Semantically, “populist” simply means a party which adopts policies which are popular with many voters. At a deeper level, it is a party which, the liberals will quietly argue, plays to the “baser instincts” of the electorate, tapping into their fears about social change occasioned by an influx of people from a different culture and their profound misgivings about the clear and obvious insanity of the current gender debate.

There is no reason, however, why a pride in your nation’s history and tradition allied to a legitimate objection to the la-la-land fantasies of gender politics should be classed as a “baser instinct.” It is a disaffection with a liberal program which has been foisted on populations who did not consciously vote for it and who, having gradually awakened, will not vote for it any longer. In truth, the term populist seems to mean only this: “People whom Today program presenters would not invite over for lunch.” It has no greater purchase than that. Any political description which can encompass, within its folds, Donald Trump, Jeremy Corbyn, Robert Fico, Viktor Orban and Greece’s radical left Syriza Party, Nigel Farage… well, it is so broad as to be meaningless. It is an insult to any politician, from left or right, who does not accord with the conventional agenda. Anyone who believes the EU may be undermining national sovereignty or who has a faith in the traditional family: all populist. It has become a nonsense term which conceals far more than it reveals.

[It’s definitely a term with flexible definition, but then again, so are ‘liberal,’ ‘conservative,’ and especially ‘moderate.’ Moderate usually means “anything I am and those who agree with me at least 90%.” Besides, what Liddle describes here sounds more like nationalism than populism, although there’s plenty of overlap with those terms as well. — Ed]