The politics of personality

The British Labour grandee Tony Benn is most famously known for insisting that politics should be about the issues (or "ishoos" as he would say) rather than about personalities.

By that he meant that the sphere of politics should be more about the fashioning and implementation of policy, than about the petty rivalries between politicians, tittle-tattle, and spats between party spin doctors. The pipe-smoking, tea-drinking Benn would upbraid the media for their round-the-clock coverage of the feud between Tony 'Bliar' and Gordon 'Bitter Brown' and the hissy fits and tantrums of spin doctor Alastair Campbell.

Benn found the tabloids' and public's obsession with the bedroom activities and sexual proclivities of politicians to be extremely off-putting. In an interview published after his retirement, he said he did not believe in attacking people personally.

He continued, "My father taught me that. Democracy is about competing opinion, but you don't have to be nasty about it. The personality side of things switches me off completely. I stopped reading the papers when they were full of all these personal attacks on Gordon Brown. What matters is what is done, not who does it."

Benn is not completely right. While people are concerned about education, health, the environment, and other relevant issues, they are also justifiably interested to know more about the people who are going about drawing up and enforcing national policies. They want to know if their political representatives are trustworthy, if they are capable of keeping their promises and if they have leadership skills. The way in which politicians conduct their personal life has some bearing on the way in which voters assess candidates and politicians.

It is hard - for example - to harbour much admiration for John Edwards - the former American presidential candidate. Edwards had an affair while his wife suffered from terminal cancer, and went on to promise his lover that he would marry her as soon as his wife passed away. Similarly, the iconic image of John Kennedy is somewhat tainted by accounts of his various dalliances.

Despite the fact that a man is the sum of his parts, I am not convinced that deceit in personal matters necessarily corresponds to deceit or incompetence in the spheres of public office. Remember Bill Clinton? Despite his affair with Monica Lewinsky (and numerous others, if his detractors are to be believed) he managed to get the US economy going again and left office with an approval rating of 66 per cent - a definite vote of confidence in the Philanderer-in-Chief.

On the flip side, Presidents Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush were not skirt-chasers and yet their terms of office have all been traumatic or disappointing. Nixon went about misleading the American public and authorising cover-ups for his dirty tricks department. Carter was hopelessly ineffectual and Bush antagonised the rest of the world and had Americans running to the polling booth to shoo out his Republican Party. So although it would be infinitely preferable to have politicians who lead blameless personal lives, their doing so does not guarantee good governance.

This consideration does not prevent sporadic calls for the upholding of moral standards by politicians. From time to time in the local sphere, we get these loud squawks about upholding the dignity of office and that politicians should not indulge in immoral behaviour that is shunned by the electorate. All of which is, of course, very commendable - maybe the electorate does require higher ethical standards of its politicians than of itself.

Let's say that people are comfortable with the kind of life where they're denting the duvet with someone other than their spouse, but condemn this sort of behaviour by politicians. It would follow that politicians engaging in extramarital relationships or any sort of hanky-panky would be censured by their party or deselected if they are candidates. This would be in keeping with a political party that wants to maintain its status as one which promotes healthy values.

It would also be a consistent stance.

What would be extremely hypocritical, would be allowing that candidate to contest in order to cash in on his votes and then turning on him when he is conveniently 'exposed' by the electronic equivalent of the tabloids. Even worse in the hypocrisy stakes would be offloading that candidate on the pretext that his behaviour had brought the party into disrepute, when other party representatives are engaging in precisely the same sort of behaviour.

If there's going to be a moral purge it has to be across the board, otherwise the cries of indignation aimed at certain politicians start sounding hollow. In order for a political party to continue to be credible, it must act consistently. It cannot hold itself out to be a party of values, and then condemn certain candidates for not promoting those values while supporting others.

Let's take the PN. It is the party that prides itself as being the party that promotes family values and being anti-divorce. In view of this it would be expected that none of its official exponents or candidates are divorced and remarried. How could the PN reconcile its position on divorce, its so-called 'values' and anti-divorce stance, if one of its approved exponents was divorced? Wouldn't this be an example of yet more hypocrisy and double standards?

Why hasn't any Maltese McCarthy snuffled out such a case of double standards? The answer is simple - there is no genuine desire for a general clean-up in public life - only a desire to use private conduct as a weapon to demolish certain politicians' careers.

cl.bon@nextgen.net.mt