Good morning. This is Andrew Marr, editor-at-large of the New Statesman.

Since the Greens emerged victorious in the Gorton and Denton by-election last week, one thing has become abundantly clear: we are living through an age of two rival populisms.

Much energy has been dedicated to understanding the right-wing populists – those behind the giant eruptions of Brexit and the Donald Trump electoral victories; the rise of Maga and Reform; the backwash of Victor Orbán and Giorgia Meloni.

Where the right explains its insurgency as driven by anxiety about mass migration and the decline of Christian culture, the left focuses its attention on Gaza, trans rights and hostility to Keir Starmer. But both are fundamentally driven by a sense of economic betrayal. And both are competing to represent the dispossessed – so where does this all take us?

You can read an extract of my piece down below, and you can click through here to read in full. The NS is only available to paying subscribers at the moment. But you can take out a subscription here, with thanks to those who already have.

Have a great day, and we will be back with you on Saturday as usual.

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“Great deal of grievance politics”

The criticism of populism is that it offers too-simple solutions to hard and complex problems. On the right, it’s that if only we can get to zero immigration and kick out enough Muslims, Britain would become a law-abiding, happy, productive nation.

Left, or “Green” populism, is very different. Its language is couched in inclusion and fairness, projecting a sunny optimism. But its policy responses, from “eat the rich” to “leave Nato”, from open borders to the legalisation of all drugs, are radical and equally threatening to what’s left of the middle ground.

Yet, because it doesn’t address the economic tidal wave behind this spreading sense of dispossession, grief and anger, the conservative response is pathetically inadequate. The taxation proposals are impractical! Don’t care. Open borders would bring in more criminals and threaten more working-class livelihoods! Don’t believe you. Don’t care. Leaving Nato would embolden Vladimir Putin. Don’t care. And so on. If you aren’t connected to society, if you have no personal stake in it, then you don’t care about its norms or offending them.

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Have a good week, and see you on Saturday. Thank you.