The political class is one of the most mistrusted in most societies. Many believe politicians are ‘prone to be devious’. A particular speciality of most politicians is the U-turn also known as ‘flip-flop’ in the US and ‘backflip’ in New Zealand and Australia. This unsavoury trait is basically the ability of politicians ‘to say one thing and then go on to completely change their minds’. This often happens when a politician moves from the Opposition benches to the government benches or vice versa.
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Why do politicians who change their mind have such a bad reputation among ordinary people? It was Margaret Thatcher who made sticking to one’s ideology “the ultimate test of political virility”. Addressing the Tory party conference in 1980 in a tense economic climate, she uttered the memorable: “You turn if you want to. The lady’s not for turning”. For Thatcher, like many other politicians after her, emotional attachment to opinions about issues like taxation and immigration prevent them from considering their opinions as anything but dogmas of political faith.
Some of the more honest breed of politicians have the decency to assume responsibility when they make an of error judgement, even if this often happens when negative public opinion clearly overwhelms them. Former UK deputy prime minister Nick Clegg admitted his mistake when he backed the coalition government policy to increase university fees against the better judgement of his Liberal Party colleagues.
Not all U-turns are the same. The Irish Times columnist Kathy Sheridan claims that most U-turns can be classified as opportunistic, cynical, criminal, brazen, treacherous, pragmatic, populist, or simply “the right thing to do”. The biggest test for most politicians comes when they move across to the opposite side of Parliament and find that what one says when in Opposition may be quite different from what one has to say and do when in government. Opposition is about promising heaven on earth and preaching the virtue of good governance. Governing is about doing the right thing for the country and all its people.
Some of the more honest breed of politicians have the decency to assume responsibility when they make an error of judgement
Few politicians manage to keep their reputation intact when they are forced to face the realities that come with changing political roles. As Sheridan rightly points out: “The trick is to sound authentic, regardless. Most politicians end up sounding slippery and evasive, leading to a mass shrug of ‘they are all the same’ from listeners.” Political spin has serious limitations and obvious errors of judgement can never be buried under slick public relations.
Most ordinary people have an inbuilt bias against all politicians of whatever ideological hue, a bias acquired not through some inbuilt ignorance, but through common sense and past experience. This is possibly why so many politicians fear changing their mind on certain issues. When a politician decides to make a U-turn on an issue, even if this is made after informed consideration as opposed to electoral expediency, most people’s response will be ‘typical politicians’.
To be fair, all people in public office have to consider making U-turns in the way they behave. The former archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, changed his mind about the right to die after witnessing the agony of Tony Nicklinson, who suffered from locked-in syndrome.
The biggest risk for politicians is when they are inconsistent with the standards they set for others but then fail to follow themselves.
Political correctness goes beyond what ethical values one embraces. It is also about respecting the trust people put in you to not only act within the parameters of legality, but also to always doing what is right.
We all struggle from time to time with uncertainty on certain bedrock issues that we firmly believe in. While political ideologies have been watered down considerably in the past few decades, some important issues about immigration, levels of taxation, distribution of wealth, and economic strategy need constant review characterised by intellectual openness and courage.
The U-turns that ordinary people resent more than anything else are those based on hypocritical assumptions that politicians can behave differently from other people because they have the ability to dress up their unethical behaviour under some glitzy disguise.
Interestingly, business leaders do not suffer from the stigma associated with political U-turns. Common business sense dictates that, when an enterprise identifies a failed strategy or tactic, it acts immediately to change it in order not to suffer financial haemorrhage. Customers may be annoyed but in the long term the business that keeps updating its strategy often flourishes.
johncassarwhite@yahoo.com