With parliament in recess we are now well into the silly season of politicians, usually back bench or of the regionally elected variety, saying ever more outlandish things in order, in the old days to get a few column inches of press, and now to get a few clicks and likes to raise their profile or boost their chances with an increasingly distracted and fractious electorate.
When, I am certain, he would rather be getting away for a few well-deserved days rest, yesterday The Times parliamentary sketch writer Tom Peck was sent to the latest Reform UK press conference focussing on crime where he recounts “Capturing the attention of the British public in the month of August is one of the easiest heists out there. You just have to say something, anything, and, for want of an alternative, people will listen.”
During the press conference one such principled defector to the newly electorally popular party spoke about the “dark heart of wokeness” needing to be cut out of modern policing.
Elsewhere the usual Conservative suspects, terrified of losing their seats to Nigel Farage’s nascent behemoth take every opportunity to call for the suspension of human rights law and the usual senseless nonsense of deploying the ‘full force of the British State, including the military’ to prevent small boats landing on our shores.
It is, of course, supremely ironic, that most of these politicians usually seek to claim the mantle of Margaret Thatcher without ever beginning to comprehend that true leadership, particularly hers, comes from knowing when to remain silent. Our totemic politicians always understood that the power of their words came from knowing when to use them, but just as importantly when not to.
It was said of President Charles de Gaulle that “All those who have achieved something valuable and lasting have been silent and solitary people.”, perhaps a twentieth century interpretation of Plato’s observation of “An empty vessel makes the loudest sound”?
Many of us decry the standard of contemporary politicians as being ‘the worst ever’, but it begs the question whether they are or not?
And the answer, probably, is that they are not but throughout history the standard of most politicians has been overwhelmingly poor. Then General de Gaulle described the politicians of the Fourth Republic as “vinegar pissers and polis-petits-chiens (well-bred little puppy dogs )” before going on to say “I despise them beyond words. I don’t detest them. One cannot detest nothingness.”
The truth is that for every true leader: the de Gaulles, Attlees, Thatchers and Churchills there are countless thousands of Temu versions competing for space without ever understanding their inadequacies compared to the real thing.
It is notable, of course, that politicians only begin to understand the importance of silence when they are no longer concerned with the trivialities of elecability. Speaking truth to power can only ever come when truth isn’t dependent on appeasing fickle voters. Rare interventions by the likes of Lord Cameron, Baroness May or Gordon Brown carry significant weight because they are relative rarity.
Now, over a year since leaving office, and presumably with no elections left to fight, the stock of Rishi Sunak rises significantly precisely because he doesn’t find the need to intervene in silly season stories.
Can any of us really doubt that his understanding of the importance of silence will, eventually, lead to a legacy that far outweighs the constant twitterings of his two immediate predecessors?
It is a truism that we get the politicians that we deserve, sadly it is far rarer to get the statesmen that we need.