Dominic Sandbrook

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224 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 1 Jul

Dominic Sandbrook’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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On the Media · The Rest Is History · 1 Jul 2026 podcast

Is its political culture so completely different?

Of course, there are distinctive elements because of the influence of English political culture.

But, you know, the fondness for a strongman, the fondness for an authoritarian populist, the kind of caudillo politics.

I wonder whether you could easily see the United States moving in a direction where that becomes more and more pronounced.

I would say no.

I would say I don't agree with Tom about this at all.

I think political culture in Britain is completely different.

That's not to say that populism isn't a feature, of course.

But political culture in Britain is quite different from the United States, I think, for two reasons.

It's much less moralistic.

So threats are not usually cast as a danger to the integrity of the republic.

You know, you have changes of governments, and there's a little bit of overheated rhetoric.

The newspapers get excited, but by and large, we rub along pretty well.

The other big thing, I think, in Britain, and the difference that the United States has actually with Europe in general, is the United States has only two parties.

There are us, there's the good people, and there are the other people who are evil.

And now in Britain, by definition, we've always had, even at the point where the two parties, the Conservatives and Labour are their strongest,

there were still other parties.

There were still a few liberal MPs.

And of course, now in Britain, we have effectively a multi-party system.

So it's very hard to cast your opponents as a terrifying danger to the threat and survival of the nation state itself when there are so many shades of grey, as it were, when there are so many shades of nuance.

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