Tag Archives: anti-woke

Are we part of ‘the Deep State’?

If you have been reading reviews of Liz Truss’s self-justifying new book, you’ll know that she was defeated as Prime Minister by the sinister forces of the bureaucratic deep state. Michael Gove has for years called the same phenomenon ‘the blob’.  Others on the populist and irrational right call this ‘the liberal conspiracy.’  In the House of Lords some weeks ago, Peter Lilley began to attack the ‘liberal conspiracy’ that was preventing honest Conservatives from following ‘the will of the people’, and became almost incoherent when our benches began to laugh.  He clearly believes that these conspiratorial forces are real, and powerful.  How many of those in the Telegraph and Mail and on social media who write profusely about this actually believe in what they allege, as opposed to using it as a convenient way to attack ‘the Guardianistas’ and the reasoned consensus, is hard to tell.  But there’s no doubt that the message does convince some of its listeners that democratic institutions are biased against them, and that only their populist heroes can represent the pure people against the corrupt establishment – to which you and I all, according to them, belong.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 36 Comments
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  • Nonconformistradical
    @George Thomas "....but only if we recognise that many people get paid when they shouldn’t and many people don’t get paid (or paid enough) when they shou...
  • Steve Trevethan
    Thank you for a most relevant article. Might it assist the UK to become more of a genuine democracty if state education enabled furture citizens to question ...
  • cim
    "Then, once that work is complete, the whole package should be put to the British people in a referendum." The rest of the plan sounds good, and some level o...
  • expats
    Jana 2nd Jul '26 - 2:40pm...Assuming that we all agree that defence spending needs to rise,... I don't! The top military brass ALWAYS want more and worldwid...
  • cim
    And the assumption that defence spending really does need to rise - in a country with already the 5th or 6th highest defence budget in the world - is another du...