These 21st-century demagogues aren’t mavericks – they’ve repeated on us throughout history | George Monbiot

We are nonplussed every time one emerges, as if it’s something new. But there are patterns that are totally predictable I’ve been thinking about a famously orange-skinned former presenter of trashy TV programmes, who lives on a luxurious coastal estate. He has a history of racist and Islamophobic remarks, of blaming asylum seekers for bringing disease into the country and ranting about the “supercilious metropolitan elite”. He swept into a rightwing political party and refashioned it in his image, presenting himself as the antidote to politics-as-usual, whipping up culture wars and using the platform to boost his planet-sized ego. I am, of course, describing the British former politician Robert Kilroy-Silk.