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, it's 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 at some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right?

It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream.

Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds.

Tonight I'll be looking at the nature of the essay.

Has it finally broken free of the taint of homework? And I'll be talking to one of Australia's finest writers Tim Winton.

But first, as the polls close in the European and local elections, what's the difference between populism and, well, democracy?

The rise of UKIP in the opinion polls has put that question centre stage.

But across Europe, what were once fringe parties

and figures have reared their heads challenging political establishments. Beppe Grillo in Italy,

Gert Wilders in the Netherlands, Marine Le Pen in France and Golden Dawn in Greece, to name just a few

of the noisy pugadists, unsettling patterns, and testing the nerves of elites.

So what's driving a new incarnation of populism?

Rob Ford is co-author of Revolt on the Right.

He joins us from the BBC's election coverage studio in Elstree,

and Peter Kellner, who heads the polling organisation, UGov, is in the studio with me.

Rob, we've heard a lot about populism in the election campaign,

often aimed in Britain at the rise of UKIP as the party from outside the mainstream.

But how typical a populist party is that, and what are the hallmarks?

Well, good evening, Anne. You Kipp are a fairly

typical example of what you might call the populist radical right, which is a family of parties that's

been quite well established in Europe for a while now. They essentially draw their support from

older blue-collar voters who feel that the social change that they've seen in the past two or three decades, particularly that associated with immigration, but also sort of value change more generally, is threatening.

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