Fascinating discussion on populism on Evan Davis's PM tonight. We had a right-leaning commentator Danny Finkelstein of The Times and a left-leaning commentator Jonathan Freedland of The Guardian, both of whom agreed with each other and said much the same thing. Had the programme hired actors to voice their parts and got the actors to sound as alike as humanly possible they could have hardly have given a great impression of two voices speaking as one as we got here. Neither are fans of Donald Trump or populism, surprise, surprise.
Define populism? Obama and Tony Blair were very popular leaders at points in their careers and yet there seems no such definition for them? I wonder why.....
ReplyDeleteI define populism as a programme of policies aimed at meeting the needs of the population (the citizens) as a whole (so tending to the average rather than wealthy people or minorities or people in need of welfare). It is a non-ideological programme. It doesn't believe in nationalisation but it doesn't believe in privatisation. It doesn't believe in high taxes or low taxes. It is a movement which speaks to the people to find out what concerns the people and what they want rather than deciding what is best for them without real consultation. Populist movements tend to be against mass immigration, against global free trade and against multiculturalism (because the people are instinctively against them). Blair Obama were insanely in favour of mass immigration, global free trade and multiculturalism...they were not populists! :)
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