#BTColumn – Failing politics

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By Ralph Jemmott

Someone once defined politics as the management of human affairs. Humans, being so complex a species and their affairs so complicated, relations, social and economic, have to be managed, controlled and ordered. Even the more primitive of human communities had their chiefs and shamans, persons to whom they had conceded authority hopefully to safeguard and prosper the tribe.

It is ironic that as Barbados looks to formulate a new Republican constitution, the two polities to which we have traditionally looked for inspiration are themselves experiencing considerable difficulties. In the United States, bi-partisan politics have given way to acrimonious and sometimes dangerous ideologically driven rhetoric. The Republican Party, once the party of Abraham Lincoln is ostensibly now the Party of Donald John Trump, in almost all respects, an intolerably inferior man. There is the possibility that the Republicans could regain control of the Senate in the mid-term elections due in two weeks. If that happens, they will undoubtedly frustrate the Biden administration and create greater political gridlock than already characterises contemporary American governance. Who would have thought that American democracy with all its enshrined checks and balances could so easily come under threat and from the likes of a Donald Trump. The peaceful transfer of power is a fundamental plank of liberal democracy. Trump destroyed all that on January 6, 2020 and America is still labouring under the burden of that assault on the citadel of Jeffersonian democracy.  

This proves that a Constitution’s ultimate validity rests not just on the words contained in the document, but on what the late Professor Simeon McIntosh termed the “politics of virtue”, the ethical quality of the people who administer that special document. Jon Meacham, American Historian of the Presidency in a recent text “And There was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle”, noted that, “today, we are experiencing an evolving crisis of public trust.”    

The other seemingly endangered polity is Great Britain whose Westminster template has influenced our own paradigmatic model of governance. The U.K. is currently experiencing several difficulties. These include the recent passing of Queen Elizabeth II, perhaps Britain’s last remaining symbol of stability and continuity. The other difficulties are the state of the National Health Service and other issues related to Social Care, an inflation rate running at a 40-year high, rising crime marked by stabbings in many major cities, concerns about channel migration and not least, the state of British politics. Britain has had four Prime Ministers in the last five years.  Chief Editor of  the Economist Zanny Minton Beddoes in her Sunday, October 23 conversation with Fareed Zakaria spoke of her “laughing-stock of a country.”

Prime Minister Owen Arthur once described the local House of Assembly as “poor-rakey, which cast an aspersion on the whole Barbadian political class. A long-serving Conservative British MP spoke derisively of Britain’s, “talentless” Ministers of the Crown. In an age of mediocrity, the world is full of persons whose ambitions outpace their competence. Rightly or wrongly, much of the discontent focussed on Prime Minister Liz Truss herself. With a recognisably safe majority of 86 in the Commons, she was forced to admit that she could not deliver on the Party’s Conservative mandate. 

For all the postulations about right economic policy, no one can know beyond a doubt what the correct policy is. The Truss/Kwarteng Mini- budget, ‘Trussonomics’, was intended to ensure sustainability and growth. They swore by it to the extent that a Sky News commentator stated that the Chancellor’s defence of his budget bordered on the “pathological”. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) warned that the budget was “off kilter”. The International Monetary Fund IMF) was equally critical of the initiative and the Market or what the Daily  Telegraph called “the bond vigilantes”, raised the alarm. When the pound began a downward slide vis-à-vis the U.S. dollar, the proverbial stuff had hit the proverbial fan. 

Truss then made an amazing turn-around denouncing the policy she had so vehemently defended and firing her Chancellor. Admitting that she attempted too much, too quickly, she then appointed Jeremy Hunt who was seen as having “a safe pair of hands”. He then proceeded to tear up the Kwarteng/Truss budget in the Commons. Six weeks after being appointed, and in spite of her protestation that she was “a fighter and not a quitter” Truss resigned from a premiership that had lasted a mere 45 days, the shortest in U.K. history. A BBC World commentator noted that the one thing the Market does not like is uncertainty. There seemed to be no coherent set of policies and the British Prime Minister did not look like she knew what she was doing. 

The British Press can be very hard on politicians and it was exceptionally harsh on Liz Truss. One correspondent stated that she had squandered it all in 45 days. Another warned she “did not inspire confidence” and that what Britain needed was “a serious outbreak of wisdom”. Not only was Truss damaged but so was the whole Conservative Party. MP Mark Garnier claimed that she had done “irreparable damage” to the Party which looks set to lose the next election constitutionally due in 2024. One writer claims that British politics has lost its dignity. 

As in Barbados, what Britain needs most is a return to substantive economic growth. Whoever succeeds Liz Truss, will have to face the same issues she confronted. At the time of writing, it seems as if the task will fall to Rishi Sunak. Is he “a safe pair of hands” in a time of frightening uncertainty? He himself has acknowledged that Britain is facing tremendous economic and political challenges and that there are “difficult decisions” to be made. 

Apart from the complex economic issues facing Prime Minister Sunak, there is the political issue of the need to unite the Conservative Party behind him. Failure to do so would almost categorically play into the hands of Labour. Addressing the 1922 Committee on Monday, October 24, he stated: “Unite or Die…. we cannot afford the indulgence of division over personality.” Only time will tell.

Ralph Jemmott is a respected retired educator.