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Goodwin's Law: How Britain's Political 'Elite' Seek to Distract From Their Own Power [View all]
https://adambienkov.substack.com/p/goodwins-law-how-britains-politicalIf 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.
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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