Book review: Matt Goodwin on the ‘new elite’

Values, Voice and Virtue: a good summing-up, but feels rushed

Matthew Goodwin: Values, Voice and Virtue. The New British Politics (Penguin, 2023)

You certainly won’t finish reading Matt Goodwin’s new tome without having got the message that a ‘new elite’ has taken over our society and institutions, that this elite is distanced from much of the population – and that it has stimulated a revolt so far leading to Nigel Farage’s national populism, Brexit and Boris Johnson’s short-lived electoral triumph in 2019.

 

Indeed I think you would have struggled to be in contact with political debate in recent weeks and not come across this story several times.

Goodwin has drummed his message home with the discipline and gusto normally to be found in the most effective political campaigns – and it is as ammunition that I think his latest book might be best conceived. This is a book that I felt had been written to be useful to political participants who want to strike back against the ‘new elite’ that Goodwin identifies.