It has become the boring truism of British politics to suggest that the calibre of our political representatives has been in a precipitous decline for decades. This could not have been more tragically underscored than the Conservative Party’s failure
Thanks KK for including Robin Cook's marvellous 2003 resignation speech. I found it hugely moving, not only because of it's intelligent and humane content but because it is true, there are no longer any people in Government it seems, to equal his principled stance. That is beyond sad and very very worrying.
Absolutely spot on KK. You have eloquently put into words what so many of us (who are neither left or right) have been observing in sheer horror. A parliment devoid of principles of morals, just there to serve themselves. Are we to blame? Perhaps but the rise of smaller parties and independents gives me a glimmer of hope. Either that or there will be a tipping point to anarchy!
Agree there is a "demand" issue as Konstantin so well argues. Due to social media or selfishnes we demand shallow and useless polititicians and that is what we get. However, there is also a "supply" issue. Good people simply don't get involved anymroe. So in parliament and in cabinet you are looking at the best of the left overs, the best of a very small percentage of society so it should be no surprise they have very poor capability. And the worse the game gets, the less good people want to be involved, so it is a spiral that is difficult to arrest.
Honestly- here in the US, we are just waiting for a lot of our ancient politicians to die at the Federal level. We need new blood, new ideas. My husband and I noticed this problem about a decade ago when we noticed that the Democratic Party really had a shallow bench. This was before the AOC crazy came along. There was a decent mix of Boomer/Gen X candidates on the GOP side in 2016. Hillary and Bernie were just ancient. I was impressed that the Dems could find a few Gen X candidates in 2020, along with Tulsi being a millennial. It was also interesting to note that only a couple of them weren’t career politicians or lawyers (tulsi and Yang). And then we had old and older with Trump and Biden. Biden has been in and out of Federal office longer than I’ve been alive. I find that disgusting at this point. Leadership wants to act like it’s the 1980’s and the rest of us are just thinking WTH.
The problem of shallow benches, it seems, is real in a lot of countries, not just mine. A lot of our ‘elder statesmen’ really don’t want to retire and make way for the next generation to lead. That’s my answer to the question to why we have the politicians we have. There’s no point in having a deep bench if ‘branded politicians’ (like the Clintons) want to play kingmaker and suck all the energy out the room. Either you kiss the brass ring or you don’t. It’s not about having a deep bench at that point, but who’s loyal and who’s willing to wait their turn and play the game.
Loved this writing, and I believe the same to be true of Australia, the US and all Western countries. We don't have leaders anymore, only people who want popularity. I come from Victoria, Australia, our State Premier is answering questions from a corruption committee but we are not hearing a thing about it on main stream media. The damage done to our state will be realized in the next few years.
Is this a case of, as in many places around the world, you get what you settle for when continually allowing for lower and lower quality of individuals to run for office and you get to the point you’re at now where it’s a matter of ‘having no one else to vote for?’
Here in the US we have institutional investors buying up large chunks of single family homes (courtesy of cheap Fed money). Not only does this price out many young families, but those who were able to buy are in for a rude awakening when Blackrock, et al .decide to exit the housing market leaving a generation holding $400,000 mortgages on a home suddenly worth $250,000. This popping bubble is going to be worse than 2008....much, much worse
The housing problem can never be solved whilst we have uncontrolled immigration. Last year set another record of @900,000, yet the best we ever managed to build was around a third of that. When was the last time you heard any politicians, or political commentators talk about that? No, all they ever say is we need to build more houses... and we already have one of the most densely populated countries in the west.
When you want to destroy a culture and introduce a new one you use people that don't care. Over the last few decades we have had business people, not true politicians asset stripping our country.
It always astonished me how interested our quality papers were in the politics of Brexit (what does this mean for the Tories??) and how uninterested they were in the policy issues. Given Brexit will last a lot longer than our current politicians this just seemed bonkers.
I stopped reading after you put Blair in to the category of people with principle .Your dig at Charles Kennedy was unnecessary and juvenile. The rote started with Blair and his repugnant fraud, Campbell.
I decided then, that your opinion matters little as there's no real thought behind it, no depth. Sorry to be so blunt. Try to be better Konstantin.
Thanks KK for including Robin Cook's marvellous 2003 resignation speech. I found it hugely moving, not only because of it's intelligent and humane content but because it is true, there are no longer any people in Government it seems, to equal his principled stance. That is beyond sad and very very worrying.
Absolutely spot on KK. You have eloquently put into words what so many of us (who are neither left or right) have been observing in sheer horror. A parliment devoid of principles of morals, just there to serve themselves. Are we to blame? Perhaps but the rise of smaller parties and independents gives me a glimmer of hope. Either that or there will be a tipping point to anarchy!
Agree there is a "demand" issue as Konstantin so well argues. Due to social media or selfishnes we demand shallow and useless polititicians and that is what we get. However, there is also a "supply" issue. Good people simply don't get involved anymroe. So in parliament and in cabinet you are looking at the best of the left overs, the best of a very small percentage of society so it should be no surprise they have very poor capability. And the worse the game gets, the less good people want to be involved, so it is a spiral that is difficult to arrest.
Honestly- here in the US, we are just waiting for a lot of our ancient politicians to die at the Federal level. We need new blood, new ideas. My husband and I noticed this problem about a decade ago when we noticed that the Democratic Party really had a shallow bench. This was before the AOC crazy came along. There was a decent mix of Boomer/Gen X candidates on the GOP side in 2016. Hillary and Bernie were just ancient. I was impressed that the Dems could find a few Gen X candidates in 2020, along with Tulsi being a millennial. It was also interesting to note that only a couple of them weren’t career politicians or lawyers (tulsi and Yang). And then we had old and older with Trump and Biden. Biden has been in and out of Federal office longer than I’ve been alive. I find that disgusting at this point. Leadership wants to act like it’s the 1980’s and the rest of us are just thinking WTH.
The problem of shallow benches, it seems, is real in a lot of countries, not just mine. A lot of our ‘elder statesmen’ really don’t want to retire and make way for the next generation to lead. That’s my answer to the question to why we have the politicians we have. There’s no point in having a deep bench if ‘branded politicians’ (like the Clintons) want to play kingmaker and suck all the energy out the room. Either you kiss the brass ring or you don’t. It’s not about having a deep bench at that point, but who’s loyal and who’s willing to wait their turn and play the game.
Loved this writing, and I believe the same to be true of Australia, the US and all Western countries. We don't have leaders anymore, only people who want popularity. I come from Victoria, Australia, our State Premier is answering questions from a corruption committee but we are not hearing a thing about it on main stream media. The damage done to our state will be realized in the next few years.
Excellent, well thought out article.
Is this a case of, as in many places around the world, you get what you settle for when continually allowing for lower and lower quality of individuals to run for office and you get to the point you’re at now where it’s a matter of ‘having no one else to vote for?’
Here in the US we have institutional investors buying up large chunks of single family homes (courtesy of cheap Fed money). Not only does this price out many young families, but those who were able to buy are in for a rude awakening when Blackrock, et al .decide to exit the housing market leaving a generation holding $400,000 mortgages on a home suddenly worth $250,000. This popping bubble is going to be worse than 2008....much, much worse
The housing problem can never be solved whilst we have uncontrolled immigration. Last year set another record of @900,000, yet the best we ever managed to build was around a third of that. When was the last time you heard any politicians, or political commentators talk about that? No, all they ever say is we need to build more houses... and we already have one of the most densely populated countries in the west.
When you want to destroy a culture and introduce a new one you use people that don't care. Over the last few decades we have had business people, not true politicians asset stripping our country.
It always astonished me how interested our quality papers were in the politics of Brexit (what does this mean for the Tories??) and how uninterested they were in the policy issues. Given Brexit will last a lot longer than our current politicians this just seemed bonkers.
I stopped reading after you put Blair in to the category of people with principle .Your dig at Charles Kennedy was unnecessary and juvenile. The rote started with Blair and his repugnant fraud, Campbell.
I decided then, that your opinion matters little as there's no real thought behind it, no depth. Sorry to be so blunt. Try to be better Konstantin.