The Summer of 2016

Moral Maze

BBC

Religion & Spirituality, Society & Culture

4.5 • 609 Ratings

🗓️ 4 August 2016

⏱️ 43 minutes

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Summary

As someone once said 'Whoever you vote for the government wins'. Whether we thought it was a conspiracy or not we've got used to the idea that something we called the establishment ran societies like ours. No longer. From Brexit voters agreeing with Michael Gove that we shouldn't listen to experts, to Donald Trump supporters relishing the hostility to their man of every part of the American establishment or Jeremy Corbyn supporters rejecting conventional wisdom about what is needed to win elections: everywhere it appears the conventional, the expert, the elite, the establishment view is on the defensive. For some this is a brave new world of openness, activism and renewal. For others it's a post-factual world of populism, extremism and damage. Is the establishment dying? Is this the assertion of the independent-minded? A welcome jolt for a complacent ruling class? A time of renewal? Or a brainless twitch by people bored with issues and complexity, ushering in a host of dangerous isms - populism, extremism, nationalism. "The Summer of 2016" - should we cheer, worry, or despair? The Moral Maze. Witnesses are Will Moy, Ian Chamberlain, Milo Yiannopoulos and Philip Collins.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to a program from BBC Radio 4.
0:03.8	Good evening. I wonder if historians will look back on the summer of 2016
0:07.9	and see it as one of those moments in history when the people turned against those who run their lives.
0:13.3	It's not quite the Reformation, 1789 or even 1848. We're not talking revolutions here.
0:18.7	Well, yet, anyway. But there's something going on, something that links the bombshell of Brexit, the coronation of Corbyn, the triumphs of Trump. Establishments are getting a kicking, received wisdom as being scorned. Goodbye, the great and the good. Bring on the mavericks and the clowns. The elites are under siege, or maybe just being sharply redefined. Half the world seems to be having an ill-tempered spasm of dissatisfaction with what's
0:42.7	happening with their lives and those they think are responsible. Politics are getting more
0:46.8	polarised. We're more and more inclined to think that those we disagree with are not just wrong,
0:51.8	but acting in bad faith.
1:00.0	Is this an assertion of the independent-minded, a welcome jolt for a complacent ruling class,
1:05.8	a time of bracing renewal, or a brainless twitch by people bored with issues and complexity ushering in a host of dangerous isms, populism, nationalism, nationalism, extremism?
1:11.4	Should we cheer, worry or despair?
1:14.6	That's our moral maze tonight.
1:15.5	Our panel, I'm McHellvoy, senior editor on The Economist,
1:18.4	Blair Fox from the Institute of Ideas,
1:20.5	Tony Blair's former chief political advisor,
1:22.6	now chief executive of the RSA,
1:24.5	Matthew Taylor, and the priest and polemicist Giles Fraser,
1:28.1	all members of one or another.
1:30.7	Even you, Giles, Guardian Easter, Corbinista, more Easters,
1:33.7	and you can shake a stick out.
1:35.5	Yeah, I suppose I am.
1:37.1	Oh, so modest.
	...

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