Oliver Eagleton wonders whether we can any longer discern common strands within populism (‘Populism’: we used to know what it meant. Now the defining word of our era has lost its meaning, 18 February). While the left has deep roots in common endeavour and collective struggle, it has tended to act through structures concerned with improving the lives of working people. In contrast, populism is inherently about promoting cultural division and then suborning state institutions for the use of a great leader who alone can hold the nation together.
Putting it in far less erudite terms than Eagleton’s article, the common characteristics of populism include self-aggrandising and self-interested demagoguery by pseuds and charlatans, often with a side helping of corruption, a colourful past involving many brushes with the law, strong attachments to some of the world’s worst authoritarian regimes, including the one based in the Kremlin, plus a deep reluctance to be transparent about the sources of their funding, a definition of common sense drawn solely from the wit and wisdom of the pub boor, all coupled with outright racism and membership of a far-right international (often labelled national conservatism) which provides a playbook and funding for their endeavours.
Sadly, these characteristics are observable daily all around.
Kevin Lloyd
Highbury, London
• I read with interest Oliver Eagleton’s discussion on the meaning of populism. I think it more important that we establish definitions for “left” and “right”, entrenched as these words are in current political discourse.
Peter Gray
Chesterfield, Derbyshire
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