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Jock Coats — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 14:59:32 +0000

I think it has more to do with humility than intellectual ability.

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Neil Craig — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 14:50:56 +0000

One of the faults of democracy is that the elected reflect the electors & really bright people don't get elected.

On the other hand nobody thought Stalin a greater intellectual than Trotsky.

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Jock Coats — Wed, 17 May 2006 13:00:39 +0000

Nice! Thanks for that!

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Gavin Ayling — Wed, 17 May 2006 11:32:56 +0000

On the pace of life, Thomas Jefferson once said to the President at the time words to the effect:
I've not heard from the ambassador to Spain for two years. If I don't hear from him next year... I'll write to him."

Do we ask too much of "superhuman" ministers

Jock — Tue, 16 May 2006 10:40:11 +0000

In a Guardian article about Jack Straw to broker deal on party funding towards the end he is quoted, about his previous jobs at Home and Foreign Secretary as saying:

Mr Straw said that he welcomed the change of job in part because in nine years as home secretary and foreign secretary he had been on call, night and day, without a break.

"There had to come a time at one stage where I was going to be able, not to go off duty entirely, but not to have to respond to emergency calls all the time," he said.

This is a recurrent theme in my political outlook. We do not vote for these people to be "superhuman". To be the only person who can possibly field "emergency calls" all the time. The Prime Minister is even worse - we do not vote for him to pretend to be in a cabal ruling the planet on his own with the leaders of G8 or whatever group it is today.

It's one reason I so loathe the Westminster/Whitehall government model. I think of the MPs I know, and some of them have been top stream ministers, and well, they're not terribly extraordinary people. In fact the most extraordinary thing I find about most MPs is their rather off putting egos.

I don't know if a better system can be devised. I seem to think that in the past the pace of life, and diplomacy, has been that much slower than an individual did have the time to take it all in and have something of a life. Do they think it's a mark of humility to be our "servant" all day and all night? Well it's not, it's the worst of egotism that says "I am the only person out of 60,000,000 citizens who can possibly deal with this, so i must be constantly available".

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Do we ask too much of "superhuman" ministers