From the outbox of Meyer’s inbox:
Imagine two political parties that are a diametrically opposed on nearly every issue joining together to work out compromises and build a better country for all. Sounds just like a Frank Capra movie. Actually, it’s taking place across the pond in Great Britain with the newly enshrined joint coalition government of the Conservatives and Liberals. The Brits are in “wait and see” mode but the mere fact these two parties came together to form a working government says a lot. Gee, I wonder where else in the world that might work?
THE NOT-SO-ODD COUPLE by William Underhill writing for Newsweek Magazine
It seems like the right-leaning David Cameron would make an awkward coalition partner for the left-leaning Nick Clegg. Actually, they’ll get along famously. Consider Britain’s two new leaders, bound together because neither won a parliamentary majority. Both are likable 43-year-olds with a confident style. Both come from privileged backgrounds and attended top private schools and universities. Both have young families and high-achieving wives. Both talk of breaking with the past and the need to rebuild Britain’s political culture. Neither cares much for dogma; both favor a liberal line on a range of issues from civil liberties to gay marriage. For good measure, both are good tennis players.
So why shouldn’t David Cameron and Nick Clegg get along? OK, one is the leader of Britain’s center-right Conservatives, while the other leads the left-leaning Liberal Democrats, but the points of similarity are hard to miss—and important. Insiders say their good personal relations help explain why Clegg chose to become Cameron’s deputy rather than work under the leader of the Labour Party, whose doctrine fits better with the Liberal Democrats’ program.
And if the pair aren’t yet best friends, they can manage a convincing show. At a joint press conference in the Downing Street garden, they laughed at each other’s jokes, made lavish use of each other’s first names and finished each other’s sentences. In Clegg’s words, this could be the beginning of a new age “where politicians of different persuasions come together—overcome their differences in order to deliver good government for the sake of the whole country.”
You can read the rest of the article here.
One Comment
“All politics is local” and most politicians have self serving interests, even locally.
Call me cynical and jaded if you want, but after my recent experience in city government, I will never, EVER participate in a political position again. While I did make my contributions to the community and those contributions had real and measurable positive impact upon the community, the personal cost to my business (and that of my wife’s business) is extraordinary, to the point I can’t buy a job in town anymore. I was warned by other business people in this town that my participation was “business suicide”, but I naively thought if I steered a neutral political course, spent time talking the folks in town and the people working for city and tried to do the right things for the benefit of the community, I’d be ok.
I was wrong. I was not part of the “old boys” network of self serving elected officials and their cronies. As such, my efforts did not align with their designs and now I pay the price for it. I’ll survive, but the community pays the price for it. Boy, was I ever wrong, and naive.
Our political system leads to broken process. I’m not advocating a system different than what we have in this country, and I’m not sure that anything I suggest is a particular solution, but our elected officials need to be vetted better. They need to be “substantially encouraged” to get out of the “centers of power” where they cast their votes and get out amongst the people they represent. Most politicians that I have met in my brief political career have NO ideas what their constituents are going through on a personal level. They have a general sense, maybe, but definitely not a personal sense. If they spent that time to personally learn what people are going through, they’d be angry. And they SHOULD be angry. Very few things focuses a persons efforts like when they’re angry and have a good hate on. THAT’s when things get done, when people get pissed off enough about something.
Politicians also need to be separated from their whatever their prior source of personal wealth consisted of while they are in public service; there must be NO incentive and means for their political service to be a means to further their personal wealth while in office. Note, I’m not saying take away these people’s wealth and possessions, just separate these things from them while they’re in office.
That’s what I mean when someone hears me say “all politics SHOULD be local”.
Just one man’s jaded opinion…