What Centrist Politics Is Getting Wrong
On this episode of Voternomics, the man who led Canada’s Liberal Party to an historic defeat advises current politicians about how to avoid his pain.
Michael Ignatieff
Photographer: Attila Kisbenedek/AFP/Getty Images"We talk obsessively that the problem in politics is at the extremes: far right, far left,” academic and former politician Michael Ignatieff tells hosts Allegra Stratton and Adrian Wooldridge on this week’s episode of Voternomics. “I think the problem is actually in the center."
He would know. Having led Canada’s Liberal Party and Official Opposition since 2006, Ignatieff lost his seat in the 2011 election when his party “got clobbered,” winning the fewest seats in its history and getting reduced to third party status for the first time ever. Now a professor of history and a former president of the Central European University, Ignatieff reflects on what he did wrong, including failing to respond to the 2008 financial crisis. He also discusses what today’s politicians can learn from his “painful” experience.