https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ncompetent
This is a longish article but absolutely worth the read. An extract from a book by former Tory MP and minister of various portfolios, Rory Stewart. So much in here. A few highlights:
An election had just happened. Two Oxford-educated former special advisers in their mid to late 40s – David Cameron and George Osborne – had just defeated two Oxford-educated former special advisers in their mid to late 40s – Ed Miliband and Ed Balls. They had tried, for the sake of the election, to draw clear lines. But in truth, they shared beliefs about the world, which they had developed during their 20s and early-30s: the period just after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, when they had left Oxford and become high-flying party aides and aspiring politicians.
I enjoyed this appropriate nod to the inadequacy of duopolous political systems and the assumptions that both parties maintained (and still do).
By the time of the 2015 election, the productivity of the British economy had been stagnant for seven years, wages had barely risen in real terms, public sector debt had risen by 50% since 2008, and government revenues struggled to keep pace with the demands of public services. Globally, the rise in democracies had halted, and then began to fall. The “social media revolution” of the Arab spring had failed. Hundreds of thousands had been killed in the Syrian civil war and more than four million refugees had fled the country. The west was humiliated further by our inability to influence the direction of the Yemeni civil wars or to bring any form of stability to Libya. Russia had invaded Crimea. Egypt had reverted to military rule. Modi had been elected in India, and the Law and Justice party was on its way to taking power in Poland. Donald Trump was poised to be the leading Republican contender for the presidency of the United States. Boris Johnson had re-entered the House of Commons. And David Cameron had promised a Brexit referendum.
In short, each of the three assumptions of 90s liberal democracy were now discredited....
It's a long quote but i think it provides clarity around the chasm that is liberal democratic theory and reality. It also provides some insight into how woefully out of touch and bereft of ideas most politicians are. The author would know, and he's not afraid to be honest, at least in hindsight:
...Nine years in politics had already been a dismal insight into the lack of seriousness in British politics. In 2015, the then environment secretary Liz Truss, for example, had asked me to produce a 10-point plan for the national parks within a week of my taking office, thus revealing that what pretended to be policy was simply a press release designed to give the illusion of dynamism. I had discovered how grotesquely unqualified so many of us, including myself, were for the offices we were given.
Oh yes....we know all about government by announcement after a full term of scott fucking morrison, who of course took the craft to previously undreamt of levels. There's quite a lot of this in the UK, apparently, especially when buffoon Boris takes over.
I could quote much of this piece but one could just read it. I suppose it dispels any lingering doubts over political competency. Not that i have many, but sometimes you do wonder whether these people do actually have some large shadowy plan, not in a conspiracy theory sense, but just an over all vision and plan that they can't properly articulate to the public but there is at least some group of people at the wheel. Yeah...nah...they got no fucking clue.
One final point, as an aside:
Politicians like Trump were supported by people who knew they lied to subvert the system, but voted for them nonetheless, to fling them like a hand grenade at the political structures of their world. An age of liberal optimism had been replaced by an age of populism.
I somewhat like the image of Trump as a hand grenade. I don't see DeSantis as that, he's more a nazi dictator, but Trump for another four years will collapse the whole facade, one would think. I'm not at all sure if i'm even opposed to it.
Anyway, a good article.