Giants and Pygmies
Posted by: Cas on: April 3, 2008
The following comes from a conversation I had with the Crazy Canalman as we were driving around London the other weekend. He wrote the majority of this post so please hold in the back of you mind the knowledge that we hold wildly differing political beliefs.
As an aside, I am still not sure if I am fully comfortable with my father writing for my blog, but then, it is better than the alternative of him trying to forbid me do it (I’m too old for the rebellious teenager look), and even I am having a hard time picking apart our writing styles.
Just goes to show you can never underestimate the impact your parents have.
Driving round Parliament Square at the weekend, I mused over the great that have graced the Palace of Westminster: Oliver Cromwell, William Pitt, Disraeli, Gladstone, Attlee and even the Blessed St Margaret.
What do we have nowadays to compare with these giants that have saved or changed a nation and the world? Blair of the focus group and dodgy dossiers; Brown of the control freak zero personality and chewed fingernails (how can we be represented by such a man in the councils of the world) and Cameron of the hasty empty gesture. Churchill, notorious though he was for his love of a stiff drink, a cigar, and about as round as he was tall, had gravitas and left indelible marks on the world around him.
Ever since politics became a career, rather than a service to the nation that a few accepted as a duty, we have suffered from a steady decent into government by the self serving, concerned only to save their own skin from the consequences of their failures. When was the last immediate resignation following a ministerial blunder? Instead a steady progression from “… has the Prime Minister’s full support” to a forced exit and rapid reinstatement only for the sorry tale to be repeated.
I long for the return of politicians that one can expect to maintain a position from election to implementation. That will speak their minds without one eye on the polls and, damn it, lead. To be able to choose between towering giants and their convictions, rather than the lesser of two mediocraties with barely a shade of grey between them.
Mathew Parris was not wrong when he asked where was the leader capable of the thought and passion that we can trust to lead us in these uncertain times.
I envy American Democrats right now. They have a choice, it seems, between two great potentials. I think to those standing in UK elections and I am hard pressed even to remember the name of one of the party leaders. Conviction and passion seem to have become dirty words in a climate where politicians bend over backwards not to offend too many people. Is it too much to ask, for a leader who goes “this is what I believe, and I will stand by those beliefs”?
7 Responses to "Giants and Pygmies"
April 3, 2008 at 11:55 pm
We often forget that it is the politicians themselves that reflect the will of the people. In any democratic government, the people are the government. They choose a representative or party to lead. It is by their choice and also by their choice that creates the choices of who is in the lead.
Sometimes, it’s not the matter of pointing out “why are there no good politicians?”. Sometimes, it’s a matter of pointing out “why aren’t there citizens like you and me doing something about it?”
April 5, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Edrei, yes, I’ll agree with you that politicians reflect the will of the people to a certain extent. However, what I am mainly bewailing is the lack of choice we are currently presented with. It does seem that to be a politician in this day and age you need to be a singularly odd and self-serving individual with a grip on morality and conviction that is tentative at best.
Why AREN’T there more people getting involved to widen the pool? I don’t know. I’d say our generations are much less likely to get involved than those that went before, but I can actually point to three of my close friends who ARE actively involved in politics. Plus a fair wack of us work for local government, doing our best to affect policy from within.
It’s the disparity between local and national that is really rather depressing me. I can think of a few local councillors and MPs who aren’t that bad, but once they hit the national stage they just seem to loose it.
No, I have no answers as you might have guessed, just exasperation.
April 8, 2008 at 12:57 pm
I don’t know if I’m allowed here or not.
Anyway, I think there is a correlation between the decline in quality of our politicians and the increase in ‘choice’ and individualism in daily life. Call it the Starbucks Phenomenon if you want. Society is being balkanized by marketeers who sell the perception of bespoke service.
All cultural and commerical transactions are wrapped up in a bewildering array of options, choices, extras and ways to ‘have it your way’ that never existed a decade ago. Take the quintessential marketeers car, the new Mini. There are over a thousand colour combinations alone. The vehicle is sold on the strengths of its personalisation and individuality, a chance to “express yourself” in automotive form. The horrible truth of course is that in their difference they all look exactly the same. Consider also my personal bugbear: coffee. No longer can you get a filter coffee in any high-street cafe. The machines required to produce customisable, espresso-based drinks are unable to make filter coffee. I can choose between a thousand kinds of latte but I cannot have a coffee. Such is the 21st century.
Bear with me, I’m getting to the point.
While all this has happened it is no coincidence that grand ideologies – and statesmen of note – have been replaced by men and women of little substance articulating policies separated only in the minutest detail. Why? Because those same marketeers who run mobile phone operators also work as “election strategists”. Parties believe they have to compete for a tiny segment of the electorate, the ‘floating voters’ who swing over tiny issues and win elections. How much easier for a marketeer to work with this easily focus-grouped demographic than try to address real concerns.
Ten years ago you could choose between a CEO’s coffee and the trade-unionist’s sugary tea. Now, on the left, we have a skinny whip latte with an extra shot, while on the right a double-shot latte whip, extra hot. Some choice.
April 10, 2008 at 9:28 am
Yes you’re allowed here, in fact a hundred thousand welcomes to Bright Meadow and the comments, brother dearest 
Don’t forget the place of us fluffy liberals and our extra-herb, hand=picked=by=mountain-goat, anti-oxidant-laden green chai tea in your calculations.
You have a point, though I don’t think it is necessarily the choice itself that is at fault, rather the incessant rounds of marketeers, pundits and opinion polls.
April 10, 2008 at 11:12 am
Thank you, much appreciated. How could I forget the hemp-sandaled, kaftan-wearing, lentil eating Holly Housewives with their Chai Tea lattes? I am so sorry 
You’ve pointed the same finger I have – it’s the marketeers who are responsible for that fragmentation. Choice is not inherently bad, but I believe that today’s petty, divide-and-rule politics fought over the minutiae of single issues is a consequence of that relentless drive to individualism and the people who perpetrate it.
The Downing Street e-petitions system is a good example of what I mean. As consumers we are now used to having our every preference catered to. Politicians, advised by their marketing teams, know this very well. They created the e-petitions website as a way to give the illusion of influence over single issues to the electorate without ever having to do aynthing. Single issue nuts mollified, back to plotting the next election.
What the electorate these days doesn’t realise is that although They might very well Work For Us, we do not elect a government to do our bidding. Instead, we elect a party to govern our country according to broad principles. It is a compromise we make knowing that we surrender control over important details in exchange for not having to heal ourselves, teach our kids or police our own streets.
The marketing types who run the parties these days are concerned only with returning their party to power. Fair enough. Unfortunately, the way they have chosen to do that is much the same as how Starbucks sell coffee or t-mobile sell phone contracts: by presenting the illusion of choice as a superfically attractive substitute for quality and principle.
Consequently politicians (as directed by the marketeers in party hq) present themselves as solutions to specific, single issues without any coherent, overarching principles. No principle, no statesman.
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Welcome to Bright Meadow 2.
My usual blog is over at brightmeadow.co.uk - I resort to this one on the rare occasions that my server has hiccups for more than a couple of days.
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April 3, 2008 at 9:27 pm
According to President Bartlet: They say a statesman is a politician who’s been dead for 15 years…