Jonathan Dodd returns. Guest opinion articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication. Ed
It’s curious, at least to me, how people build their world views. Personally, I look at what I’m currently doing and what talents I may have, see whether they’re contributing to the sum total of my own world peace and if I’m helping to weigh down the good side of the see-saw, and all I ask is that unexpected avalanches and landslides don’t bury me entirely.
I try not to expect too much and be grateful for what comes.
I like to think that I use some sort of reason and logic too. Recently I’ve persuaded myself (more or less) that exceeding the speed limits is a bad idea.
I’m not suggesting for one moment that I ever went faster than the speed limit advertised at the side of the road, it’s just that I’m a bit more careful than I used to be. I need to state here that other opinions on my driving may vary.
Rant and rave? Moi?
So it is with the rest of life. I used to rant and rave about all sorts of things, but I’ve learned to choose my battlefields better.
I no longer get hot under the collar about the failings of governments, wars and famines, global mismanagement, general greed and sheer stupidity that I see all round me. Or at least I make an effort to cool myself down most of the time.
But there are moments when one or two aspects of events make me speechless for their sheer lack of any rational or moral justification.
Some examples
Like that man Assad busy destroying his own country.
Like all those people who knew perfectly well where the wanted criminal was but who didn’t tell the Police and thus let him kill two unarmed policewomen. With grenades, for goodness sake!
Like crowds of rioters killing an ambassador or burning cinemas in their own town because someone on the other side of the world made an amateur video about a religious figure. I can’t help asking myself in how many ways the religious figure himself would approve of these actions.
Like all the people who have professed to be shocked about all those titillating revelations in the newspapers that were obtained by tapping phones, but who still buy and read the same papers.
Like all those police officers who knew about the wrong people being blamed at that football game where 96 people died, but said nothing for so many years.
Business as usual
All of that seems like business as usual as far as the human race goes, and I’m used to that. But then we seem capable of doing the same thing in the opposite circumstances.
This week Nick Clegg took it upon himself to apologise publicly for the LibDem u-turn over university fees. I know Cameron apologised for Hillsborough, but he wasn’t there.
Why has Clegg attracted so much scorn for apologising, when we all have such a low opinion of the probity of politicians?
Are honest politicians oxymorons?
Admittedly history has shown that the LibDems had to climb down over the issue, but they made their original promise before an election they had no hope of winning, and in a system that hasn’t seen a coalition since the last world war.
They put on the table the things they would have done in the unlikely case that they might win and become the government. Like Christmas lists, you say what you would like, not expecting to get all of it.
So when they had to horse-trade with the Tories, the University fees were dropped in favour of free nursery education, which the Tories would never have done. That’s what happens in a coalition.
There’s give and there’s take. And I think it’s rather admirable that a politician cares enough to apologise publicly for not being able to deliver policies he feels passionately about.
Kicking and streaming
And those who want to kick him for apologising obviously don’t have young teenaged children.
We have the LibDems to thank for refusing to support a move to go back to streaming children again, either to take the new O Levels or something like the old CSEs.
The lesson here? Pick your battlefield carefully, and make sure you’re fighting the right enemy.
If you have been, thank you for reading this.
