The changes to, and challenges confronting, representative government as we know it have been canvassed by a number of journalists, most recently Niki Savva in the Nine Entertainment newspapers. Like others, Savva correctly identifies the “drift” away from major parties and the “repudiation” of politics as we know it.
But, like others, Savva gets it wrong, by confusing the symptoms of change — “much like the desertion of audiences to social media or streaming services” — with its causes. Savva is correct to say these changes are real and not transitory, and that they have “profound implications for . . . how we are governed”.
Politicians do sometimes make promises they cannot keep, sometimes knowingly. Sometimes politicians lie or convince themselves that their version of events is true, even when the evidence says otherwise. And, very often, politicians find themselves adrift in seas of change they can neither understand nor control.
For anyone who has met and spent time with politicians, most are decent people trying to do the right thing as they understand it. Sometimes they are intelligent, or have a particular rat cunning, and they are almost always vauntingly ambitious. But very often, politicians are just ordinary, except for their ambition, which is not a flattering quality for most people.
Politicians have always been so. But that has not, until recently, challenged the very foundations of the........