> *Our system produces terrible politicians, culminating in this PM, while our culture mistakes politics for a game*
> Boris Johnson is a terrible prime minister and a worse human being. But he is not a monster newly sprung from a rent between this world and the next. Twenty years have passed since the Conservative party first selected him as a candidate. Michael Howard and David Cameron made him a shadow minister, and Theresa May gave him the Foreign Office. Thirty years of celebrity made him famous for his mendacity, indifference to detail, poor administration, and inveterate betrayal of every personal commitment. Yet, knowing this, the majority of Conservative MPs, and party members, still voted for him to be prime minister. He is not, therefore, an aberration, but a product of a system that will continue to produce terrible politicians long after he is gone.
> MPs selected him because they would not risk the possibility of a smaller majority under a better leader. Winning mattered more than governing well. And the public often seems to share this indifference. Dominic Cummings’ seven-hour testimony last year on exactly how bad Johnson had been at exercising power had little effect on his popularity. And his current collapse is not because of his gross mishandling of the Brexit negotiations, or one of the worst combinations of Covid death-rates and economic damage anywhere in the world, but because he went to a party.
> Which is why — although British politics is undermined by Johnson’s brutal indifference to constitutional structures or expert judgment — his very presence reveals a more fundamental problem: the narrowness and partisanship of our political parties, and their focus on the permanent campaign. By focusing more on gossip and games against the opposition, than on the detail of running the country, parliament has long turned previously dignified MPs into humiliated automatons.
> Even under Cameron, or Gordon Brown, able MPs were regularly overlooked, and some of the most arrogant, unreliable, and poorly informed were promoted. As a minister I was frequently placed in roles for which I had no expertise. When I took responsibility for the air pollution killing tens of thousands, or overcrowded prisons consumed by ever-increasing violence, I found a system that responded not with solutions but with press lines. As soon as I developed an understanding of my brief, I was reshuffled. And I was promoted because of loyalty, not performance. No civil service can compensate for such ineptitude.
> We do, of course, need new policies. I am proud to be part of The Britain Project, a cross-party collaboration, making arguments for the independence of the judiciary; for a better and closer relationship with the EU; for respecting the Good Friday Agreement in spirit and letter; and for a Britain confidently and proudly participating in multilateral structures abroad. As Tony Blair observed this week, “there is a gaping hole in the governing of Britain where new ideas should be”.
> But to get rid of Johnson and promote new policies is not enough. Existing parties already make many attractive policy claims. But in almost every case what purports to be a solution is simply a restatement of the problem — a description of what we lack, and do not have the resources to do. For instance, aspirations to foster “an open and resilient international order” coincide with cuts to the army, the Foreign Office and international development aid.
So does America. We’re going through an era of low quality, corrupt leaders.
I’d be thrilled to even get one let alone an era of them.
Time to shut westminster down and let the home nations get on with it independently
We all do.
The Queen needs to step up. Off with the heads!
They should let an Indian CEO manage Britain
I’d call that the understatement of the century but that in itself would be an understatement
Long article that means kick out Bojo and the tories.
Britain needs a new era of non-conservatism.
John Major looks like an absolute giant compared to the last three prime ministers.
If we just barred Etonians from entering politics, it would be a start
They tried, but he got ousted by infighting at his own party…
13 comments
> **Britain needs a new era of serious leaders**
> *Our system produces terrible politicians, culminating in this PM, while our culture mistakes politics for a game*
> Boris Johnson is a terrible prime minister and a worse human being. But he is not a monster newly sprung from a rent between this world and the next. Twenty years have passed since the Conservative party first selected him as a candidate. Michael Howard and David Cameron made him a shadow minister, and Theresa May gave him the Foreign Office. Thirty years of celebrity made him famous for his mendacity, indifference to detail, poor administration, and inveterate betrayal of every personal commitment. Yet, knowing this, the majority of Conservative MPs, and party members, still voted for him to be prime minister. He is not, therefore, an aberration, but a product of a system that will continue to produce terrible politicians long after he is gone.
> MPs selected him because they would not risk the possibility of a smaller majority under a better leader. Winning mattered more than governing well. And the public often seems to share this indifference. Dominic Cummings’ seven-hour testimony last year on exactly how bad Johnson had been at exercising power had little effect on his popularity. And his current collapse is not because of his gross mishandling of the Brexit negotiations, or one of the worst combinations of Covid death-rates and economic damage anywhere in the world, but because he went to a party.
> Which is why — although British politics is undermined by Johnson’s brutal indifference to constitutional structures or expert judgment — his very presence reveals a more fundamental problem: the narrowness and partisanship of our political parties, and their focus on the permanent campaign. By focusing more on gossip and games against the opposition, than on the detail of running the country, parliament has long turned previously dignified MPs into humiliated automatons.
> Even under Cameron, or Gordon Brown, able MPs were regularly overlooked, and some of the most arrogant, unreliable, and poorly informed were promoted. As a minister I was frequently placed in roles for which I had no expertise. When I took responsibility for the air pollution killing tens of thousands, or overcrowded prisons consumed by ever-increasing violence, I found a system that responded not with solutions but with press lines. As soon as I developed an understanding of my brief, I was reshuffled. And I was promoted because of loyalty, not performance. No civil service can compensate for such ineptitude.
> We do, of course, need new policies. I am proud to be part of The Britain Project, a cross-party collaboration, making arguments for the independence of the judiciary; for a better and closer relationship with the EU; for respecting the Good Friday Agreement in spirit and letter; and for a Britain confidently and proudly participating in multilateral structures abroad. As Tony Blair observed this week, “there is a gaping hole in the governing of Britain where new ideas should be”.
> But to get rid of Johnson and promote new policies is not enough. Existing parties already make many attractive policy claims. But in almost every case what purports to be a solution is simply a restatement of the problem — a description of what we lack, and do not have the resources to do. For instance, aspirations to foster “an open and resilient international order” coincide with cuts to the army, the Foreign Office and international development aid.
So does America. We’re going through an era of low quality, corrupt leaders.
I’d be thrilled to even get one let alone an era of them.
Time to shut westminster down and let the home nations get on with it independently
We all do.
The Queen needs to step up. Off with the heads!
They should let an Indian CEO manage Britain
I’d call that the understatement of the century but that in itself would be an understatement
Long article that means kick out Bojo and the tories.
Britain needs a new era of non-conservatism.
John Major looks like an absolute giant compared to the last three prime ministers.
If we just barred Etonians from entering politics, it would be a start
They tried, but he got ousted by infighting at his own party…