Peter Hyman: how you can beat populism and the seven deadly sins of the Left

[Tryingtokeepgoing]

Peter Hyman was an advisor to Blair, and was then brought back to steer Starmer’s campaign as well. In article in The New European (editor one Alistair Cameron) that, presumably, is intended to be thought provoking to the left, but which is of no surprise to those of us looking a things through a wider lens, he succinctly summarises where liberal/centre left/right political is at, without resorting to taunts of “far right” and ‘“Tory bo t”, so I thought perhaps it might spark a more centre/liberal debate than has otherwise been the case on MN recently. Some of those of a left leaning inclination might like to reflect on his analysis of their ‘waves of superiority’ and why they are flawed:

The tagline - “Stop shouting about how appalled we are by Trump and Farage and learn from our mistakes, to build our own disruptive new agenda of change, respect for ordinary people and pride in our country” sums it up neatly.

But first part of the article is pasted below as the New European is behind a paywall.

2025 is the year of Donald Trump’s return. It must also be the year of our fightback. But first, let’s step back. We are to blame for Trump. We created him. We gave him, and other far right populists, the space to manoeuvre and the mistakes to exploit.

We couldn’t beat someone with 34 felonies, who called all Mexicans rapists, who encouraged an insurrection, was called Hitler by his vice president and deemed unfit for office by almost every senior person who worked for him. We are the reason he is becoming president on January 20 – for the second time.

It is our collective failure – we, the progressives, the centrists, the remainers, the political elites. It’s look-in-the-mirror time. Cold water to the face time. Enter the I’m A Celebrity… jungle and eat a kangaroo’s penis time.

We have been asleep at the wheel while the populists have dusted off their megaphones, fine-tuned their algorithms, and got to work exploiting the gaping chinks in our armour. Yet somehow, we are undeterred. We are still surfing wave after wave of superiority, each one propelling us forward to the promised land of political oblivion.

The first wave is to denounce the far right populist as a monster; worse, a fascist – “he’s a threat to democracy”. “Surely this must disqualify him?”

The second wave is to be shocked that the “fascist” has won – “why are people so stupid?” “Can’t they see he is a con man?”

The third wave is to wrap ourselves in the smug embrace of a certainty – populists never have solutions, they thrive on grievances, not answers. “Mark my words, it will all go wrong very quickly.”

Just as with Brexit, nine years on, we comfort ourselves in being proved right usually well after we’ve lost the real battle and the damage has already been done.

Trump is the wake-up call that liberal democracy has needed. But it’s not the first. We’ve had the wake-up call of Brexit. Viktor Orbán in Hungary. Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. Giorgia Meloni in Italy. Coming soon, Marine Le Pen in France? The AfD in Germany? Perhaps even Nigel Farage in Britain?

Wake-up call after wake-up call. Yet we are still sleeping through the alarm, turning over and pressing the snooze button. We saw the storm too late; the world changed, and the centrists were left shouting “democratic norms” while the populists went viral.

In summary, according to his article, the Seven Deadly Sins of the Left are:

(1) It is patronising
(2) it is complacent
(3) it is too abstract
(4) its is censorious
(5) it is gullible
(6) its is conservative (small ‘c’)
(7) it is bland

Which begs the question, if their advisors know that, and why the public don’t like it, and how they’ve been outwitted, why aren’t they being advised better?

https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/how-you-can-beat-populism-peter-hyman/

I am currently reading Nexus by Yuval Noah Harari. He posits two alternative views of information: the 'naive' (liberal) take which is that the proliferation of information inevitably means the truth wins through and the 'good' will prevail. Anything that goes against this idea is 'misinformation' or 'disinformation', which will eventually be defeated by facts. It equates information with facts, as it were. And the 'populist' view which views information as power, and is more interested in the subjective than the truth - disliking experts, for instance. But Harari argues that actually information isn't really either of these. That information is merely connections between people. It's not intrinsically true or false, it's more about the connections we are making.

I've yet to read the next bit to understand the outcome of this line of thinking ...

But my take is this - the Liberal view is trying to win minds over hearts. It is failing because the populists aren't playing by the same rules. They tell people to 'do their own research' which effectively means 'believe what you want to believe'. The Liberals can't win an information war with their current tactic of 'facts'.

@newrubylane

But my take is this - the Liberal view is trying to win minds over hearts. It is failing because the populists aren't playing by the same rules. They tell people to 'do their own research' which effectively means 'believe what you want to believe'. The Liberals can't win an information war with their current tactic of 'facts'.

Thanks for that, very interesting.

You're spot on and this is exactly what I observed during the US election. The left simply can't compete against these tactics.

Trump for example, simply made stuff up and banged on about fake news. He made promises that he couldn't possibly keep and promised to rip up the system - with the caveat that what he did would benefit people.

Farage not only says things he wants people to hear, he is lazy and lies, yet people believe he's going to save us. There's a fair amount of cognitive dissonance involved.

Isn’t the biggest likely cause of (3) simply a case of not being listened to by the other two main parties, and so, like anyone in an ‘abusive’ relationship, the risk is that they are attracted to the first person who comes along who’s ‘nice’ to them! That manifests itself as (1) but the reality is the metropolitan left and right is now is so far removed from them that they are effectively completely different parties (Tory or Labour) and ones they don’t see working for them.

It doesn’t help that the Government has immediately broken the key promise that mattered to them - which is that they would have more money in their pocket. Instead they see pay rises down, council tax up, utility bills up, inflation up, mortgages falling slower than previously predicted, or rent rising rapidly, and now the threat of job losses. What some might see as decent people (the Government) don’t seem quite as decent through that lens. Overlay the cronyism, the fraud, the lies, the resignations, the sackings, and you can see why even those that did vote Labour are disenchanted.

And we have to remember that in no small part the ‘leave’ vote came from the red wall voters. They hadn’t seen many direct benefits of being in the EU, but they had seen the negative effects of large scale unskilled immigration on their earnings. Indeed, if you were a low paid worker in a semi skilled job your income went up post Brexit as the labour shortages hit.

Of course, those of us whose lives have / had been positively impacted by the direct and indirect benefits of being in the EU couldn’t see why anyone would vote against…but that’s to assume that ‘decent’ people care about the same things that we do. Which is patronising, elitist and palpably wrong, because there are plenty of decent people who care about different things. It just depends on the lens you’re looking though.

Where every ‘decent’ person is aligned however is on measuring whether people do what they say they are going to do, and whether they are capable. As the government is finding out, that’s much harder when you are in power than it is in opposition. And, god help us, if Farage gets into power he will have the same problem!

Really interesting thread. I have concluded that the left simply don't listen to concerns. For example:
The influx of EU citizens changed many communities considerably, wages were reduced and queries about this were dismissed and it was mishandled. As a PP said, the benefits of EU membership were not highlighted enough.
Consequently, the seeds of Brexit were sown.
The left also dismissed concerns about the gender debate.
Many people don't have time for politics but are vulnerable to catchy phrases on both printed and social media.
It's all a mess.

@NonComm Strange view. Immigration rose exponentially under the Tories, especially Johnson.The gender woo was embedded under the Tories over the past 14 years. Their Equalities Minister seemed very passionate about trans ideology during her tenure and May wanted to bring in Gender ID.

The benefits of the EU were freely available to all and debates on both sides raged before the referendum.

Why do the right refuse to take responsibility for anything?

@username299
Yes - of course immigration increased under the tories but I'm referring in particular to the sudden rise in immigration from the EU in the 90's whilst Labour were in government and the effect on communities.

The benefits of the EU were freely available to all and debates on both sides raged before the referendum.

My point is that many people didn't/don't have time/not interested in politics and were/are vulnerable to sound bites.
Also the left have been less than clear in the gender debate.

^ Strange view. Immigration rose exponentially under the Tories, especially Johnson.The gender woo was embedded under the Tories over the past 14 years. Their Equalities Minister seemed very passionate about trans ideology during her tenure and May wanted to bring in Gender ID.^

Well exactly it's been a uni party, both with the same policies.
We know our kids are not doing very well, that they are unable to buy houses or get good jobs, wages are falling relatively and services are breaking down.
It might be because it has devolved into some kind of kleptocracy, it is not functioning for our benifit anymore.

It may not last but the invention of DOGE was absolute genius. Every day they can talk about the ordinary American taxpayers funding Transgender operas, DEI projects in Serbia and Ireland, etc etc. and lay the blame on the Democrats. Any public servant who objects is told they must be hiding their own 'grift'. If you're on Twitter follow the Doge account and be very afraid because that's exactly what Reform and the Tories will be focusing on in the run up to the next election and beyond. It may not be fair but it is contributing to Trump's excellent polling right now. I've been following the Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife employment tribunal and the NHS Fife Diversity lead is a 28 year old who advises people on how to use pronouns and is paid around £40,000 a year. Her advice is going to cost NHS Fife hundreds of thousands of pounds. Hopefully Labour are paying attention because I don't think they're stupid. Wes Streeting seems to get it.

@NonComm

Immigration from EE increased under Blair as he underestimated how many would take advantage of free movement to the UK. However, it went through the roof under the Tories.

Annual net migration to the UK in 2010 was 252,000 and in 2023 was 782,000.

I don't understand your point about the effect on communities; it's surely worse now. The problem is Britain likes cheap labour and after Brexit, it came from outside the EU.

Those with capacity and capable of speaking English can listen to both sides of a debate. In places like Wales, the benefits of being in the EU were pretty evident.

People complain about a nanny state then complain when they're asked to work things out for themselves. You're making excuses for laziness.

I'm not getting derailed into talking about the gender debate. My point was you can't blame the party that was not in power for the mess we're now in.

I'm afraid so. IMO we actually need a decent socialist party not more neoliberals. Unfortunately Starmer doesn't like the left, and it's now slim pickings.

@dayoffvibes I’m 100% with you on the leaders, kingmakers and hanger-ons, which seems to trickle down effectively.

I am by no means an expert, but my observations, for what they’re worth, of the people I know in my home community is that people feel left behind. When I return to visit now, the losses in industry, retail, maintenance, etc. are obvious and depressing. These towns still very much feel the legacy of Thatcher and Tory austerity. However, throughout this they’ve had continuous Labour councils and MPs, and there is resentment and frustrations aimed at them; a feeling that they’re also to blame, part of the system that has led to decline, and that Labour politicians have taken them and their vote for granted for too long. It’s like a pp mentioned - there is so much anger, frustration, disillusionment with the two main parties and the system as a whole, that Reform’s sales pitch of offering something new and different (as hollow and divisive as that is), can be seen to be worth a shot, if you have nothing to lose.

The other part of this is that many lifelong Labour voters, don’t feel the same connection to the party. I remember the night of the 2019 election when the Tories were winning seats in the red wall, and Alan Johnson was aiming a lot of frustration directly at Jon Lansman of Momentum, who was in the studio with him - essentially saying that the Corbyn/student politics approach was disastrous for connecting with the working class. Whether he was accurate or not with this is a separate debate, but from my experience, people do feel that Labour has become more the party of the middle classes, graduates, living in expensive areas of cities, etc. who are out of touch with what is happening in their communities and dismissive of the challenges they face. I think it’s very interesting if you move between these two groups, to notice this. Reform have somehow managed to convince people that they are now the party to represent them; their leaders are clearly not , but if I look at the Reform MPs they put forward in my hometown last election, they are local men (of course they’re men) who share a similar background in terms of level education, work type, etc. to many voters and voters can identify/relate more to these people.

It also links to what another pp said about connecting to hearts rather than minds - I think we can often be so focused on policy, values, etc. (and rightly so), that we can overlook how important that connection is. And while we can rightfully rage about the incompetence and corruption of Farage and Johnson, they somehow seem to be able connect with people, or so the evidence tells us. And now more than ever, with X and other social media, GB News where several Reform MPs are regular contributors, they have a constant drip-feed of these ‘personalities’ (I’d choose other nouns) and their views.

I find the way people sneer at populism interesting. A popular belief is one that is shared by most people. If like me you believe in the innate good sense of people their ability to see the lies spouted by government and the vital need to maintain free speech there is no need to be frightened of populism.
Personally I think many beliefs labelled as populism have validity. They need to be explored through open debate and if extremists on either side of the political divide can be a little less bigoted and engage in the debate we might all benefit.

Populism is dangerous and destructive, as we found out under the last government and the US is discovering now.

Populism is to Popular, as Sexism is to Sexy.