We have just had a very exciting, or dismal, week in British politics.
On July 7, Prime Minister Boris Johnson resigned after months of scandal, eye-rolling and obfuscation came to a head.
His resignation speech blamed what he called the “herd mentality” of his fellow Conservative Party Members of Parliament.
“When the herd moves, it moves,” he said, not once even hinting some of the blame could lie closer to home.
There must be lessons for us all in how we conduct ourselves and our businesses in all of this, and I think humility should be the first one.
British politics is a strange beast in that the PM can be ousted by his or her own party, although the rules in how that is achieved differ between the parties.
Johnson’s Conservative Party has what is called the 1922 Committee, and if it receives sufficient letters of no confidence in the PM, it can announce a leadership contest.
Johnson recently won one of these, and by the rules of his party, he could not be subjected to another for a calendar year.
His predecessor, Theresa May, also won a no-confidence vote, but she resigned around six months later. Johnson did not survive a calendar month.
It was the herd, you see. I suppose this also happens in publicly traded companies' annual general meetings where stockholders occasionally decide another way is better and seeks to oust the CEO and board.
Maybe in those scenarios, the decorum of the braying mob is no better.
Change today can happen very swiftly.
I have spoken with hoteliers, who have suggested that the business environment is difficult enough despite these political shenanigans. What the country needs in a time of rising inflation and costs, reduced spending power and mounting debt is at least a sense of stability at the top.
We will probably not get much of this while the Conservative Party is going through the process of searching for its new leader, which, as I write, is down to eight candidates, all of whom now think the other seven are embarking on perilous paths.
The general sense for some in the days and months before Johnson departed was that he was personally the Svengali who engineered the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union and performed admirably while making the U.K. the first country to roll out a vaccination program against COVID-19.
For others, his glorifying in his general lack of attention to detail, his naïve loyalty to colleagues proven or alleged to have done wrong and his bluster and bravado when faced with any criticism showed too much character flaw, and too often.
Maybe all the great politicians are characters of division, and it must take a brave, committed person, or an egoist, or egotist, who is willing to mount the highest step.
Those of us with long memories remember the division in Margaret Thatcher’s last months.
Many had the sense that Johnson always wanted the top job, but not what came with it.
My bottom line is that I want my leaders — if I agree with them and certainly if I do not — to be as smart as me or smarter and as decent or more so.
Maybe every one of them has been?
Optimistic naïveté?
The recent years of anti-intellectualism have not done well for any of us, I fear.
In the U.S., when I lived there, I remember Al Gore being told not to be too smart, the idea being a politician should be all things to all people. But this is just not possible, not if you want to live in an interesting world instead of a populist one.
In the U.K., a decline has come along with a mania for three-word slogans, as if this is all we’re able to handle and which might have started with “Get Brexit Done.”
The joke on July 7 was, now is the time to “Get Exit Done,” that is Johnson’s.
How about “Cut Rates Now” or “Make VAT 12.5%”?
Business could get behind those stabilizing mantras and the politicians who devise them.
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