C:/ITOOLS/WMS/CUP-NEW/12204736/WORKINGFOLDER/NICKK/9781316516218PRE.3D i [1–16] 8.1.2018 4:30PM The Good Politician Text to follow C:/ITOOLS/WMS/CUP-NEW/12204736/WORKINGFOLDER/NICKK/9781316516218PRE.3D ii [1–16] 8.1.2018 4:30PM C:/ITOOLS/WMS/CUP-NEW/12204736/WORKINGFOLDER/NICKK/9781316516218PRE.3D iii [1–16] 8.1.2018 4:30PM The Good Politician Folk Theories, Political Interaction, and the Rise of Anti-Politics Nick Clarke University of Southampton Will Jennings University of Southampton Jonathan Moss University of Sussex Gerry Stoker University of Southampton and University of Canberra C:/ITOOLS/WMS/CUP-NEW/12204736/WORKINGFOLDER/NICKK/9781316516218PRE.3D iv [1–16] 8.1.2018 4:30PM University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia 314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – 110025, India 79 Anson Road, #06-04/06, Singapore 079906 Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781316516218 DOI: 10.1017/9781108641357 © Nick Clarke, Will Jennings, Jonathan Moss and Gerry Stoker 2018 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2018 Printed in <country> by <printer> A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. 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C:/ITOOLS/WMS/CUP-NEW/12204736/WORKINGFOLDER/NICKK/9781316516218PRE.3D v [1–16] 8.1.2018 4:30PM Contents List of Figures page vi List of Tables viii Preface: The Long Road to 2016, Brexit, and Trump ix Acknowledgements xv Introduction 1 1 The Problem of Anti-Politics 17 2 Taking the Long View and Listening to Citizens’ Voices 33 3 Beyond Trendless Fluctuation: The Broadening Social Scope of Anti-Politics 67 4 Beyond Permanent Apathy: The Broadening Political Scope of Anti-Politics 84 5 Beyond the Decline of Deference: The Rising Intensity of Anti-Politics 116 6 Beyond Depoliticisation: The Persistent Force of Stealth Democratic Folk Theories 147 7 Changing Images of the Good Politician 183 8 Changing Modes of Political Interaction 220 9 Changing Folk Theories: From Stealth Democracy to Stealth Populism 255 Conclusion 268 Appendix 282 References 291 Index 306 v C:/ITOOLS/WMS/CUP-NEW/12204736/WORKINGFOLDER/NICKK/9781316516218PRE.3D vi [1–16] 8.1.2018 4:30PM Figures 2.1 Government dissatisfaction in Britain, Gallup/Ipsos MORI, 1946–2016 page 43 3.1 Distrust in government and politicians, 1983–2015 69 3.2 Dyads of survey measures of anti-political sentiment 71 3.3 Anti-politics in the UK, 1966–2016 77 3.4 Almost never trust government by social group, BSA, 1986–2013 78 3.5 Political distrust and anti-politics in the USA and UK, 1966–2014 80 3.6 Distrust of national parliaments, Eurobarometer, 2015 81 3.7 Distrust of national politicians, ESS, 2014 82 4.1 In general, whose interests do you think MPs put first: their own, their constituents’, their party’s, or the country’s? (Ipsos MORI, 1994–2013) 97 4.2 Politicians generally ...Would you tell me whether you generally trust them to tell the truth or not? (Ipsos MORI, 1983–2015) 102 4.3 How much do you trust politicians of any party in Britain to tell the truth when they are in a tight corner? (BSA, 1996–2013) 103 4.4 How much do you agree or disagree that ...generally speaking those we elect as MPs lose touch with people pretty quickly? (BSA, 1986–2011) 112 4.5 How much do you agree or disagree that ...it doesn’t really matter which party is in power, in the end things go on much the same? (BSA, 2001–2011) 113 5.1 Campaign poster for the Labour Party, 2001 122 5.2 Ed Miliband as Wallace 124 5.3 The ‘Ed stone’ 125 5.4 Intensity of distrust in politicians, BES, 2005–2015 132 5.5 Do not trust to tell the truth, Ipsos MORI, 2016 144 6.1 Not much difference between the parties, BES, 1963–2015 161 vi C:/ITOOLS/WMS/CUP-NEW/12204736/WORKINGFOLDER/NICKK/9781316516218PRE.3D vii [1–16] 8.1.2018 4:30PM List of Figures vii 6.2 Public opinion about political parties, BES, 2001–2015 162 6.3 Parties and politicians in the UK are more concerned with fighting each other than with furthering the public interest, BES, 2015 163 7.1 Traits making a good politician, 2017 210 7.2 Demographic predictors of perceived importance of traits making a good politician 212 8.1 Clement Attlee campaigning in his Limehouse constituency, 1945 227 8.2 William Beveridge recording a speech for use in the 1945 campaign 229 8.3 Participation in general election campaigns, BES, 1964–2015 233 8.4 One of the televised leaders’ debates, 2010 237 8.5 Gordon Brown meets Gillian Duffy in Rochdale, 2010 245 C:/ITOOLS/WMS/CUP-NEW/12204736/WORKINGFOLDER/NICKK/9781316516218PRE.3D viii [1–16] 8.1.2018 4:30PM Tables 1.1 Three versions of anti-politics page 21 2.1 Eras of polling and survey research in the UK, 1937–2016 37 2.2 Selected Mass Observation directives 56 3.1 Survey items and the measure of anti-politics 75 4.1 Prominent storylines and categories for politicians, 1945–1955 and 2001–2015 114 5.1 Additional cultural resources, 1945–1955 and 2001–2015 145 6.1 Stealth democratic folk theories 181 7.1 The good politician of the mid-twentieth century 193 7.2 The good politician of the early twenty-first century 207 8.1 Political interaction compared 253 9.1 Properties of fast and slow thinking 258 9.2 Comparing stealth democracy and elitist democracy 263 9.3 Comparing stealth democracy and stealth populism 264 viii C:/ITOOLS/WMS/CUP-NEW/12204736/WORKINGFOLDER/NICKK/9781316516218PRE.3D ix [1–16] 8.1.2018 4:30PM Preface: The Long Road to 2016, Brexit, and Trump We began the research project behind this book in 2014, focussed on the period since 1945 – a widely recognised milestone for British politics. We were especially interested in what we call ‘anti-politics’: citizens’ negative sentiment regarding formal politics, with ‘formal politics’ describing that set of activities and institutions required for collective and binding decision-making in plural societies (i.e. tolerating, canvas- sing, negotiating, compromising, and their institutionalisation in politi- cians, parties, elections, parliaments, governments). We were interested in the claim, often made, that political disaffection has grown over time in many democracies, such that – compared to the period following the Second World War – we are now living through an ‘age of anti- politics’. We were interested in testing this claim using the case of the United Kingdom (UK), for which good evidence is perhaps uniquely available in the form of public opinion surveys but also letters and diaries collected by Mass Observation (MO), all dating back to the late 1930s. As our project continued, we realised that another milestone for British politics may have been reached in 2016. Brexit – British exit from the European Union (EU), decided by a referendum in June 2016 – marks a turning point in the process of European institution-building that began soon after the Second World War. Across the Atlantic, a milestone for American politics may also have been reached in 2016. Donald Trump became the first US President with no experience of military service or government, whether elected or appointed. Also worth noting here is the rise of populism across Europe. By 2015, parties aligning themselves with ‘the people’ against ‘the political class’ had gained at least 10 per cent of the vote in twenty European countries. In five of these countries – Greece, Hungary, Italy, Slovakia, and Switzerland – such parties had become the largest party. Also worth noting here is the electoral success of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party in Australia, where Hanson and three collea- gues became Senators in the federal election of 2016. In short, this book may draw on British evidence, for the most part, but its themes are ix C:/ITOOLS/WMS/CUP-NEW/12204736/WORKINGFOLDER/NICKK/9781316516218PRE.3D x [1–16] 8.1.2018 4:30PM x Preface relevant to the dynamic of democracies across much of the contemporary world. Let us consider some of these recent events in a little more detail. There are many ways to interpret Brexit, but one way is to view it as a consequence of the long-term increase in citizens’ political disaffection we describe and explain in this book. ‘Leave’ advocates campaigned against the need for politics at the European scale. The campaign against the EU was closely associated with the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), which over the years has campaigned against much of politics at the national scale too. Here is Nigel Farage, then leader of UKIP, speaking on the morning of the referendum result (24 June 2016): Dare to dream that the dawn is breaking on an independent United Kingdom ..