‘This eternal tension is between a belief in personal freedom and a belief in the good that government can do. You will retort that one can believe in both, and you are right.’
Matthew Parris, The Times
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I don't always agree with Matthew Parris, but his commentary in last Saturday’s edition of The Times sums up the challenge for those who believe in both individual freedom and a fairer society: none of the political parties offer this combination, which is what most of us believe in. But there is a solution — it's called egalitarian capitalism.
The Conservatives have done little towards providing individual freedom for young people, and their attempts at providing a fairer society through ‘levelling-up’ have been symbolic at best. Labour still regard socialism as their underpinning doctrine, notwithstanding the clear evidence that universal welfare undermines the extent of targeted support which can be provided for the most disadvantaged: hence our commentary, ‘Say farewell to socialism, Sir Keir’ on 10th June. The other parties on offer for 4th July are a motley crew, mainly preferring big government (the Liberal Democrats and the Greens). Meanwhile Mr. Farage is building up his bank balance in his private company Reform Ltd. while continuing to appeal to people's worst instincts.
The problem is that egalitarian capitalism requires a long-term perspective, and democratic processes are essentially short-term. It takes real leadership to inspire people with vision for the future over the coming decades, and we are presented with a bunch of managers like Sunak and lawyers like Starmer. Richard Higginson's book, ‘Transforming Leadership’, draws the contrast between leaders and managers really well: where are the former today?
The Americans will be asking the same question, after the awful spectacle of Trump and Biden last Friday morning (2 am, UK time). Surely the nation which inspired that movie ‘No country for old men’ must realise that they need new inspiration and leadership for the future. To quote an extract from the movie’s Wikipedia title commentary by Richard Gillmore, ‘ One has the sense that things are out of alignment, that balance and harmony are gone from the land and from the people’.
Please READ ON ..
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