AbstractSuccessful public health interventions have, in recent decades, improved the health of the working classes in significant ways across much of the western world. Nevertheless, here, I argue that populist electoral breakthroughs over the last decade may be considered side‐effects of ‘successful’ public health policies: crucially, the claim is that those political side‐effects resulted because of—rather than despite—the health‐measured success of those public health interventions.