The Fool on the Hill: The Triumph of the Mediocracy

[Yes, actually, the title of this essay was intended to be 'the triumph of mediocrity'. I mistyped. Sometimes, to err is divine.]

As the UK's General Election campaign stumbles uncertainly into its third week, one thing becomes abundantly clear: none of the leading politicians in any of Britain's mainstream political parties are any good at their jobs. Every one of them is mediocre at best, utterly incompetent at worst. The one possible exception is Farage, but

1. He isn't really a politician in the normal sense of the word; and
2. He isn't in a mainstream party.

So how do we get here? And, how can we get out of this situation?

If you've ever stood for selection as a candidate — as I have, years ago, for the SNP — you'll know that there's one question which is certain to arise in your interview. At least, I can speak only for the SNP's process, but I'm prepared to bet all other parties ask variants of this question:

Suppose an issue arises on which you have a strong conscientious view. The party line is different from your view, and the whips order you to follow the party line. What would you do?

The answer they're looking for, of course — and the only one they'll accept — is that you'll abandon your conscience and vote as ordered. And there's a certain amount of sense in that, because the last thing party managers want is a bunch of bolshy back-benchers.

And in a sense that is the point, although that is a point I shall return to; but the point I'm seeking to make here is different. It is this.

There are three things you can do with that question:

1. You can say, honestly, that you would vote with your conscience, in which case you won't be selected;
2. You can say, honestly, that you would obey the whip, which is how we get unprincipled people like Sunak and Starmer;
3. You can lie gaily and convincingly, and claim that you would obey the whip, which is how we get charlatans and fantasists like Johnson and Truss.

And the question arises: if your conscience doesn't matter to you, if you would vote against something you saw as of overriding importance on the orders of the whips, why are you standing for elected office in the first place? People like Rory the Tory Stewart claim that they stand for office in order to make the world a better place. And, indeed, that does seem the only honourable reason to stand for elected office. But if you have stood for office to make the world a better place, and you're faced with a vote which divides you on conscience from your party, is it plausible that the thing your conscience is urging you to vote for is something which in your view would make the world worse?

It seems to me that very clearly it cannot be.

So: you've gone into public life to make the world a better place, and your party has ordered you to vote for something which in your opinion makes it a worse place. Are you going to obey the whip? Really?

As I said above, the last thing party managers want is bolshy back benchers, They want a quiet life. They want a party which appears disciplined, and united. So they select for people who don't have strong opinions. They select for people who don't have strong principles, robust consciences. For people who are not deep thinkers. And, the thing is, they've (now) been doing this for generations.

And as Philip Larkin wrote,

But they were fucked up in their turn

By fools in old-style hats and coats...

Man hands on misery to man.

It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Those party managers, those apparatchiks, were selected in their turn in exactly the same way. The principled, the conscientious, the deep thinking, those were consciously and deliberately weeded out and rejected. What remains are the entitled, the ambitious, and the venal.

So the party managers, like the leaders, are people without strong convictions, strong political opinions. They want to win, not to make the world a better place, but for the sake of winning; for power, for reputation, for access to wealth, for tribalism. And the people who fund the political parties — the small cabal of people who fund all our mainstream parties — don't particularly care which of those parties they back wins, because none of them will seek to bite the hand that feeds them.

Our politicians may be useless human beings, but they're excellent dogs. They'll do what they're told, come to heel when called, beg and whine for treats, and defend their owners loudly and fiercely from all perceived threats.

We literally don't have time for this. The planet is burning, now, and none of our mainstream parties have any plans to address this. Furthermore, we cannot expect those selected by and elected by the existing system to radically change it. Nor can we expect anything but very radical change to be sufficient to our needs.

Electing any these cravens, cretins, criminals, clowns and charlatans now is an irrelevance. They have neither the power, the understanding nor the will to even perceive the problems that our world is faced with; they have not the tools nor the strategies to address them. The time to engage in electoral politics is over. The only politics that matter now — the only fora in which we as people can effect the urgently needed change in the world — are in our communities, our workplaces, and on the streets. It's time for general strikes, and for barricades.

Viva la revolución!

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