Liberalism's Horrible Year
The Briefing Room
BBC
4.8 • 731 Ratings
🗓️ 22 December 2016
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Liberalism died in 2016. This bold statement has been made by both right and left wing media in recent months. But what is liberalism - and can such a broad idea really be that vulnerable?
Edmund Fawcett, author of Liberalism: The Life of an Idea, charts the rise and rise of liberalism, from Gladstone's social reformers to the economic liberalism of Margaret Thatcher. Sir Oliver Letwin MP played a key role in the Conservative Party's adoption of more socially liberal policies after 2005. He tells David Aaronovitch about embracing gay marriage, advocating green energy, and emphasising social justice.
But is liberalism a luxury of the middle class? Lynsey Hanley discusses the link between social status and social conservatism. She explains why the working class may reject liberal values in defiance of the metropolitan elite.
Producer: Hannah Sander Researcher: Kirsteen Knight.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the briefing room with me, David Aronovich. |
| 0:03.0 | In this episode, I've called in the experts to help us answer this question. |
| 0:08.0 | Is liberalism on the wayne? |
| 0:15.0 | As 2016 came to a close, listeners to the BBC's most important news programme heard this from the Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari. |
| 0:31.0 | In the future, 2016 may be remembered as the year in which Westerners have lost faith in the liberal story. |
| 0:38.1 | The rot had started, he argued, with the crash of 2008 and was now setting in. |
| 0:44.0 | Whereas a few years ago, Americans and Europeans were still trying to liberalize Iraq and Libya |
| 0:49.5 | at the point of the gun. They now have second thoughts thoughts even about American democracy and European identity. |
| 0:57.0 | The EU 2016, marked by the Brexit vote in Britain and the rise of Donald Trump in United States, |
| 1:03.6 | signify the moment when this tidal wave of disillusionment has reached the core liberal states |
| 1:10.0 | of Western Europe and North America. |
| 1:12.4 | But what actually is liberalism? And can such a historically successful idea become obsolete? |
| 1:19.7 | This week, we'll be looking at this question as though briefing an intelligent visitor from |
| 1:24.5 | outer space, not for liberalism or against it, but interested in what's happening to it. |
| 1:34.5 | Joining me in the briefing room this week is a journalist and author who grew up on a working-class council estate. |
| 1:40.8 | Lindsay Hanley is now a visiting fellow at Liverpool John Moore's University. She's on the line |
| 1:45.5 | from Merseyside. Also with me is Sir Oliver Letwin, the Conservative strategist. And on the line from |
| 1:51.2 | Boulder, Colorado, is journalist Edmund Fawcett, whose book Liberalism, The Life of an Idea, |
| 1:57.1 | charts the rise and rise of liberalism from Victorian social reformers to Margaret Thatcher's |
| 2:02.8 | economics. Edmund, I'm going to start with you. What is liberalism? Well, I think at risk |
| 2:09.0 | of sounding a bit abstract, as a set of ideals in politics, liberalism is quite simple. It's all |
| 2:15.6 | about improving people's lives, treating them and their |
... |
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