“It’s just politics, what more do you really expect?”
– That’s typical of the comments of the last few days, as a steady trickle of senior ministerial resignations weaken an already precariously positioned Labour administration.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown teeters on the brink of facing overthrow through the twin assaults of, firstly, his collapsed general reputation within his own party and, secondly, the MPs expenses scandal which has swept politicians of all parties.
But perhaps most surprising of all is not that this quite extraordinary political imbroglio, a horrible mix of naked interpersonal bitterness coupled with endemic greed, has come to pass but rather that not many people are that surprised.
There is some anger, certainly, but all of that tempered with the “It’s just politics……” resignation.
It’s a massive moral write-down, a colossal discounting of expectation. And something very similar is still happening in the other major storyline – the economy.
As in the U.S., the over-heated financial institutions caught a nasty cold, the economy sneezed violently and morale was simply blown away in an instant.
And still the coverage tends to converge around single instances of wrong-doing, personalities, regulatory rules and third-party overseeing responsibilities. I comment in more detail on these corporate culture implications elsewhere.
“It’s just business, what more do you really expect?” is still largely the shared wisdom on the enduring recessionary situation.
Again, perhaps, the most surprising aspect of it all, certainly with the benefit now of a little hindsight, is not so much that it happened but that so few people really thought it that much of a surprise.
And that is, again, surely a significant part of the problem. We abrogate, they abnegate. The Fourth Estate only retains any of the integrity of an estate if it keeps boundaries.
These cautions surely press even harder in the dispersed and distributed media world which this excellent site features and champions.
Debate these boundaries, always. Extend the inclusiveness of these, absolutely. Be tolerant and promiscuous of admission, always. But never, never, let natural moral osmosis turn into a flood of dumb resignation. Comment’s cheap – and that’s probably good. Superficiality cheapens – and that most definitely is bad.
