Saturday 26 May 2012
The obsession with youth
David Cameron was only forty-three when he became prime minister. More remarkably he was elected Leader of the Conservative Party in 2005, only four years after entering Parliament. The chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne, was born in 1971. Neither had held office before; nor of course had the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg (born 1967) nor the fourth member of the so-called Quad, the chief secretary to the treasury, Danny Alexander (born 1972). The government of the country is in the hands of political novices.
As he is writing for the Failygraph, though, Massie does not complete the job and remark that much of the newspaper is written by children – boys and girls who look like teenagers and, mostly, write like they are teenagers.
To all generalisations, though, there are exceptions. And age in itself is no guarantee of competence. One gets the feeling that most of the present crew would be incompetent, whatever their ages. With some people, age simply magnifies pre-existing defects.
However, in human affairs, there is such thing as the archetype. Most successful societies accept, in general form, the role of the "elder", and acknowledge that with age comes wisdom. A society than does not value and respect its elders, nor value experience, is doomed. Therein lie much of our problems.
COMMENT THREAD
Richard North 26/05/2012
Saturday, 26 May 2012
As is evident from title of his piece Massie (born in 1938) is complaining that politicians are too young and inexperienced to do their jobs properly:
Posts
