A case in point might be the closing down of the parliamentary pandemic committee 18 months before Covid struck. Or the sending of troops to Northern Ireland in 1969, supposedly to separate angry Protestants and Catholics from each other but in fact leading to 30 years of death and violence. There seemed a logic to it at the time, but it reaped untold human suffering in its wake.
The current events in Gaza seem so deadly that they have all the hallmarks of a bitterly fought and vast, escalating war. Yet the current leadership of the key players seems to not be thinking of the potential for more harm than has already been committed. We may be in the foothills of greater devastation if leadership doesn’t become truly leaderly and stop us entering the swamp of war.
I wonder if strings are not being pulled elsewhere, as our leaders are led by the nose into untold destruction (excuse me if I have slipped into conspiracy mode for a moment). A history of political leadership over the last hundred or so years would not inspire trust in any of the current leaders, for they seem as narrow in their vision as our own marinated-in-privilege leaders.
Responding to the immediate crisis without a depth of understanding dominates virtually all of our recent history. It may actually be the political history of all political history.
The leaders mankind has thrown up over the centuries may just be unable to see round the next corner. Perhaps our best brains are keeping our hospitals running, or teaching our children, or driving our trains. Or even, dare I say, in our prisons? They are certainly not found in the corridors of power. And that’s the worry: leaderliness requires more than the paucity provided by bourgeois education and some ability to marshal enough votes to be leader.
One believable leader I had the pleasure to meet was the late Michael Young. He mostly avoided politics and got on with creating things that were useful to society. Like the Open University and the Consumers’ Association. Countless initiatives flowed from him, the last being The School for Social Entrepreneurs, which I was involved in in its founding days. What a bright chap he was and an inspiration to know.
But the ones I knew personally were Anita and Gordon Roddick who, as well as being the sponsors of The Big Issue, put Fair Trade on the map. And did a power of good in protecting the people of the Amazonian rainforest. And did an equal power of good in outlawing testing on animals.
Social and cultural innovations, though, must be set against a backdrop of political wisdom and justice. That is why we need to be sure that our leaders are capable of second sight, predicating their actions on avoiding potential threats and the consequences of limited intelligence. Which means a skilful use of available data and not following Blair and Bush down a rabbit hole like Iraq. What a destabilising pig’s ear piece of ‘subsequent history’ that was. Have we yet recovered from it?
The record so far does nothing to encourage us to believe that we have gifted political leaders; thinkers who will avoid the traps of yesteryear, which led us from one half-baked piece of thinking to the next.
Leadership is essential now. Razing Gaza to the ground will be falling into an inextricable political trap. It’s almost as if poverty and ‘belonging’ drive history on like a leaf in a storm drain, relentlessly from one piece of pain to the next.
John Bird is the founder and editor in chief of The Big Issue. Read more of his words here.
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