) helped me, as a lifelong Labour voter, to understand and fully embrace the argument that the vast majority of the working class has been, not just completely let down, but wilfully abandoned by each of the the modern mainstream political parties.
Arguably, I had no need to read this book. Having had my world view up-ended already, my time would have been better spent reading something to challenge my current beliefs. But V,V&V has been included in an online reading group, so I figured I may as well have a look at it.
Carrying on from National Populism, Goodwin brings his argument right up to date, painting a clear picture of the “left behind” working class’s justifiable feeling of abandonment and resentment. It clearly explains the collapsing Red Wall and just as clearly explains the impending collapse of those newly-blue seats in the next election.
V,V&V does a comprehensive and entertaining job of summarising the arguments from all the books mentioned in my lines above, in a way that I think would enable a new reader to this subject to understand the full argument of all of them. We’re heading for a significant period of political turbulence over the next couple of decades, and if you haven’t at least taken the time to understand why, you’ve got an awfully big shock coming.

[Ian Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a timely book for modern times. Matthew Goodwin shows you why the political agenda has shifted in the last decade away from class and economics and into the realms of race, gender and sexuality, collectively known as woke. There is now a large and growing university educated elite who have been indoctrinated into the values of woke and have carried these values into their work place.

Woke is basically a social justice mania. Woke covers gender fluidity, militant feminism, white privilege, white fragility, queer theory, and much else beside. The woke elite are based in London and the university cites. They occupy all (and I mean all) the institutions: education, civil service, the police, political parties, NHS, multinational corporations, publishing, TV, films, and theatres. They impose their beliefs on everyone and everything. They have a visceral hatred of anyone who doesn’t share their beliefs. They hate Brexit, their country and its history and culture, but love mass migration, multi-culturalism, open borders and globalism. They all have degrees, and they are either well paid or at least financially secure. They benefit from woke. They get acclaim from being woke, gain financially from woke, and do not suffer the downside of woke. For instance, mass migration does not affect middle class jobs. However, it keeps the wages of the working class low so that the cost of plumbers, cleaners, baristas, and au pairs are now dirt cheap. The cost of woke has a detrimental effect on the working class and when they speak up about it, they are dismissed as being racist.

The UK, along with the rest of the western world, is undergoing a woke revolution which is being pushed forward by the elite. It is dividing the country and pushing society further and further apart. As the elite double down on their effects, the working class fight back – Brexit, the Johnson victory in the last election, Trump in America and Viktor Oban in Hungary.

This new elite claim that their religion, woke, is all about being kind and fighting for social justice, but in reality it is no such thing. Race relations in this country has never being better, there are no barriers to women doing whatever they want and there are laws in place to ensure they get paid the same as men, and homosexuality has long been legalised and is no longer frowned upon by society. If you point this out to the new elite you will see the limits to their ”kindness.” They will shout you down, cancel you and try to get you fired from your job. Woke is a social justice mania that needs to be recognised for what it is, a tool to further the self-interest of the new elite and the suppression of dissent, especially from the intended victims of woke, the working class.

Read this book then read The Madness of Crowds by Douglas Murray. Goodwin and Murray are canaries in the coal mine. We need to listen to them urgently and take immediate action. Time is running out.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book. I can understand why it inflames that various passions of the reviewers on Goodreads, but they rather demonstrate the point he is making. The core argument is that the UK, and to a degree elsewhere in the Western world, has witnessed the quiet rise of a new elite. The new elite can be characterised as highly educated, financially secure, urban, and progressive in outlook. What David Goodhart calls the 'Anywheres'.

The argument has it that the new progressives have formed a technocratic elite that dominates the public conversation through their assertion of their values in public institutions, such as broadcasting, the Civil Service, and the metropolitan business elite. These institutions are used to amplify their voice beyond their membership to the exclusion of all other voices. And they are used to parade their virtue to the detriment of all other strands of opinion throughout society.

A more extreme sub-set of the new elite are the Radical Progressives, who use their privilege to preach to the rest of the population, and who believe that the correctness of their arguments are such that all others have to bear witness silently. As a vehicle to explain phenomenon such as 'just Stop Oil', this has a compelling flavour. The key thing here is that the voice of the radical progressives, although widely held, display values that are completely detached from the average voter.

This point ought not to be lost. Although the progressives are certain of their correctness, they have failed to persuade many of their fellow citizens. This closes the democratic avenue to change because few people would vote for their agenda. Instead, the progressives rely on increasingly autocratic means. The DRS in Scotland, the brainchild of the governing Green Party, is a case in point.

It has to be said that, whilst the author is an academic, this is not an academic book. It is more in the nature of informed journalism. So if the reader is looking for full citations and all of the other paraphernalia of an academic text, they will be disappointed. Of course, this makes it a good read and accessible to those who are not part of the academic priesthood. I see that as a plus point.

I found the points made in the book clearly explained. There is very little recourse to jargon. The author deploys research to support his points as necessary, without over-burdening the reader with endless footnotes. I liked that approach.

Most importantly, the author helps to explain a deep trend in contemporary politics. There are signs that the woke agenda is now meeting some resistance, particularly over net zero by 2050. If this counter-trend develops, a reader of this book will be well placed to understand what is going on. On this basis, it has a lot to commend it.

[Bill Tyne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok so I started writing a llllllooonnnnnngggggg review here and realised that those who ought to read this book would not be swayed - after all I am not too far removed from the demographic that they have been ignoring or demonising for over three decades now.
We all recognise how divisive politics has got (not just here but across the West), just as we all realise that extreme populists are on the rise. Sadly what hasn't been realised is just how much of this is down to the neglect and demonising of a broad section of society, it being easier to shout rude names or ignore people that actually honestly address concearns and treat all with equal respect.
I worry that things are not going to get better any time soon as there is still no real dialog just hot air.
I had thought that there was a problem with division before (especially between the political classes and the working classes), however this book highlights with clear evidence just how deep that division is and, sadly just how illiberal and undemocratic those "winners" at the top have become.
I now face the dilemma of realising just how illiberal and truely unrepresentative the left has become in this "brave new world" while hating the right (I'm looking at you Maggie and Ronald) for bringing us here in the first damn place.
Neither side is truely representative of the broader range of society, and both sides have played their part in exacerbating division.
I honestly believe that this situation will only get worse as the Labour party rides off over a cliff on its high horse - careless of who it mows down it's way and the Tory's level the playing field using a combo tank and battering ram forged by private enterprised and manned by cheap labour (of course it will breakdown and a replacement will be bought in from China).
Rant over

[Nigel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This excellent book confirms something that I have believed for several years now and was one of the unacknowledged reasons the UK voted for Brexit: that the elite, which includes not just our MPs (from all parliamentary parties) but also the civil service and other unelected technocrats, the media, major institutions and academia simply have no understanding of a large part of the country. The country has become split. On the one hand we have the major metropolitan areas and university towns and this is where all the power lies. On the other there are the smaller cities, towns, villages and coastal communities. The politics, values and cultures of these two communities have become so far apart. While the former obsesses about diversity and identity politics the latter is just trying to work hard to put food on the table. The former has all the power and influence and the latter has none. There is no-one to represent them anymore. Add into this mix the almost messianic zeal that this new elite has about how right and virtuous they are where anyone who disagrees with them, no matter what evidence is presented, is deemed to be evil, thick, racist, bigoted, gammon etc. This creates a very unhealthy cocktail.
The book is very well referenced calling on evidence from many other sources and lots of research and polling. My only criticism of the book is that it is very repetitive but perhaps that is inevitable due to the fact that so much research all comes to the same conclusion.

[Edmund · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was written before the events of 2024 and the surprise general election called by Rishi Sunak. But Matthew Goodwin, does a good job at identifying some of the key trends that have seen Reform UK outpoll the Conservatives (as of writing), and further explain the results of the previous general election.

Many of the negative reviews of the book focus on Goodwin's definition of the new elite being poorly defined. This is really a straw man argument and relies on objecting to this clear demographic group being given the moniker the 'new elite'. This unfortunate moniker doesn't serve Goodwin's core argument well, but the data clearly does show that this group can be clearly defined and possess a cultural and political outlook which differs from the rest of the country at large.

The book contains some very interesting analysis of how both Labour and the Conservative Party have drifted from the views of the traditional voter base, and additionally how the Labour and Conservative parliamentary parties are less representative of their voter base and the electorate in general than they have been in the past.

What is slightly problematic about the book is that it is clear that Goodwin is ideologically opposed to what he defines as the `new elite`. This makes the book read slightly like a political diatribe at times, which means the book doesn't come across as polished or as powerful as his earlier work `National Popularism`.

[Nicholas McMullen · Rating 3 out of 5]

possibly the most infuriating book i have ever read. Goodwin claims to be empirical and basing his finding on research but it is all very selective and full of sweeping polemical statements. He has a very romantic view of previous elites and their connectivity with the wider populace compared with his current progressive elite. he arrogantly dismisses the continued existence of racism and equates white maleness with working class. he is just a little too keen on the arguments of populists.
That all said i think it is an important book which does largely explain the rise of populism generally and reform in particular. it shows i think the folly of thinking that this can be combatted by doubling down on progressivism and assuming the population will eventually get it.
the response to Starmer's 'country of strangers' i think exemplified it. He was i think trying to engage with those who rightly or wrongly find the pace of cultural and demographic change unsettling. we progressives may not agree or like this but i think it is clearly a significant trend. Labelling this as racist or equating it with Powellism perfectly shows Goodwin's argument and maskes the path for Farage to follow even broader.

[Colin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty dreadful really. He brings a lot of stats, and it's good that he's backing up what he says, but if you look closely, you can see the gaps where he's leaving out important background. He oversimplifies a lot. For example, he doesn't really account for the failure of left-wing populism in Jeremy Corbyn, assuming right wing populism is the only game in town. That's a pretty big hole. Instead, what he does is treat Corbyn as simply another labour leader, like there was no real difference between him and Blair because (gasp) they both have university graduates in their cabinet.
And at root, that's what he's driving at: the raw populism of the moment. It's the same force Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn both wanted to harness: he doesn't really want to improve how politicians engage with the wider populace - oh no, that would be too hard. Instead he wants to recycle leftover political rhetoric from the last ten years or so. The elite the cosmopolitans, the few, these people who have rigged the system, who think they're better than you. He wants to harness your resentment in the service of something that, you can be sure, will be a thousand times worse than what we have now.
There are better books. If you want to understand the current disillusionment
Try Broken Heartlands by Sebastian Payne, for example. I suggest you give this one a miss.

[Alexander Frusher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bit of an angry anti-woke, anti-liberal rant - lower quality than previous books of his. The book focuses on a valid point - namely that left/right voters cannot be grouped by class any longer and instead left/right is defined primarily by education and proximity to urban centres. I agree there is some modern group not defined by wealth any longer but instead by awareness of and interest in progressive cultural values (climate, racism, trans) - but whether this is an elite group is very debatable. The author seems to ignore that most billionaires, asset owners etc still lean heavily right wing and are older than his targets in this book. For example, there is zero mention that the ‘new elite’ cannot afford to buy homes and pay 5x more of their income than previous generations on rent. Moreover the book is poorly written, repetitive, clickbait-y and (transparently) makes questionable use of data/case studies to suit its argument. This makes his message lack credibility.

[Pablo Argote · Rating 2 out of 5]

Repetitive, overly nostalgic, and logically flawed. It argues that there is an all-mighty "woke" new elite, which is everywhere. It is unclear why and how these woke people are so powerful. Also, there is no reflection on the pros and cons of having a new elite with a different ethos than past ones. There is only a desire to ridicule. Then, he traces the new woke elite to....Thatcherism. It is just difficult to reconcile wokeism with thatcherism. Finally, he argues that New Labour basically mimicked conservatives, because the all-mighty new elite wanted to continue this transformation of Britain into a woke cosmopolitan place, without mentioning the fall of the Berlin wall, and the fact that there was a new economic consensus in the 90s. In sum: the main argument is not convincing at all.

[Hana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three stars because this book succinctly many of the pain points in contemporary Britain. However, it’s hastily written, the culture wars framework (which ignores economic or other causes for the current state of affairs) and the very confused articulation of what the new elite all detract from Goodwin’s account.

Other reviewers have pointed out that education has been used as a differentiator for the elite for hundreds of years yet Goodwin identifies university education as the main marker of this new elite. The old Britain used to be run by the toffs but the significance of this new elite is that they are, well, toffs.

The account of the size of the elite is also wobbly: at one point it is 10% (all those liberal graduates) but then it is described as the tiny tiny percentage of people who went to private schools and Oxbridge.

[Charlotte P · Rating 4 out of 5]

this non fiction uses data from surveys of the public to form a hypothesis about just what is happening in British politics today. Goodwin uses data to explain the rise of populism, as well as the Brexit referendum result and the fall of the red wall with Johnson's landslide election victory. He talks about cultural as well as economic liberalism as being critical to this issue, arguing that many British people are economically left wing but culturally traditional - meaning that typically left wing voters defected to the Conservatives. Now, with both main parties displaying variants of the same cultural liberalism, he argues that people are turning more and more to populists in a bid to have their voices heard. The book's arguments are very interesting and well reasoned, although I do think it was rather repetitive and could have done with a good editor

[C.A. A. Powell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great in depth analysis of the way the UK has become divided. Especially the gulf between the university elite and the none university peoples of the country. The shift within Labour and the Conservatives and the demonization of vast swathes of the electorate. A huge amount of disgruntled people who feel their voices are not heard. Also the apathy of the new university graduates that seem to be infiltrating every part of politics and media with support for minority groups at levels of persistency equal to the very rejection of majority groups. I think many might be looking for a new party as the author seems to feel that both sides might be losing touch. Each following ideologies that many of the electorate are not interested in.

[Philip William · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is how the beliefs and values of the British Elite differ from those of the majority in the UK and how the majority beliefs are systematically excluded from mass discussion by the dominance of the Elite and what they think is right and wrong.
This was most obviously seen in Brexit where the Elite was shocked to find out that the majority wanted to leave the EU and believed different things to themselves.
A lot of the time I do not think I am reading anything new but occasionally I came across some very interesting snippets. For instance I had no idea that the Civil Service Fast Track Scheme showed less socio-economic diversity than the University of Oxford; I was so surprised by this that I read the Bridge Report which makes this claim.