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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » “National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy” – a review
The book is an overview of “National Populism”, the umbrella term the authors use to describe a political stance of increasing electoral salience in Europe and North America, familiar to us as an explanation for Brexit and Trump. The authors are Roger Eatwell of Bath University and Matthew Goodwin of the University and Kent: both are experts in academic study of the right and all its flavours. The book is a summary of their academic studies, expanded into a medium-size book written in clear, if slightly plodding text readable by the everyman. This is its strength and its weakness, which I will describe later.
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I must admit that I stopped following Matthew Goodwin on Twitter recently. He stopped saying interesting and insightful things, and started just reporting that which fit in with his worldview.
The problem for National Populists is that what works in opposition doesn't work in government For example Brexit will do nothing to reverse the 4 Ds, indeed it is likely to accelerate those grievances.
Are books obliged to be a certain length then? I've never thought of it as purchasing words by the so-much-per-hundred approach. I thought they were like meetings - the shorter, the better, as long as they achieve their purpose.
Good evening, everybody.
Its mandate would be the same as that of the T May and B Johnson governments. Neither won an outright majority but by making deals with others they had the majority of MPs elected in 2017 supporting them (in the latter case still unproven if he ever had that).
I am not sure any manager can sort out the mess without a major transfer season overhaul.
https://twitter.com/Millar_Colin/status/1180512446638907392
He blew United's chance of getting Klopp in 2014.
https://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/man-utd-are-like-an-adult-version-of-disneyland-red-devils-crazy-/6cb0l4ouw9y41byr0p01z7lfd
Good evening Anne.
Compromise. A dirty word these days.
I don't care for football much (being a good Scouser means there is limited choice here in Merseyside
Why would another EU country veto an extension to help Boris?
If there's going to be a GE how can Boris convince the EU there's no realistic prospect of a deal?
https://twitter.com/fred_guttenberg/status/1180850339311960076?s=19
My main concern was that there was a level of complacency as to how national populism could slip slide into fascism.
* @rcs1000 - difficult second album syndrome
* @IanB2 - they don't think mainstream politics will ever recover
* @Foxy - thank you
* @AnneJGP - thank you
* @AndyJS - If you want to reread it, try the local library...
I don't know what the next one will be, and given time constraints it probably won't be before 2020. But will try...
I'm not a fan, TSE, but prison is a bit harsh.
When I wrote the review I mentioned to TSE that it might be a good idea to do a supplemental article as an explainer: a kind of digested version for busy people. If I have time I'll see what I can do, but no guarantees.
Not sure this is it yet but it will come soon.
Btw, I'm about eight chapters into For The Record. So far it's pretty much as expected. It reminds me a lot of Blair's autobiography. It's chatty, gossipy, and readable, but you wonder about the substance - both of the book and the man.
More anon, if I finish it.
Also, you could say that the 2017 election superceded the 2016 referendum and gave us a set of MPs to represent the country and now a majority of them may back a GNU.
Stop telling lies about, say, Turkish accession, and you can get back in the game of being taken seriously.
Indeed the lesson you will have taught millions of people is that it is perfectly legitimate to ignore votes and find other means to achieve their ends.
@Barnesian - thank you
@RichardTyndall - thank you, that was remarkably kind.
I was worried that I was putting my own interpretation on the book but I think my central point - it's a good academic article(s) buried in a longer book - is valid. To review a book you have to include things like length, style, flow and all the little quirks and features, and that took up headspace that swamped the points.
When I submitted it I pointed out to @TheScreamingEagles that a second article - an explainer or digested version of the points - would be a good supplemental, although I don't know if I can fit it in before the end of the year.
A point that I should have made is that it was a missed opportunity: if you'd given the material to an Eighties-era PJ O'Rourke or Hunter S.Thompson it would have been magical, but as it was it was...well, work...
It's really hard to write without preconceptions, isn't it? I remember in the otherwise excellent Reith lectures by Sumption suddenly saying "Oi, you're assuming something I don't agree with" several times. Obviously it's fine if the author realises he's just expressing a view and other views are available, but when it's just assumed that everyone thinks the same way, one worries about depth of perception and self-perception.
I'm reading Emma Sky's account, The Unravelling, of how she as an anti-war civil servant got more or less accidentally drawn into helping the US military run provinces in the post-Saddam occupation in Iraq. She is frank both about the honest idealism of many of the American soldiers and the narrowness of vision - theirs and perhaps hers too - which makes effective cooperation hard. They find it hard to imagine that all Westerners are not uncritically pro-US devout Christians, or indeed that Iraqis don't instantly welcome what they're doing.
My guess is Boris would be content if he gets into some futile court scrap, and/or someone else is mandated to write the letter instead (whether it's Bercow, some senior law official, whoever).
I've never really believed he wants to deliver no deal ..... at least not until he has his majority.
The Democrats as well as being standard centre-left types also included KKK supporters and southern conservatives.
While the Republicans as well as being standard centre-right types included some extreme north-eastern liberals and Appalachian hillbillies.
It's madness when you think about it that way.
One thing though is that one set of lies can be built upon another set of lies.
If you want to take your Turkey example then the British government's support for Turkey joining the EU was the starting point.
And why was that a lie ?
Because the British government doesn't really want Turkey in the EU but it was willing to lie that it did to improve relations with Turkey.
Then you add in the other lies British governments have told about controlling immigration and you have given the Leave campaigners all the building blocks they needed to make big claims about Turkey in the EU.
I don't see Populism as akin to Fascism, I don't think we will ever see Fascist type movements like interwar Europe again. I think that sort of overt militarism and overt racism are not tenable in the modern world.
But I'm happy to be proved wrong if you can quote evidence to the contrary.
The lies of cowardly Labour and Conservatives governments blaming the EU for policies that they really actually wanted but didn't want to say they wanted. That was a fairly substantial groundwork for the leave campaign even though it was done by both pro- and anti-Europe politicians.
Liars all around. And the liar-in-chief in Downing Street has perhaps the finest and longest-lived pedigree of pants being on fire of anyone still around today, as a journalist and as a politician.
@NickPalmer - Emma Sky's account, "The Unravelling" sounds interesting: I'll keep an eye out when time permits.
Anyhoo, I have to get back to work. Later, alligators...
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/britain-to-enter-recession-with-500000-uk-jobs-lost-if-it-left-eu-new-treasury-analysis-shows
This bit is almost "Britain faces a simple and inescapable choice - stability and strong Government with me, or chaos with Ed Miliband" -esque
"On 23 June, people face a stark choice: economic security and a vote to Remain, or a leap in the dark which would cost jobs and raise prices."
Dave obvs had his guru War Game the phrasing
What I think has become different is that nothing is now regarded as trustworthy.
Together with a sense that 'fatcats' are protected whatever level of incompetence and misconduct they are involved in.
Still, you obviously have a lot of contempt for the democratic process.
https://twitter.com/ChrisGiles_/status/1180543846243012609?s=19
Has anyone else noticed that the pollsters giving biggest Tory leads (Opinium, YouGov, Ipsos) tend to be those polling for left or centre media (Observer, Times, Evening Standard), whereas those giving the smallest leads (ComRes, Survation, Deltapoll) are polling for the rightwing media (Telegraph, Daily Mail, Express, Sun)?
A conicidence no doubt but the pollsters certainly can't be accused of giving their customers the answers they want!
Watching JRM and co eat their words would be rather amusing...
Nothing wrong with that. Democracy is a process. If you think the process must be defined in a way to exclude an opinion you don't like, you ain't a democrat bruv.
Shock Scenario
2016q3 -0.1%
2016q4 -0.1%
2017q1 -0.1%
2017q2 -0.1%
2017q3 +0.2%
2017q4 +0.2%
2018q1 +0.2%
2018q2 +0.2%
Sever Shock Scenario
2016q3 -1.0%
2016q4 -0.4%
2017q1 -0.4%
2017q2 -0.4%
2017q3 +0.0%
2017q4 +0.0%
2018q1 +0.1%
2018q2 +0.1%
Page 46 of this report:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/524967/hm_treasury_analysis_the_immediate_economic_impact_of_leaving_the_eu_web.pdf
What actually happened was:
2016q3 +0.5%
2016q4 +0.6%
2017q1 +0.6%
2017q2 +0.3%
2017q3 +0.3%
2017q4 +0.4%
2018q1 +0.1%
2018q2 +0.5%
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp/timeseries/ihyq/qna
So the Treasury's range of prediction was -2.0% to +0.4% and the actual out turn was +3.3%
He'd say "I've ended the bloody interminable Brexit process."
And a grateful nation would put statues of him in every market square....
Democracy means having your opinions vetted by the Brexit droogs; your ideological luggage xrayed and any dangerous dissent discarded, your hands swabbed for traces of free thought.
What was that about democracy......
So only c.£100 billion out.......
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 is one of my all time favourite books, and genuinely one of the best books about modern US politics.
Staying on politics, O'Rourke's Parliament of Whores is great as well, and his recent How the Hell Did This Happen? The Election of 2016 was quite good too.