The Dark Knight and The Puppet Master — Book launch
Join Policy Network and Progress for the launch of The Dark Knight and The Puppet Master with Peter Kyle MP, pollster and commentator Deborah Mattinson and author Chris Clarke
Online webinar
About this event
Join Progress and Policy Network for the launch of ‘The Dark Knight and The Puppet Master’ with Peter Kyle MP, pollster and commentator Deborah Mattinson and author Chris Clarke.
A new decade, a more tolerant and consensual leadership for Labour – and the possibility of Trump’s demise in the US. Each of these speaks to a new ‘pluralist moment’ and each, we must hope, heralds an end to the populist race-to-the bottom that has scarred politics since 2010.
Join Progress and Policy Network for the launch of The Dark Knight and the Puppet Master by Chris Clarke – a critique of left populism which asks how progressives can achieve this. Written during the Corbyn years and initially released as Warring Fictions in January 2020, it has been republished by Penguin in updated form.
The book critiques the three core myths of left populism: a ‘dark knight’ conflict between good and evil, control by elite ‘puppet masters’, and nostalgia for a ‘golden age’. It demands that the left jettisons these vices, retreating once-and-for-all from the ethical and electoral wormhole into which they always lead us. It argues that, when we buy into these partisan, paranoid and pessimistic narratives, we become unable to function in a democracy or adapt to the modern world. To win – and to deserve to win – we must always be pluralists.
In this discussion we consider where these narratives come from. And we ask how – through a different approach – progressives can unite the country, change society, and say ‘never again’ to results like 12 December 2019.
Speakers
- Deborah Mattinson, co-founder, Britain Thinks and author, Beyond the Red Wall
- Peter Kyle MP, member of parliament for Hove and shadow minister for victims and youth justice
- Chris Clarke, author, The Dark Knight and the Puppet Master
Register
You can register for this event via Eventbrite here.
More information
This event is held in partnership with Progress.
Attendance is free and open to all.
For more information, please contact event convenor Josh Newlove.