The Real Reasons Populism Is Taking Over

·20 min·1 clip

Liam Byrne shows that after the financial crash wages grew at 0.5% per year — meaning it now takes 106 years for a worker's wages to double.

1. The Rest Is Politics presents Alastair Campbell in a solo episode interviewing Labour MP Liam Byrne on the real drivers of global populism. 2. Liam Byrne is a former Labour minister and Chief Secretary to the Treasury, now an MP and author of 'Why Populists Are Winning and What We Can Do to Beat Them.' 3. The episode's core question is why working-class voters are drawn to charismatic leaders — Trump, Farage, Orban, Bolsonaro, Boris Johnson — who Campbell describes as 'charismatic charlatans' who do not act in their voters' interests. 4. Byrne argues the 2008 global financial crash is the primary driver, illustrated by a wage-growth calculation: New Labour-era growth of 1.5% per year meant wages doubled every 44 years, but post-crash growth of 0.5% means doubling now takes 106 years. 5. He identifies this as democracy's broken promise — the idea that working hard and playing by the rules leads to getting ahead — and argues its collapse is the structural precondition for populism. 6. Byrne describes five shared characteristics of Reform voters from survey research: financial pressure, pessimism about future prospects, a sense of living in communities in sharp decline, a sense of dispossession about their place in the queue, and fury about broken politics. 7. He poses the paradox that Trump — an inherited-wealth billionaire visibly serving his own family and interests in his second term — is nonetheless perceived by working-class voters as their champion. 8. His explanation is that low-growth zero-sum politics transforms the political question: instead of 'what do we build together?' it becomes 'who is strong enough to defend what I think is mine?' — and the strongest-seeming fighter wins. 9. Focus groups described Trump as 'neat whiskey or a dump truck' compared to Kamala Harris, whom voters perceived as too weak and ineffectual — the perception of strength mattered more than policy alignment. 10. Campbell raises the China WTO accession as an earlier globalization misstep, noting that at the time he and other New Labour figures dismissed trade union opposition as not understanding that globalization would benefit everyone. 11. Byrne says that by 2004 living standards in Britain had begun to plateau despite productivity growth, and that by 2008 ordinary working people had effectively had no real pay rise for four to five years before the 2010 election — a period New Labour missed. 12. Since 2010, the top 1% in Britain have multiplied their wealth 31 times more than everybody else, creating what Byrne calls 'haves, have-nots, and have-yots,' with young people now feeling they will be 'won't-haves' who will never get a piece of the pie. 13. Byrne describes the death of the high street as the local symbol of communities going backwards, noting that hardcore Reform voters are twice as likely as the national average to believe their area is in decline. 14. He identifies 'crime and shops' as the two words that appear most in word clouds from Reform voter focus groups — with high street shop units increasingly taken over by organised crime, money laundering, and illegal tobacco according to the National Crime Agency. 15. The conversation covers the 'there is no money left' note Byrne left when vacating the Chief Secretary role in 2010, which Campbell calls 'a traditional bit of gallows humour' that the Conservatives weaponised to justify austerity. 16. Byrne says the note has carried a curse: David Laws, who revealed it, later lost his own seat when Cameron waved it around in his constituency, and George Osborne's career also ended badly. 17. Byrne argues populists succeed in part by blaming outsiders and in part by persuading people the system is so broken it needs shaking up regardless of the alternative — and that having nothing to lose makes voters willing to roll the dice. 18. The conversation examines populist language, with Byrne noting that analysis of populist speeches shows they are freighted with time words — 'again, past, once more' — which resonates with voters who are pessimistic about the future. 19. The episode will resonate with listeners interested in the structural economic causes of right-wing populism and what mainstream progressive parties can do to counter it. 20. Listeners who prefer real-time political commentary over analytical discussion of underlying political trends may find the episode slow-moving.

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A clear-eyed look at why populism keeps finding room to grow.

The Rest Is Politics takes up populism with Alistair Campbell and Liam Byrne asking why it keeps landing now, and why confidence in trade, technology, and steady progress has frayed.

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Want a blunt, economic answer to why populism keeps landing?

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