Summary
Matthew Sweet discusses elites and their role in contemporary politics, with Douglas Carswell, MP for Clacton;Professor David Runciman, Head of the Department of Politics & International Studies at the University of Cambridge; Eliane Glaser, writer and Senior Lecturer at Bath Spa University; and Lynsey Hanley, visiting Fellow in Cultural Studies at Liverpool John Moores University. Eliane Glaser's most recent book is called Get Real: How to See Through the Hype, Spin and Lies of Modern Life Lynsey Hanley's most recent book is Estates: An Intimate History
Producer: Luke Mulhall.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right? |
| 0:23.3 | It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream. |
| 0:28.8 | Listen to evil genius on BBC sounds. |
| 0:32.0 | Welcome to the arts and ideas download from the free thinking team at the BBC. |
| 0:36.9 | Tonight on free thinking we discuss the liberal elite. |
| 0:40.3 | Are you one of them? |
| 0:41.4 | If not, how do you get to join? |
| 0:43.3 | Because there are supposed to be a lot of benefits, |
| 0:45.7 | running our institutions for one, |
| 0:47.6 | exerting a disproportionate influence on society and culture for another. |
| 0:52.0 | But listen, are you really sure that you want anything to do with them? |
| 0:55.2 | Because just at the moment, they look like a bunch of losers. |
| 0:58.4 | They lost the US election, they lost the EU debate. |
| 1:01.7 | And if you look at the papers or listen to speeches made by the Prime Minister, |
| 1:05.6 | they're not the heroes of our public discourse, |
| 1:08.1 | the public discourse that they apparently dominate. |
| 1:11.1 | They're characterised as smug, sneering, self-important, anti-democratic. They think people who disagree |
| 1:16.9 | with them are thick and racist. They're trying to throw a spanner in the works of Brexit. |
| 1:22.1 | They're like that lady who said in the Savoy Hotel on the night of the 1945 general election, Labour has won and the |
| 1:29.3 | country will not stand for it. Well, whoever the Liberal elite are, they seem not to be |
| 1:34.1 | the people. Some of them, the ones in wigs and red robes, have been described as enemies of the |
| 1:39.5 | people. So is it all over for the Liberal elite? And what do we gain or lose if they go? |
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