The New Liberal Elite ISN’T

For those in power, and their supporters in and around our free and fearless press, whatever goes wrong, falls short, gets fouled up, this is always someone else’s fault. So the clusterfuck that was Brexit is the fault, variously, of migrants, transsexuals, Remainers (sometimes Bitter Remoaners) and anything that can be labelled WOKE. And one other group.

That group is The New Liberal Elite, which is sometimes Progressivist, and mostly Shadowy. It has not held power, most of those named as part of it do not seek to hold power, yet it has simultaneously “captured the conversation”, displayed “groupthink” and a “moral superiority”, and poses a “serious challenge”. Moreover, its protagonists may seek to “destroy” the press.

Much of this weakly argued tosh - some might pass yet more severely adverse comment upon it - has come from the fevered mind of Matthew Goodwin, who has somehow been made a Professor of something. He has a book out, called Values, Voice, And Virtue: The New British Politics, and in promoting this tome has spoken out in the pages of the Murdoch Sun.

The article, titled “How Britain is being run by a ‘New Elite’ of radical woke middle-class liberals completely out of step with the public”, begins by demonising a quartet of press hate figures: sports presenter Gary Lineker, BBC refugee Emily Maitlis, pundit Alastair Campbell, and former Countdown co-presenter Carol Vorderman. Why so? Steel yourselves.

“The charity Oxfam advised its staff to avoid using the word ‘mother’ in favour of ‘gender neutral’ language in some circumstances … leaders of the Girl Guides and the Brownies were instructed to learn a new list of words including ‘aromantic’, ‘demisexual’ and ‘agender’ … what do … these things have in common? They reflect the rise of a New Elite”. WHAT?!?

And what, pray, is this New Elite? “A new governing class which not only holds a completely different worldview from everybody else but is now imposing that worldview on the rest of the country”. Remember, as Theresa May once said, I am not making this up. But do go on. “[It] is completely different from the old elite which used to run Britain decades ago”.

No shit, Sherlock. “They are often defined by their elite education at the most prestigious Oxbridge or Russell Group universities”. Gary Lineker did not attend University. Anyhow, tell us how this alleged New Elite exercises power, Professor Goodwin. “the New Elite project their status and sense of moral righteousness by demonstrating their allegiance to wokeness”. Bullshit.

Goodwin may or may not be able to correctly define the word WOKE, but the omens are not good. He describes is as a “belief system” with a “complex vocabulary”, which “is a crucial new marker of status”. There is more: “the New Elite demand things which signal their status to other elites, such as open borders, a relaxed approach to dealing with the small boats, or the sexualisation of children”. It’s total crap. Absolutely wacko.

This is an author who is not just Barking, but has overshot the buffer stops at Upminster. He does good creative invention, though: “This huge gulf between the elite and the masses is why, I think, so many people have been rebelling against the elite over the past ten years”. Except they haven’t.

But what those he singles out for demonisation have done is not only to stand in opposition to our succession of Tory Governments (the ones who are really out of touch), but also to very effectively articulate that opposition, and also their opposition to the behaviour of our free and fearless press. Which is how we arrive at Goodwin’s latest screed, for a Times Weekend Essay.

Here, he adds actor and campaigner Hugh Grant to his allegedly New Elite, throwing in Labour leader Keir Starmer, who also does not wield power as he is in opposition, and Emma Watson, because, well, God Only Knows. Grant has for some time given various organs of the press a hard time, as one might after they chose to routinely defame him for sales and clicks.

He is also an unswerving supporter of the Hacked Off campaign. Which tells you the real reason for this outpouring of highly creative drivel: challenge the press and you allow the likes of Goodwin to make a living frightening readers of less than impartial newspapers and flogging soon to be remaindered books. His paymasters want to divert from their own failings.

So when the “revolt”, to use his happy characterisation, comes, it will not be against those he demonises, but against the sell-out of the country to a party controlled to a significant extent by the media establishment. A group that is beginning to get very jittery indeed about its waning power and diminishing ability to persuade the masses to do as it says, but not as it does.

Matthew Goodwin is an idiot. But a useful one. For the time being, at least.

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