A poll by Electoral Calculus and Find Out Now for the Daily Telegraph into voting habits of ‘Establishment’ professionals has produced some revealing insights, including that the traditional image of an Establishment of judges, bowler-hatted civil servants, professors and brigadiers associated with social and political conservatism are long gone. These days, the pollsters say in a foreword, the Establishment has been replaced by the ‘Blob’ of social liberals pursuing a progressive agenda in institutions which have gone ‘woke’. So what do the leanings of the new Establishment mean for the governments of the day and for the political landscape of the country in the years to come?
NEW polling suggests that three-quarters of Britons in elite professions (civil service, schools, universities, law, medicine, police, and military) voted for leftist parties at the last general election. The split was 75 per cent to 19 per cent for leftists versus rightists.
Compare the popular vote: the split was 54-39. That 54 per cent was inflated by voters punishing the Conservative Party for 14 years of drift and broken promises. Britons typically vote parties out more than they vote parties in.
In education, the media, and the arts, support for leftism rises to 81 per cent.
These people make up the ‘articulate class’, as social scientists normally term them. (The pollsters chose the misleading term ‘lecturing class’.)
They’re called the ‘articulate class’ because they dominate public discourse.
They choose and edit what goes on the airwaves, they write and edit newspapers and online equivalents, they gate-keep books, they are the ‘experts’ that journalists invite to comment, they decide what to display in museums and what to represent in cinemas and theatres and they choose and deliver what our kids and students learn.
Their politics have a disproportionate effect on the politics of their readers, consumers, and students. This helps to explain why those with university education reported a left-right split of 66-26 in 2024. (All splits exclude ‘don’t knows’.)
In 2024, the articulate class voted overwhelmingly (81 per cent) for the Labour, Liberal Democrat, or Green parties. Only 14 per cent voted for the Conservative or Reform parties.
The latest poll is probably under-estimating elite leftism, given that respondents were self-reporting in 2025 about how they voted in 2024. Since the general election, support for the Labour Party has collapsed. Despite the slight rise for the Liberal Democrats and Greens, one would expect fewer respondents to report leftism now than then.
Nevertheless, 75 per cent of elites said they voted left in July 2024. In the same month, only 46 per cent of Britons as a whole said they would vote for those leftist parties.
Why does this gap matter?
Well, any gap in beliefs or values between elite and populace is bad for social cohesion and professional delivery. The gap drives resentment and distrust. These tensions drive non-compliance with police, for example, and disrespect for judges, and suspicion of what teachers are teaching.
Elite professionals are hardly innocent in these tensions.
True, elite professionals have some professional obligation to fulfil their duties without partisanship, but the elite is no longer keeping its politics out of professional activities, as we see in two-tier policing, two-tier justice, partisan journalism, and partisan teaching.
When asked whether ‘freedom of speech is often used to hurt minorities and damage society’, the populace slightly disagrees (36-39), but the elite agrees (46-26) – particularly the articulate class (55-21). Only the police and military are clearly in favour of free speech.
True, slightly more police and military personnel voted right than left in 2024 (according to the same poll). But their chiefs are ordering officers to crack down on rightists, and to ignore white applicants.
Given these precedents, imagine how the elite would behave after the next general election when (according to current trends) a rightist government would form.
An overwhelming democratic mandate would not cow elite resistance.
We have seen already that even the most formally apolitical of professions – the civil service and judiciary – defy democratically-represented policies and statutes.
Brexit is the best proof. Brexit was not formally executed for more than three years after the referendum (despite a promise from David Cameron to withdraw from the EU ‘the day after’ a popular vote to leave). Britain went through a European election, a local election, a general election, and three prime ministers before Boris Johnson could ‘get Brexit done’. Even months later he still complained about professional obstruction.
Most of the elite professionals did not want to get Brexit done. According to the poll in September this year, the elite split was 68 per cent against Brexit, 32 per cent in favour. In education, the media, and the arts, the split was 75-25. The popular split was 48-52.
That 48 per cent was driven up by the elite’s privileged messaging, nicknamed ‘project fear’. Nearly half of what the nine leading remainer politicians said in the campaign was fear-based. The chair of the official campaign to remain later admitted that these fears were exaggerated.
How will the elite slander the next rightist government?
First, expect the elite to warn of economic collapse if the right wins. Three-quarters of remainer ‘fears’ were about the economy.
Second, expect the elite to cry ‘racism’. We heard it in 2016 and we’re hearing it in 2025 to condemn patriotism, protests against foreign privilege and controls on immigration.
The latest polling confirms the elite’s racial preferences.
When asked if ‘more should be done to support members of ethnic minority groups in Britain’ the plebs disagreed (30-37) but the elites strongly agreed (47-24). Almost two-thirds of the articulate class agreed (61-20).
When asked if ‘Britain and other western countries should be ashamed of their imperial past’ the plebs strongly disagreed (27-50), the elite professionals slightly disagreed (37-40) but the articulate class strongly agreed (44-30).
Donald Trump’s experience gives further indications of what to expect during and after the next general election: fear-mongering, obstruction, dirty tricks and accusations of racism and fascism.
Trump got little done in his first term (2017-2021) while battling fake claims of collusion with Russia and interference in Ukrainian democracy, and false accusations of dictatorship and authoritarianism. Elite machinations contributed to his lost bid for re-election in 2020 and damaged his re-bid in 2024.
Yes, he won a second term. And he learned how to get more out of government, as evidenced by his rapid control of the borders. But he’s still struggling with non-compliance with his bid to deport illegal aliens, for instance.
So Trump is still fighting a partisan administrative state nine years since he first won election to the presidency.
Trump has only three and a bit years to complete his reforms. He is not allowed a third term.
God help us if we face nine years of resistance to a similar government in Britain, followed by barely another three years to complete the job.
Let’s simplistically apply Trump’s schedule to a hypothetical, similar government in Britain. Assuming a general election at the last allowable schedule, in 2029 (which would be rational for a ruling Party in the doldrums), the resistance would remain ongoing in 2038 and the reformers would still be rushing to finish in 2041.
That’s despite a fiscal crisis that could culminate within years, and a social crisis that could end in civil war within years.
Does Britain have the rightist leaders to sustain that sort of struggle?
