{"id":9057,"date":"2022-08-30T09:18:59","date_gmt":"2022-08-30T09:18:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=9057"},"modified":"2022-08-30T09:19:01","modified_gmt":"2022-08-30T09:19:01","slug":"wanted-gifted-individual","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=9057","title":{"rendered":"Wanted: Gifted Individual"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a>
The Good Fairies at the Christening\/Ladybird Books<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

As each day goes by, the Tory leadership race grows more unedifying, with the latest outrage being Liz Truss\u2019s cheap shot at Emmanuel Macron, simply to raise a laugh at a hustings event. She\u2019s Foreign Secretary, FFS! Did she not read the job description? If she doesn\u2019t realise that the very least she can do as Foreign Sec. is not slag off heads of state, is she really the right person for the top job?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem, as many commentators have noted before, is that for the most part the people who are most desperate for the top job are the very last people who should be entrusted with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So if we could have a queue of good fairies waiting round the crib of a future PM to confer blessings, what qualities should they be bringing to the infant?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Openness:<\/strong> this one is actually included in the Standards for Public Life. Nevertheless, a daily diet of the Today<\/em> programme has made me long for the politician who is prepared to say \u2018Yes\u2019, \u2018No\u2019, or \u2018I don\u2019t know\u2019 once in a while. As a civil servant, it was often my job to brief ministers going off to visit parts of the kingdom a long way from Westminster. They needed to be briefed to within an inch of their lives. The concept of actually going to the place and asking people what it was like to live there did not seem to occur to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Empathy: <\/strong>following on from the above, I think anyone who has not had to struggle \u2013 against poverty, trauma, disability, or discrimination, say \u2013 for at least some period in their lives should be disbarred from policy-making. This experience would, I hope, deter them from making decisions that benefit plutocrats and shareholders rather than ordinary people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Humility:<\/strong> once they get to high office, ministers seem to forget that they are there to serve the populace. They must have humility to accept that they have made a bad decision and reverse it when evidence shows the need to do so. They need humility to recognise that sometimes the opposition \u2013 or even the dreaded experts \u2013 have better ideas: ones that may cut across their own dogma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Relevant knowledge:<\/strong> there are a number of books that candidates should have to read and answer exam questions on before they are allowed anywhere near power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  • Why Love Matters<\/em>, so they can understand why their constituents can\u2019t all exert will power and pull themselves up by their bootstraps<\/li>
  • Why Nations Fail<\/em>, for incontrovertible evidence from history that those societies who do not share the wealth they generate beyond their elites are doomed to extinction<\/li>
  • Cloud Atlas<\/em>, for its vivid portrayal of what the ravages of climate change will look like, and of the horrors of a forced return of a pre-industrial age \u00ad\u2013 or indeed any book like Silent Spring<\/em>, This Changes Everything<\/em>, An Inconvenient Truth<\/em>, etc.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    If you have other titles you\u2019d like to add to this set text list, let us know!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Distance vision:<\/strong> oh for politicians with the ability to see beyond the next election (or referendum, maybe?) \u2013 with the foresight, say, to wean us off fossil fuels or plan for an adequate workforce \u2013 and the verve to sell us such policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    As for the bunch that have been leading us for the last twelve years, I\u2019ll let Aesop (620\u2013564 BCE) have the last word: \u2018We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to high office.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Ministers seem to forget that they are there to serve the populace<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":9064,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,217,58,55,65,56,307],"tags":[483,484],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9057"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9057"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9073,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9057\/revisions\/9073"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}