Tony Blair as Most Unpopular Person
anecdote · personal observation (UK) ·
retold in 7 talks
Žižek recalls a 2005 TV show in London where people voted Tony Blair as the 'most unpopular person' in England, despite Blair winning the actual election two weeks later. This illustrates the gap between popular sentiment and formal political results.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 7
“people were electing the most unpopular person in england. tony blair won. by the most hated person.”
“who is the most hated person in the uk. tony blair won. a week later there were elections, tony blair won.”
“Who is the most hated person in the United Kingdom? The same person: Tony Blair.”
What it carries
one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)
Its cast and sources
populated by
Göran Therborn2Olof Palme2Tony Blair6Alexander Dugin3Jyoti Basu1Helen Yaffe1Álvaro Uribe Vélez1Ralph Nader1
alongside works
Every retelling 7
Žižek recalls a 2005 TV show in London where people voted Tony Blair as the 'most unpopular person' in England, despite Blair winning the actual election two weeks later. This illustrates the gap between popular sentiment and formal political results., illustrating democracy
In the week before UK general elections near the end of Blair's tenure, opinion polls showed Blair was the most-hated person in the UK. He won anyway. Žižek uses this to illustrate a genuine discontent that has no channel in the existing political space., illustrating cynicism as ideology,political space without articulation,discontent without outlet
In the UK, a poll two weeks before Labour's election victory named Tony Blair the most hated person in the country, illustrating a dissatisfaction that escapes the regular voting mechanism., illustrating limits of parliamentary representation,crisis of liberal democracy
Two weeks before Blair's election victory, a poll named him the most unpopular person in the UK, he then won. Žižek uses this to illustrate the gap between popular discontent and what can be translated into political form., illustrating gap between discontent and political representation,limits of liberal democracy
Two weeks before the general election Blair was voted most unpopular person in the UK in a public phone-in; he then won the election. Žižek uses this to argue that public discontent is not captured by the electoral system, which is the structural cause of political violence., illustrating failure of parliamentary representation,the true cause of political violence
Two weeks before an election a TV poll named Blair the UK's most unpopular person; he then won the general election, the gap between representation and discontent., illustrating the crisis of political representation