At present, in British politics at least, there’s a whole lot of whining going on about the public’s attitudes. Among the mainstream of politics and media there’s a wailing and gnashing of teeth over such matters as hostility to mass immigration, the rise of parties like Reform, the public not accepting the government’s narrative over anthropgenic climate change, a growing suspicion of even long used vaccines and much more.
This split between the politicians and the people they are in theory supposed to serve didn’t come from nowhere. As Matt Ridley points out in an excellent article in Spiked Magazine, some of the reason for public hostility and a cleaving to alternative political parties is entirely down to the policies of the mainstream of politics. Mr Ridley said that if we had not had mass immigration there would not have been any rise of Reform, if the government had not bullied people over the Covid vaccine then there would not have been the rise in vaccine scepticism and if politicians and the media had not oversold the climate change narrative people would not have questioned it. If governments had not gone along with the lies of trans activists and said that men can enter women’s spaces then there would not have been the massive turn in public opininon agaisnt the whole concept of transgender. Mr Ridley said that our political classes and the mainstream media have been hoist by their own petard on a whole lot of issues.
Mr Ridley said: * If you spend years screaming abuse online at anyone who mildly objects to men who are pretending to be women so that they can take part in women’s sports or get transferred to women’s prisons, then do not be surprised if genuine trans people receive less sympathy or consideration than they deserve from some people. The BBC gladly platforms extreme climate alarmists, who say billions will starve or die in storms, and then lectures us all on the need to give up boilers, beef and trips to Benidorm. But it bans any appearance of reasonable sceptics who say global warming is real but not an existential threat. Then it acts shocked when the public, noticing that crop yields are going up not down, storms are no worse than before and energy has grown very expensive, begins to think the whole thing might be a hoax or a con job.*
He’s somewhat correct here. The politicians have created policies that have had so many negative outcomes for so many British people that these politicians and their policies have created a backlash against them. The problems that the political classes moan about are almost entirely the creation of the hands of the politicians who have mad so many terrible decisions over such a very long time.
Link to source https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/09/29/why-the-elites-keep-being-hoist-by-their-own-petard