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T_i_B

(14,804 posts)
Sun Apr 2, 2023, 10:13 AM Apr 2023

Goodwin's Law: How Britain's Political 'Elite' Seek to Distract From Their Own Power

https://adambienkov.substack.com/p/goodwins-law-how-britains-political


If you’ve somehow missed Goodwin’s thesis, you might assume that the “governing class” he refers to is the actual Government that has been in charge of the UK for the past 13 years, as well as its extensive network of financial and media supporters. You might even assume that it includes organisations like the Dubai-based investment firm Legatum, whose think tank arm currently employs Goodwin himself.

However, you would be wrong. For Goodwin, the actual people running the show are the “radical woke middle-class liberals” which make up Britain’s “new elite.” As he explains in his promotional piece for The Sun, these include:

“The increasingly political celebrity class, like Carol Vorderman and Gary Lineker, the legal activists who argue their profession should no longer be impartial, or prominent left-leaning journalists, like Emily Maitlis, Jon Sopel and others, who similarly shape the national conversation around a particular set of minority values. Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell. Almost any Radio 4 presenter.”

So while you might have assumed that Rishi Sunak, Boris Johnson, Theresa May and David Cameron have been in charge of the country for the past decade, it has in fact been under the all-seeing Machiavellian control of a shadowy elite, headed by the former presenter of Countdown.

Of course pursuing an anti-establishment message when you are the actual establishment inevitably poses some difficulties, as Johnson eventually found out at the end of his premiership. This is especially the case when the people most keen on attacking the ‘elite’ are so obviously part of that elite themselves. Whether it’s Eton-educated politicians like Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg, or their social equivalents running newspapers like the Daily Mail and The Sun, attempts by the actual elite to distance themselves from their own power and status have become increasingly less convincing.
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Goodwin's Law: How Britain's Political 'Elite' Seek to Distract From Their Own Power (Original Post) T_i_B Apr 2023 OP
It's something I've often thought, though I'd never noticed Goodwin muriel_volestrangler Apr 2023 #1
It gets worse when you see how he defines the "elite" T_i_B Apr 2023 #2
Matthew d'Ancona in the New Europaean LeftishBrit Apr 2023 #3

muriel_volestrangler

(102,560 posts)
1. It's something I've often thought, though I'd never noticed Goodwin
Mon Apr 3, 2023, 04:18 AM
Apr 2023

He's obviously just a humble toiler against this "elite", working from his modest position as Professor of Politics at a public university, Commissioner on the Social Mobility Commission, former senior fellow for the think tank UK in a Changing Europe, and founding director of the Centre for UK Prosperity within the Legatum Institute. He's obviously a popular representative of the average Brit, while his hated enemies like Lineker or Vorderman haven't got where they are by being popular and good at their job in public - oh no, they're an "elite".

T_i_B

(14,804 posts)
2. It gets worse when you see how he defines the "elite"
Mon Apr 3, 2023, 06:31 AM
Apr 2023

Surely anybody who shops at Tesco or Amazon can be said to "Hoover up the economic gains of globalization".

And as another example, I live in Sheffield and anything with an S postcode could be said to be part of the "elite" according this this rubbish. That would include Rotherham, Barnsley, Worksop, Chesterfield and a good swathe of the peak district as they all have an S postcode!

There's so much that's badly wrong with this that it's difficult to know where to start. And it also goes to show why I tend to shy away from class politics these days.


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