I suppose I must have thought something like that when I stood for parliament all those years ago. But, instead of me, the country got Margaret Thatcher. People can make up their own minds whether this was a good thing.
Do I think anything of the sort now? Of course not. I may sometimes be tempted by thoughts of what might have been but, fortunately, whenever I get the itch, my wife reminds me that I am too old, insufficiently healthy, disinclined to suffer fools gladly, too idealistic and, in short, I wouldn’t last a month in that madhouse.
She sweetens the pill by telling me that intellectuals, even of the veteran variety, are not what is needed.
She is, naturally, right.
At the same time, I don’t think we really get the politicians we deserve. Or, maybe, if we don’t deserve any better, we certainly don’t get the politicians we need. It would be flattering today’s governmental figures in major western democracies to classify them as third rate. I sympathised with the questioner in the TV debate, before the last UK election, who asked Sunak and Starmer whether they were really the best two candidates for Prime Minister that the country could produce.
The root cause goes right back to Plato’s analysis, delivered in The Republic. “Anyone who would put himself forward for election is not the sort of person you would want to vote for.” (I paraphrase).
What he meant was that people with a high opinion of themselves are not capable of the degree of wisdom and empathy that is required of a ruler. They overestimate their own abilities, and underestimate the problems of society and the world in general.
We are reaping the reward of that attitude in a world that is regressing rapidly from civilisation back to tribalism.
Ideologues prevail everywhere. Rational debate is a thing of the past. Understanding of complexity and nuance is next to non-existent. Truth comes a poor second to feelings. We are so reluctant to look facts in the face that we prefer to insist reality is not a matter of empirical evidence but maleable to our emotions and strength of will.
As Yeats told us a long time ago, today once again once again we find, “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
It seems inevitable, as Plato also put it, that there is a penalty for good men who refuse to govern: it is to be governed by men worse than themselves.
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