There are two essential questions upon which the whole opera
of democratic politics rests – what is the good life? And how are we to realise
it? The second question is what the majority of news coverage focuses on – what
is happening, what is not happening and who’s fault is it for happening/not
happening. This is not wrong scrutiny, but when severed from the anchor of the
first question, politics becomes a puerile, unattractive scrap that neither
inspires civic ambition nor deals with the really big questions that need to be
dealt with.
Much has been written on issues such as the media
devaluation of the political process and the impotence of elected government in
the face of global economic pressures; I will not tire readers by rehearsing
such proclamations. But neither of these are the deepest lack - the true
poverty of British politics is the absence of inspiring oratory regarding the
good life of the nation. Let us pray men of vision and wisdom rise up to fill
the vacuum.
