Adam Chapman
Guest Reporter
Donald Trump's decisive victory on November 5 exposed how "completely out of touch" British centrists are with "ordinary working people", says Spiked political writer Brendan O'Neill.
His savage takedown comes after regular viewers of the Rest is Politics podcast were treated to the spectacle of Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell left slack-jawed by the result of the US presidential election.
Days before Americans went to the polls, Stewart told his 592,000 followers on X that Vice President Kamala Harris would "win comfortably", adding: "I’m looking forward to the elaborate explanations from the polling companies on why they failed to predict the result."
As the electoral map turned red, it became clear that the former Tory MP had called it completely wrong.
In Stewart's defence, he owned it, telling Times Radio the next day: "I was completely wrong...obviously, I'm guilty of massive wishful thinking."
While Stewart's humility is to be commended, there's a more interesting insight to be gleaned from the whole affair, Spiked political writer Brendan O'Neill tells GB News.
As he explains, the surprising success of his podcast with Alastair Campbell led many to believe the centrist dad is in vogue.
This mild-mannered person defines himself in opposition to extremes on the left and the right. They tend to loathe Brexit and the global rise of populism. They tend to be policy wonks who prioritise good governance over radical disruption.
This centrist dads indeed had an astonishing run - Stewart and Campbell recently played to a crowd of 15,000 people at the 02 Arena - but Trump's victory shows the limit of their reach and that their elitist bubble has now burst, claims O'Neill.
He explained: "Following the victory of Trump, a lot of British centrists had a meltdown. I must say I enjoyed it enormously. I was getting out the popcorn. I couldn't believe how wonderful it was to see these people's world come crashing down. It's indicative of how aloof they are from society and real ordinary working good people, of their visceral snobbery.
"They don't understand these people, they look upon them as almost like an old colonial anthropologist would have looked upon an African tribe - as this mysterious entity which studied, but certainly shouldn't be sympathised with or understood."
Stewart and Campbell's "dumbfounded" reaction to the results on election night illustrates their "dislocation" from everyday life, the Spiked political writer tells GB News.
He continued: "They [the centrists] hate the revolt of ordinary people, the 'oiks' who have influenced Europe and America for the past eight years. They created this rarefied system that they can all live in; it's a bubble of podcasts, the right newspapers and the right dinner party circles."
Despite carefully cultivating this image of being the "adults in the room", millions of people disagree with their worldview, claims O'Neill, citing the electoral upset on November 5 as evidence of this.
Brexit provided a similar upset, he says, with the cosy metropolitan elite astonished by the populist revolt.
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Many netizens appear to share O'Neill's sentiment.
Reacting to Stewart's bad call on the election, one user posted on X: "Rory Stewart has history when it comes to trying to predict what working class people think."
A second person wrote: "Out of touch!", while a third tweeted: I'm not surprised he got it so wrong. He sits down with @campbellclaret every week, and both have a similar worldview. It's just an echo chamber and not great if you're trying to analyse elections and politics."
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