Diplomat Magazine - 13th November 2008
I write this less than two weeks after Barack Obama’s decisive and historic victory in the American Presidential Election. There is no doubting that this is the most significant event of the last year and the consequences are bound to be profound. If, as I hope and believe, the charismatic candidate becomes a true leader among World Leaders we can look beyond the turmoil and gloom of recession to a brighter future. If, by whatever sad chance, he fails to live up to the hopes and expectations of the vast crowds that hailed his victory at home, and the millions who welcomed it around the world, the torch of world leadership will pass in our generation to other hands and we shall face a future of bleak uncertainty. But as we approach Christmas, the season of goodwill, and the New Year, it behoves us all to look forward with determined optimism, not least because our current problems have been compounded by pessimism and panic. Not since the dark days of the 1930s and early 40s have we needed inspirational leadership more.
Here in the United Kingdom the first six weeks of the new Parliamentary term have seen an extraordinary revival in the fortunes of Gordon Brown. I wrote in my last column that the challenges to his premiership were a thing of the past, whatever happened in the Glenrothes by-election. That by-election set the seal on his come back and there is no doubt that his handling of the economic crisis to date has impressed people beyond Westminster.
In Westminster the uneasy bipartisan response to the crisis quickly disintegrated. Conservative politicians will long remember how in less difficult, but still tricky, economic times the Labour Opposition of the day was never able to give support or credit to John Major’s Government on domestic issues. Now they are in a mood for retribution. So while Mr Brown consistently talks about the global nature of the economic crisis, Mr Cameron points to Gordon Brown’s raid on Pension Funds and selling of Gold Reserves, and failure to harbour resources when times were good, as being significant contributory factors to the harsh realities we now face. Both, of course, are right – to a degree. But though the acerbity of Party Politics is the lifeblood of a healthy democracy there are times, when democracies fall sick, to put the scoring of points against ones opponent rather lower down the list than when times are good.
Being a responsible opposition is never easy. It is even more difficult when those who lead the main opposition party feel that the government of the day is making a hash of things. But then oppositions generally do feel that about governments. At a time of real national crisis a responsible opposition has to rein in its rhetoric and curb its criticisms. When the crisis is an economic one (and there has never been an economic crisis like this in the active lifetime of any politician at Westminster) one has to do even more. For when the mood is febrile and the tendency to panic is there all that it needs to make a bad situation worse is for a leading political figure to allow understandable pessimism, and equally understandable frustration, to express itself in what, in normal times, would be acceptable political rhetoric.
If I had to make a forecast now I would say that in the General Election of 2010 (and I doubt whether Mr Brown will go before then) the electorate is likely to turn to a younger and more charismatic leader. But 18 months is a very long time in Politics and if, as we must all devoutly hope, panic subsides and pessimism is replaced by optimism and the economic corner turned, Mr Brown may well be seen as the man of the hour. If on the other hand the recession worsens Mr Cameron and Mr Brown will have to bury their personal animosity (which is a very sad reality of political life) and see what they can do together to rescue the country they both love. ‘Patriotism is not enough’ but without it no political leader can ever succeed. It is a virtue to be elevated above the strife of Party rancour.
Meanwhile there are many things which rightly stir political passions, and have little, if anything, to do with the economic crisis. As a former Schoolmaster I never thought I would see the day when a Government would push through legislation that would give school children the legal right to be consulted on how their schools were run, and how they were disciplined!
We live in a strange world but may all readers of the Diplomat have a Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year – a particularly heart felt wish as 2008 grinds to a close.
