A Foolish Consistency

It has not been an edifying experience. As the country’s carnival of democracy slouches towards its inevitable ending, it is hard to say that it is much better for it. We have learned nothing to make us think well of the political class; they appear, given the amount of obfuscation from both sides, not to think well of the electorate. Britain looks increasingly like a loveless marriage whose partners stay together for the sake of the NHS.

Whichever poor journo gets to put together the highlights montage for the end of the election programme will find few events of any interest, and those which did occur, were uniformly negative. Rishi Sunak getting wet. Ed Davey mistaking an election campaign for a divorced dad’s weekend at Center Parcs with his estranged children. Keir Starmer getting huffy when he thought the audience were laughing at his father, the notion they might be laughing at him seemingly escaping his intellectual compass.

Depressing though it may have been, it has also been instructive, albeit in a somewhat discouraging fashion. Consider Rishi Sunak’s National Service plan. It is intended, apparently, to be compulsory but how this is to be achieved remains unclear. Notions that there might be criminal sanctions for those who refuse were mooted then denied. Perhaps a carrot would be used instead, those who do it being eligible for some jobs closed to others. Perhaps there would be other sanctions – no driving licence for those who do not “do their bit”. No-one really knows, but on the Prime Minister goes, insisting both that the plan will go ahead and that it is fully thought out.

His opponent is no better. His first marmalade-dropper (in that expression used only by young fogeys) was to suggest that, in the case of a relative being stuck on an NHS waiting list, he would not use the private sector to save them. His second was to argue that Jeremy Corbyn, a former (thanks to Sir Keir) Labour member known for his habit of appearing in the vicinity of terrorists, anti-Semites and, indeed, anti-Semitic terrorists would have been a better Prime Minister than Boris Johnson.

The latter is seen as a bit of a gaffe, allowing journalists to re-open the slightly murky question of what he actually believes. Is he merely cos-playing a Blairite to win power before ruthlessly revealing himself as a Corbynite on the steps of Downing Street, nationalising everything which is not nailed down and force-feeding the nation’s children tie-died Venezuelan muesli at their school breakfast clubs?

Perhaps he is. Or perhaps, like Rishi Sunak, he has become trapped in a web of his own making.

Lionising the NHS and then admitting one would not use the NHS is an odd position. Whether or not it actually is, it seems inconsistent. The logic of the former is that one should deny the latter, even if sacrificing one’s loved ones for one’s principles is the hallmark of the zealot. Having campaigned to put Jeremy Corbyn in Downing Street, it would be strange to argue that Boris Johnson had been a better choice. Both of these answers may make him look odd, but this, it seems, he prefers to looking inconsistent. As does his opponent when he comes up with ever more bizarre ways to make his obviously non-compulsory scheme appear compulsory.

“You can’t handle the truth!” Col. Nathan R. Jessup famously tells Tom Cruise’s lawyer and there may be a similar process at work here. The electorate, in the minds of politicians, are unsophisticated children who expect their politicians to be right all the time. Therefore, politicians must claim to be right all the time, even if, to do so in the light of subsequent information, they must claim four impossible things before breakfast. On the flip-side, it may be that politicians, usually (there are, of course, exceptions) intelligent and always egocentric, do not believe they are ever mistaken and deploy their intellects to rationalise away any evidence that they are, oblivious to the ridicule this earns them.

“Move Fast and Break Things” is the famous mantra of the Silicon Valley tech industry. Companies like Amazon have numerous projects on the go at any time, some of which will work, and some of which will not. The key to their rise has been setting very clear metrics at the outset for what success and failure look like, and applying them ruthlessly and honestly. It does not matter if a project fails as long as its failure is recognised early and it is shut down before it causes too much damage.

This is, of course, the opposite to the approach taken by Britain’s politicians. Unable to admit that a previous approach was flawed, they double down, devoting time and effort to increasingly desperate attempts to show that what was clearly a failure was actually a massive success. This is harmless enough in the context of an election campaign, fodder for day-time chat shows and late night comedy but, as a governing strategy, it is positively dangerous. Today they are merely throwing good words after bad, in a couple of weeks time, they will be throwing your (good) money after bad. For, leaders unable to admit mistakes are leaders who do not correct mistakes, allowing them to fester, causing more and more harm until the electorate loses patience. They may get to go on to the speaking circuit and write their memoirs (neither Rishi’s nor Sir Keir’s will, I confidently predict, be “page-turners”), but it is the voters who are forced to live with the consequences of their actions.

Ironically then, the strategy of seeking your vote by denying their mistakes, shows why you should not give it to them.

Stewart Slater works in Finance. He invites you to join him at his website.

This piece was first published in Country Squire Magazine, and is reproduced by kind permission.

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