WHY ARE OUR POLITICIANS SO USELESS?

Useless politicians litter Europe and ‘the west’. Think of Macron in France; Mertz in Germany; Ursula Von Der Leyen in Europe; Trump; Starmer.

Is it something in the water or are they just a poor crop?

My own view is that they are all pretty hopeless, but it is deeper than this.

In Britain, even if Starmer was a political genius with an incredible team behind him and superb communication skills, he would find it hard to cope.

The reality is that we live in a part of the world in economic decline and when this happens, conflict grows.

Our politicians blame the malign influence of others for this decline – and so whenever they discuss the issues that face us it is always blamed on ‘the other’. Presidents Putin and Xi are prime targets. Harold Wilson more accurately targeted the ‘gnomes of Zurich’.

Our government is and always has been the servant of bankers and big money. It has occasionally been possible to introduce important changes such as happened after the last war. But such change only come when there is a determined leadership with strategic clarity that can offer a way forward. The turmoil of the last war created the conditions for such change.

In ‘normal’ times unless a political party accepts the bones of the status quo they are unlikely to get elected. The information space (aka the media controlled by big money) is heavily weighted against them. If they do get elected, then the full-time officers in ‘the state’ will ‘clip their wings’ and hammer them into line.

Trump ‘governs’ intuitively and is all over the place BUT he ’feels’ one crucial reality. Changing things with a state apparatus that sees the world in a way that you don’t makes it hard to do anything and so he blames the ‘deep state’ for sabotaging his plans. The deep state is a typically Trumpian conspiratorial term - it is simply ‘the state’. The British way to do it is humorously exhibited in ‘Yes Minister’. In Russia it was outlined by Lenin in ‘The State and Revolution’.

All who have worked in Government know what happens. Politicians are either captured or destroyed. Only tough campaigners who promote a few key issues with mass support can change things in normal times. There is a whole generation of aspirational politicians who have been forced to ‘compromise’ by ‘reality’...and have thereby been diminished.

The current leadership in the civil service (the state) is committed to retaining Britain’s influence in the world come what may. They need to be replaced with people who can devise a strategy for a peaceful way forward that includes forging partnerships with countries they may not like. The warmongering nest of vipers in MI6 is a prime candidate for the chop.

The biggest issue the world faces and what ought to unite it is climate change. We need strategic clarity to negotiate around everything else to tackle this. War is a mindless diversion.