JANET DALEY- ON UK LABOR LEADER JEREMY CORBYN…..SEE NOTE PLEASE
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/Jeremy_Corbyn/11877273/Self-serving-rule-bending-MPs-have-a-lot-to-answer-for-after-the-rise-of-Jeremy-Corbyn.html
This statement is so apposite to the pseudo campaign of Donald Trump….and the appeal of Carson and Fiorina….rsk
“Mr Corbyn has spent his political life as an unofficial leader of what Mark Steyn once called the National Coalition Against Anything That Works. Now he is obliged to offer proposals that have to work. Instead, all we are hearing are platitudes about “making the world a better place”. It is time to make the case for professional politics, but for that to be credible, the professionals will have to stop behaving like a confederacy of rule-bending opportunists. “
Self-serving, rule-bending MPs have a lot to answer for after the rise of Jeremy Corbyn Disgust with our political class made the new Labour leader’s ‘authenticity’ the be-all and end-all of his insurgent campaign.
When exactly did “professional” become a term of abuse for politicians? Or, put that another way: why is running the country the only job in which being unprofessional is considered to be a virtue?
The opposite of “professional” is “amateur”. Would you really want an amateur prime minister presiding over an amateur government that ran an amateur economic policy and an amateur system of national security? I doubt it. Maybe you would trust a doctor who crowdsourced his diagnoses and asked laymen to offer possible treatments. Again, I doubt it. Perhaps you would consider handing over your worldly affairs to a lawyer or a financial adviser who appealed to the public for solutions to your problems. I’m inclined to think not.
Of course, democratic politics is different from the learned professions – or even the skilled trades. It is not supposed to be an arcane expertise in which only the initiated can participate. The power over how people are governed should belong to them, and that power should not require specialist qualifications or technical knowledge. That principle is, supposedly, what Jeremy voice-of-the-people Corbyn’s brand of party leadership is about. This can have a kind of plausibility.
There is something fresh and diverting about hearing questions from ordinary voters read out verbatim at Prime Minister’s Questions, even if their “ordinariness” is a moot point, since their queries last week were remarkably similar to Labour’s most familiar refrains. In fact, backbench MPs regularly use PMQs to relay the concerns of specific constituents. But leave Mr Corbyn’s stunt aside, and even the basic premise needs examining.
Britain has a system of representative democracy in which the population elects people to legislate and govern. This is the modern version of democratic rule that replaced the ancient model of direct democracy in which citizens had a personal vote on every governmental decision.
Clearly, in a large, sophisticated country with a universal franchise, direct democracy becomes untenable. In fact, it was only ever workable in societies in which such individual voting power was confined to the elite. (So the idyll at which Corbynism nostalgically hints is, in fact, a highly stratified social structure with an all-powerful governing class.)
The responsibilities of the modern state have become – through a general consensus led by parties of the Left – vastly more complex and technocratic than even the 18th-century version of democracy ever envisaged. So those elected representatives now find themselves responsible not just for the defence of the realm and the soundness of the currency but detailed economic management, national infrastructure, public services and a hugely complex social welfare system. They cannot be guileless know-nothings.
If they are to be fit for purpose as ministers, shadow spokesmen or even backbench MPs, they must understand a myriad range of specialised areas that the “ordinary” voter cannot be expected to master. Arguably, one of the most important functions of MPs is to guide their troubled constituents knowledgeably through the maze of modern governmental channels.
So yes, I’m afraid a degree of professionalism and specialised judgment must come into it if it is to work. Presumably everyone would accept this. What is being protested so vociferously in the condemnation of “professional” politicians is that they have become an enclosed, self-referring, self-serving club with their own language, their own obsessive interests and, worst, their own quasi-Masonic loyalty to their own kind. This suspicion is not without good grounds.
One of the sources of this disillusion was the super-professionalism of the Clinton-Blair era: the grotesque transformation of politics into a branch of advertising. The techniques and the vocabulary of mass marketing with their sinister undertones of mind-manipulation – rebranding, controlling the narrative, focus-group testing – seemed to turn the electoral process into a cynical operation in which political leaders were simply products to be managed by image merchants.
Oddly enough, this excessive attention to public opinion – measuring it, quantifying its effects and monitoring its shifts – was not flattering to the electorate. It was just taken as an indication that this generation of politicians believed in nothing and stood for nothing. Why on earth then should they be seeking office at all, except for personal gain?
Add to this the scandals, and the refusal of the Westminster club to see why protecting its own should be so alienating to the electorate. We have just had another splendid example of this. Parliament, under the spurious guise of protecting its constitutional sovereignty, insists that it be the sole judge and jury of the behaviour of its members. So the House of Commons Committee on Standards, which consists largely of MPs, determines that two fellow MPs who have been recorded offering their services as paid lobbyists are not, in fact, guilty and furthermore, that whatever fault there is lies with the people who recorded them. This is clearly absurd.
But the attitude that produced the judgment, even on a charitable interpretation, is a perfect example of what the public believes to be wrong with the fellowship of “professional” politicians. The members of the Committee almost certainly felt that Jack Straw and Sir Malcolm Rifkind had led worthy political lives, and that it would be personally tragic for them to end their careers in dishonour – a humanly understandable inclination but also a blatant example of how a circle of very privileged, influential people can protect themselves.
The disgust with this attitude has led to serious confusion about the nature of the relationship between those who govern and those who choose them. There has always been a sense that politicians should be likeable but there is a quite new emphasis on personality that is quite dangerous.
Why should “authenticity” and “sincerity” – the great Corbyn watchwords – be the be-all and end-all of political virtue? Some of the most infamous monsters in history were authentic and sincere in their terrible views. Sincerity is a trait you seek in a close friend or lifelong partner, but you are not entering a personal relationship with your party leader What must be your main concerns are that his views about how government should be run are consonant with yours and that he is a rational person.
Governing involves making some concessions and adjusting expectations in order to behave reasonably in the interests of the common good. That is an essential component of a mature democracy based on debate and conscientious disagreement. Unbending obstinacy is an adolescent trait which can only be indulged in by those who have no responsibilities, so the Corbyn brand of “authenticity” is peculiarly ill-suited for government. Adapting to real-world changes, conciliation and dealing in a civil way with difficult adversaries are all legitimate parts of governing.
There would have been precious little of that, unfortunately, where Mr Corbyn comes from. In a world where any challenge to the dogma is condemned as heresy, there can be no argument worth having. When there is no prospect of power, and life is lived as permanent rebellion, there is no pressure to reach achievable goals and create plausible policy.
Mr Corbyn has spent his political life as an unofficial leader of what Mark Steyn once called the National Coalition Against Anything That Works. Now he is obliged to offer proposals that have to work. Instead, all we are hearing are platitudes about “making the world a better place”. It is time to make the case for professional politics, but for that to be credible, the professionals will have to stop behaving like a confederacy of rule-bending opportunists.
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