It would have been entirely possible to think that yesterday's 'altercation' between UKIP MEPs was just typical of that party. And to some extent it does fit UKIP's current image of an organisation riven with bewildered, purposeless, infighting with an added physical edge in a party that even some within it yesterday admitted was too inclined towards violence. Unfortunately that won't do though. The reality is that this fight was indicative of three things.
The first is bewilderment across the political classes post the Brexit vote. Even UKIP does not know how to deal with the consequences of something they never really thought was going to happen and where the reality is already far from the myth of the utopian land of milk and honey that they created. UKIP is just revealing the stress a little more than most.
Second it is indicative of a rapidly declining willingness to cooperate in politics. This is not just a problem for UKIP. It very obviously afflicts Labour too. But that's not all: the LibDems are still very obviously divided along Orange Book lines whilst even the Greens have divisions on just what being green means. The Greens have, however, managed to contain these divisions, as have the Tories to date. But I do seriously wonder how long that will last in the Conservative's case. The EU has always been their fault line. Now it is the only issue left for them I really do lack confidence in their ability to contain their differences, even whilst knowing that this is the ultimate party of compromise to gain power. My suspicion is that well before 2020 they too will succumb to outright hostilities.
Third, what is so obvious is how low is the quality of politician we now have. Theresa May is hardly a political giant. Jeremy Corbyn and Tim Farron are not (and it's fair to include Farron: an even smaller Liberal grouping once included Jo Grimond, a giant of a politician). The Greens are fortunate to have Caroline Lucas. UKIP Seem only to produce rogues of varying appeal. And behind these people are teams of what might best be described as indifferent quality in most cases when compared to those who have hold positions of political authority in the past. We have politicians who lack authority, experience, ideas and even basic political skills such as leadership, listening, intellectual capacity or curiosity, negotiating ability, the willingness to compromise when necessary and charisma.
All of which worries me.
We're in a mess. The current political scene is not characterised by a minor altercation. It's a pretty big hole. And I have no real confidence that many of those tasked with getting us out of it are equipped with anything more than a spade, and are still digging as a result.
We need same ladder builders. I am just not sure where they are.
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Me neither.
Could you define ‘ladder builder’ and I will help you in your search.
We may need to consider that modern politics is so nasty that it is not an attractive proposition to the better people we seek.
There is that risk
If is a good explanation for its lack of appeal to me
Varoufakis:
“Yes. If Harold Wilson was an 18-year-old today, he probably wouldn’t want to go into politics. If Willy Brandt was an 18-year-old today, he wouldn’t want to go into politics. And this is why politicians aren’t what they used to be. It’s not because our DNA is degenerating. It’s that there is a natural Darwinian process, a natural selection process. Politics attracts the least well-meaning and least talented people because the political sphere has been devalued.”
We see through May and Hammond a further step in the devaluing of the political class.
In the absence of proven leaders, we need to become better followers. If we can get behind the leaders we’ve got, perhaps we can at least build the best possible foundation for those who eventually emerge.
For those who care about social justice, I’m afraid that means Corbyn. He may not be much, but he’s all we’ve got.
Yes – I’m inclined to agree with that one (about Corbyn) but we must also be brave and choose others – and for me it is Caroline Lucas.
However, those who have voted for UKIP could equally claim the same motivation. Stephen Wolf actually said in his interview on Radio 4 before his his ‘altercation’ that we need to ‘inflate wages’ in the UK. OK, we may not like his stance on immigration or how his party conducts itself but I also agree with him. He is right.
The trouble is he said that whilst Eddie Mair was spending more time on digging about Wolf’s admiration for Theresa May that this statement was practically ignored (Mair is a good journalist but his talent is too often misdirected into the wrong issue in my view).
And there is another option……..that those of us who are increasingly angry and disenchanted need to get off our backsides and become part of the solution.
To your last sentence PSR, this feels to me like a ‘not in my name’ moment. Something like the Iraq war protest. Alhough I know it did not stop the war, it crystallised a view amongst many of the public that ultimately destroyed Blair.
May and her acolytes are destroying my country in so many ways. They need to see how many of us profoundly disagree. What I cannot yet see is where the catalyst or nucleus for such a response might be
I’ve always taken the view that our FPTP voting system has led to many less than desirable characters entering politics and for the wrong reasons. MEPs are elected by PR but the current UKIP shambles doesn’t perhaps disprove my hypothesis entirely when you consider they are nothing but a protest party in the European Parliament so they are clearly doomed longer-term. Literally fighting for their careers, it would seem!
I don’t think the chancers in politics would disappear entirely if we had a grown up PR-based electoral system in this county, but I’d like to think we would see less self-serving venality in our elected representatives. Of course, it would be nice if the major parties selected fewer candidates with this type of character, but it doesn’t seem particularly likely in the shorter term.
‘ We have politicians who lack authority, experience, ideas and even basic political skills such as leadership, listening, intellectual capacity or curiosity, negotiating ability, the willingness to compromise when necessary and charisma.’
it just might be Richard that this ‘crisis’ is the start of the end of the political class-as we can see more than clearly what time serving, vile opportunists there are. It might also be that the age of the ‘charismatic leader’ is over and that this may be a good thing and lead to other, more fruitful channels of democracy.
The situation of the Labour Party is interesting in this respect: we have aleader who, in my view, became popular amongst members (lots of new ones) BECAUSE of his lack of image, PR packaging and what we traditionally see as charisma – Corbyn broke all the rules (without even being particularly conscious of it himself!).
Richard, your words seem to lament the lack of the charismatic leader-but isn’t this the past, thinking that the answer is more of the old model. I prefer to see it as a call to a further evolution of human consciousness that starts to ditch the ‘leader’ mentality and instead encourages a more vocal citizen released from the passive coach potato mentality. Again, the Labour Party is interesting here: it now has a membership largely at odds with its PLP and a tug of war is taking place between membership and the M.P.s which is displaying interesting fault lines about democracy and where power ultimately resides.
i don’t yet think the broader populace (at the risk of sounding patronising and condescending!) is ready to become more vocal, we’ve had too many years of biased MSM and dumbed-down debate but there are signs with Momentum that people are finding a voice and also a lot of released repressed anger towards the political class.
Doesn’t the Chinese word for ‘crisis’ also mean ‘opportunity’? The present confusion and yearning for a silken-voiced leader is an expression of this crisis/opportunity. i don’t think there will be anymore ‘charismatic’ leaders. We need to live with that and take more responsibility on our shoulders.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QereR0CViMY
Simon
I have to say from my wider reading that the quality of ‘charisma’ in modern politicians seems to be closely aligned with those who have very little technical ability – for example a sound grasp of how an economy actually works.
What we need in my view is politicians who are further up the technocrat level – a level that is beyond dogma, grounded in observed causes and effects of policy – not the theoretical world of the neo-lib economist which is no better than fiction in my view.
Such people will never come from the top of society which is far too comfortable. The next batch of politicans needs to come from those who have lived with adverse policies 24/7 – they need to come from the mainstream of society in my view.
We may already be seeing this in the UKIP phenomenon. I don’t like them but I have to ask myself ‘Why do they exist?’. They exist because something is wrong – just like other groups we don’t like around the world exist by reacting to what they see as an injustice. They exist because the mainstream parties tend to ignore them. And it that case those mainstream parties have failed.
One of the problems with UKIP however is that it using the pain and anger of its followers to pursue agendas held by rich donors and those at the top of the party. But is that any different to a neo-lib Tory Party and an internecine Labour party?
PSR-I agree totally. The UKIP phenomenon (which Hammond, May, Rudd are ‘grooming’ for their own vile purposes) is a response to a feeling of somethings wrong. Farage, of course is a stockbroker happy to feed his followers with bogus explanations about the roots of their problems. I can remember, just before the last election, Farage explaining that the housing issues were ‘just’ a shortage of houses exacerbated by immigration. This sort of simplistic stuff appeals to people who are tired and stressed and haven’t got the energy or the skills to probe. of course , it should be honest politicians that provide a better explanation but, as we know, labour failed dismally to do this and thereby gave oxygen to UKIP. Under Corbyn/McDonell we are getting closer towards better narratives but we are, in my view, along way from ‘telling the real story.’ If Corbyn/McD don’t get their act together quickly on this the vile xenophobia fanned further by the Tories will lead to the obvious results.
Or we need charismatic leaders who know how to work with technical advisors.
I think that is true
Charisma has value, in my opinion
Yes – that is certainly something to think about Will. I have to say though that I think charisma is over rated. Having studied it in leadership in business practice it seems to be used a coverall for all sorts of dodgy stuff. And it is no guarantee against arrogance, ignorance or hubris.
Having just got over David Cameron, I’m in no mood charisma! Sorry!
I think I agree here with PSR. Our general sense of the word ‘charisma’ these days is rather perjorative, meaning someone whouses force of personality to get power or to ‘charm’ people in a sly manipulative way using their ego as a tool for convincing people of their ‘rightness.’
Corbyn doesn’t have much of it yet it is just that that people found ‘attractive’ rather than the creosoted, besuited, snake oil salesmen we have had for many years. In the past (over 40 years ago) politicians used verbal skill and rhetoric in a skillful way, that skill has now been lost to soundbite and ‘spun’ image. <ay, for example is being sold as a Thatcher 2.0 with a cache of social class and the rather Anglican British rose look of the recto's wife. This conceals the vile hypocrite and chancer underneath that exterior.
I think we need politicians to do a good job representing the needs of the people to the best of their ability and with objectivity -you don't need charisma for that just integrity, a sense of public service and the ability to learn from others.
I should add that by “charismatic”, I don’t mean a snake oil salesman. I mean someone who has the ability to strike a chord in people. Corbyn does seem to have that ability, even though he is the exact opposite of flashy.
But the key point is that the leader does not have to be the brain behind the policy. He does have to exercise judgement in choosing the policy and in nurturing the team that will bring it to life. This is where Corbyn has a lot to prove.
Also the ability to work with advisors without either:
1. abdicating judgement to them or
2. using them only to reinforce existing prejudice
is rare and precious.
Obama is good enough for me. Intellectual,academic, constitutional lawyer of some standing, emotionally literate. That he is the servant of the US political machine rather than its master is possibly a matter of regret, but those same constraints would hopefully deal with the excesses of a Trump. Obama certainly has the kind of leadership qualities we wish for in our own politicians. His policies and his record in office another matter.
There are some talented, bright people in politics but goodness the quality is spread thin and has little depth. I cannot recall a time when there are so few heavyweights on the political scene. People that command attention and respect, even though you may not agree with what they are saying are very rare.
It’s depressing and worrying at a time when the country desperately needs people of substance and character to steer us through what is going to be some very difficult times.
The last decent politician we had was the late John Smith who has been described as the best prime minister we never had
Yes – it would have been interesting to see what would have happened had Smith lived.
The desperate drive for unlimited material growth on a finite planet is a hole in the sand, to which most politicians race to deposit their heads -so many there’s plenty of room for a ladder. Rachel Carson built the first rung by telling us about ‘Silent Spring’. Greens built on it by showing how we could address the threat decades ago and avoid today’s climate crisis while employing people, reducing inequality and averting recession. If enough of us had helped build said ladder, then maybe yesturday’s scaremongering would not have become today’s headline. I hope we can avert today’s realism becoming our children’s horror. Why not be part of the solution and join the #GreenParty ladder building?