Wednesday, 3 November 2010

Dave, the Banana Skin and the Isolated Leader Syndrome.

For politicians (and others) even at the height of success, the seeds of eventual credibility loss and ultimately failure can be sown in what can appear to be quite minor things. They can deal confidently and competantly with the heavy affairs of state and then comes along a momentary aberration in a situation which must have appeared free of danger and easy to handle. Suddenly the carefully nurtured credibility is blown and there is a head-in hands moment. Gordon Brown experienced it when he stepped back into his car still wearing a live microphone. It was a seminal moment in the May General Election.

The moment isn't ripe for a disaster yet but the amber lights should be flashing for David Cameron all over Downing Street and the Tory HQ at the news that his personal image-making photographer has suddenly been put on the civil service payroll to continue his trade at public expense.Suddenly exposed to view is an unhealthily narcissistic approach by a leader who has said he is committed to cleaning up politics and the public's perception of them via a policy of transparency and honesty.

It is early days for a leader to be losing an understanding about how people in general (Let's avoid the awful patronising term "the public") view such things. It was a very easy banana skin to see, so why did he tread on it so blindly and insensitively? It is the sort of incident which they may brush off and try to quickly forget about(which Brown's wasn't. He must still cringe at the thought of it), but it can easily form the first marker in what could be the beginning of a series which, like blips on a radar screen, eventually join up to form into a calamtous disaste. With each one,relatively small though it may be, mutters grow into murmurs which grow into open hostility and eventually and "Enough- Off with his /her head!" Margaret Thatcher's "We are a grandmother" was a classic. She survived all the ups and downs of the Falklands, the miners strike etc , but this inappropriately regal comment really started the slide into "She must go". Blair built up the same sort of bow wave of resistance and eventually ridicule -anyone's worst enemy- which became "He must go", even though the alternative was not attractive.

There is a banana skin syndrome here,- and David Miliband didn't do well with bananas either. Cameron would get a much better return from a non public funded watcher for yellow fruit on the pavement than having a new civil service photographer on hand to record the damage post facto.

These incidents apart, there must be a question about how the detatchment from normal life affects the leaders' comprehension and thinking . It happens happens once anyone gets the key of Number 10 or any other large residence which brings with it the battalions of security, advisers,and the rest which quickly cut the incumbent off from normal life.It happpens lower down the ranks on the top floors of corporate exceutive suites and in lesser forms all the way down the tree of authority or seniority. At the top end, what happens to someone who can no longer stroll unaccompanied down the road, buy a newspaper, sit in a cafe or ride on a bus or train and in so doing just hear what people are thinking ,saying and doing, what is driving their lives, what they want and what they don't want? Add to this often grovelling deference and the insulation that increasingly starves the victim of basic human understanding. For a new national leader, after only six months of this detatchment not to have thought: "This appointment isn't very sensible" is worrying. Dave needs to find a way to tunnel his way back,- and find some good, down to earth in-touch advisors or the accusation "He just doesn't get it" thrown from the perky new lad on the benches opposite will start to stick. Then the way back will be very difficult indeed.