CoyoteOldMan It remains a witty observation, which - although not general - is still sufficiently widespread to count as ‘valid’; I don’t think anyone (including in the thread here) is using it as a serious statement. Top politicians tend to rise to the top because they are good politicians (i.e. adepts at maneuvering for power and escaping blame), not because they are competent administrators of the public good. Some are intelligent enough to let the competent administrators get on with the administration job, others… aren’t.
Pretty much exactly as I intended it. Witty? Um, satrical, at least, and dismissive (of “this lot” … well, most losts really"). And no, definitely not a truly serious statement, though treating it as serious for a moment, the degree of competence depends on the criteria by which you judge.
If the criteria is career success, then BJ more or less is an exemplar for competence - he parlayed (pretty much literally) a top-level education and mediocre skills into being the PM. It’s a case study. But if the criteria we’re judging the effectiveness of the PM by is the benefit to the country as a whole? More complex, because there’s a host of ways of assessing that and at least some (like whether Brexit is good or not) are going to be both subjective and contentious, and I for one don’t feel inclined to have that discussion. Did it to death several years ago and it’s a fait accomli, for better or worse, at this point.
Partly at least, MY cynicism comes from the belief that many (most) politicians seem to believe that whatever is good for their career is good for the country because, naturally, they know better than the “other guy” (or girl) and so have to correct the mess up they made. MY preference would be for a constructive working together but as that seems sub-optimal in the career enhancing sense for poliicians, good luck getting any politician to do it.
Partly, or largely, it’s the system’s fault. The incentives for career venality are too high, and most definitely are short-termist. I said, somewhat sarcastically, abut them having moved jobs by the time the outcome of structural spending becomes clear but it’s actually true. The system pretty much guarantees that politicians move jobs, and indeed in and out of government, and often out of parliament, too oten to be held accounable for, or benefit from, long term structural choices, so they tend towards measures likely to either be short term, or at least look good and be popular, not least becase it’s a maximum (in the UK) of five years before facing re-election and career progression (in politics) depends on geting re-elected first and foremost. It’s often been said (usually correctly) that most politicians know what needs to be done - they just don’t know how to get re-elected if they do it.
So yeah, the “level of incompetence” remark wasn’t intended to be wholly serious BUT there’s more than a grain of truth in it. …. depending on how political competence is assessed.