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Tuesday 24 November 2020

Neil Oliver: All political parties are 'self-harming'

 




This is interesting if you haven't seen it. TV presenter Neil Oliver gives his views on a number of topical issues, yet although his take on them is considered and quite moderate it is also damning. Things are bad when even a moderate view is damning.  

5 comments:

Sam Vega said...

What I find interesting here is the amount of intelligence, cunning, determination and acumen expended on getting into power, compared to that used in the exercise of power.

Boris seems to have been preparing for his premiership from a very early age, and was helped by very able, hard-working teams. His Parliamentary performance in the run-up to the election was superb. He rightly won a resounding victory.

But now, I imagine most "red wall" Tory voters would have difficulty in thinking of anything useful Boris has done for them. Banning Christmas and banning cars (and that is essentially what he is suggesting) could not be bettered as a means of alienating people.

I wonder how the trade negotiations with the EU are going?

Sobers said...

"What I find interesting here is the amount of intelligence, cunning, determination and acumen expended on getting into power, compared to that used in the exercise of power."

Its the tragic flaw in democracy - the very people who rise to the top under it are the very last people one would want running anything larger than a whelk stall. The people who would be perfect to exercise power are the last people who will ever seek it.

I would posit that we now have a more uniform character of people in power (in terms of their psychological makeup) than we did when the levers of power were held by the aristocracy. Far more different types of human being would have made it to the top, or close to, in those days, purely because the son of Lord Ponsonby automatically became an MP somewhere. He might have been a shy retiring wallflower, but because of the nature of his background power was given to him. Now you have to go out there and grab it for yourself which regardless of political affiliation takes the same personal characteristics. All politicians are the same person, in effect. They represent different parties with slightly different policies, but their fundamental individual personality traits are comparable across the political spectrum. And sadly the universal political type is not well designed to actually rule, rather than climb the greasy ladder.

Graeme said...

How many MPs these days have any managerial or leadership experience? In what way does doing politics or writing journalism prepare you for running a department, let alone a country?

The Jannie said...

As I wrote elsewhere, we've got a "two party" state with a useless team of grey nonentities in power and exercising it badly. What should be a functioning opposition is another bunch of grey nonentities who are not doing opposition at all. What we're landed with is a grey fog without a single shining light visible. Mind you, thankfully, we're one step ahead of Scotland.

A K Haart said...

Sam - I'm also wondering how the trade negotiations with the EU are going. Based on the Boris track record so far, my guess is that they are going very badly. You are right though, the way he acquired power suggests a better grasp of tactics and strategy. In which case, it may be wise to assume that the tactics and strategy are not what they appear to be.

Sobers - "I would posit that we now have a more uniform character of people in power"

I agree - we seem to have a single social class consisting of those who were born to it and those who wormed their way in and intend to stay there. Upper middle class, well educated but more articulate and persuasive than competent.

Graeme - yes, they appear to have very little managerial or leadership experience. In some cases they are too young to have acquired it and even worse, they think it doesn't matter.

Jannie - it's almost as if Scotland is showing us how bad it could be, just to give us some seasonal cheer. Doesn't work though.