The public’s appetite for a less vicious politics is clear. The leaders of political movements must rise to the occasion
Anger is exhausting. There is only so long most people can sustain a state of permanent fury, let alone put up with it in others. It takes a lot of energy to remain at boiling point, ever vigilant to the next perceived outrage, and eventually most people burn out. It was this kind of longing for the shouting to stop, almost as much as Brexit fever, that Boris Johnson arguably tapped into with his wildly misleading promise to just get the whole leaving business over and done with. Paradoxically, it’s this same bone-weariness that may also eventually lead a polarised country towards some kind of healing.
This hardly feels like an auspicious week to launch a campaign for a kinder, more generous and socially cohesive politics, what with the home secretary being embroiled in allegations of repeatedly bullying civil servants. But perhaps the timing of the new all-party parliamentary group Compassion in Politics, launched by the former Tory cabinet minister Lady Warsi and former Labour frontbencher Debbie Abrahams, is smarter than it looks. The group might sound as if it’s whistling in a gale – with its calls to hold the line against hate speech, make lying to voters a criminal offence, and protect the most vulnerable from measures that harm them – but it’s not alone in exploring ways to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
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Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
