Saturday, 9 July 2022
Anointing The Next Prime Minister
As a plain, practical man of the world, I must realize that it is the Prime Minister who has been murdered. As a plain, practical man of the world, I don’t think that the Prime Minister matters at all. As a mere matter of human importance, I should say he hardly exists at all. Do you suppose if he and the other public men were shot dead tomorrow, there wouldn’t be other people to stand up and say that every avenue was being explored, or that the Government had the matter under the gravest consideration? The masters of the modern world don’t matter. Even the real masters don’t matter much. Hardly anybody you ever read about in a newspaper matters at all.’
G.K. Chesterton - The Father Brown Stories (1929)
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2 comments:
Individualist versus structuralist theories of leadership. Are there "great men", as Carlyle thought, or do social forces and processes push certain people into prominence? Did Boris cleverly use his Oxford-student buffoonery to climb the greasy pole, or was he propelled up the pole by our need to have someone like that?
I wouldn't want to favour the last option too much, because of what it says about the rest of us. Imagine a country being so dull that we have an historical need for Rishi Sunak.
Sam - I'm sure there are "great men", but not many and they aren't generally attracted to politics. Maybe Boris had a certain potential, but the potential is not nurtured as it could be. The whole governing structure doesn't seem to attract, lift and support the best there is and make the most of it. As if we are too divided to be effective.
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