What Have We Become?

Last night’s French Presidential election debate apparently continued the theme of Brexit, the Trump election and our own upcoming General election. Macron and Le Pen spent two hours insulting each other, all negative emotion and no content. The electorate were disgusted with both performances. Theresa May, in a similar vein, has said nothing but her personal opinion that, ‘I will be a bigger bitch than Corbyn’, to which few would disagree, but the EU negotiators see her as simply a disagreeable, in-your-dreams, out-of-touch bitch with a much smaller stick than they have. Does she really believe riling our 27 ex-partners into snarling adversaries with little of a leg to stand on is a good negotiating ploy? Surely setting a spirit of friendly, intelligent, unwavering fairness will garner a better result. But current politics is zero-content emotionality and Corbyn’s calm, rational and genuine concern just doesn’t fit the mould. He’s clearly a powerless irrelevant nonce and evidence our definitions are turning on their heads. Vacuous assertions are powerful arguments, rational expertise is a boring irrelevance, power is callus-ness and caring is weakness. We have become the children of the worst parents on the estate. They ignore us, tell us nothing, live in their own world of belligerent beliefs, neglect our health and education and leave it to charity to feed us. They squander the family’s money on their own egos and then blame us for being a drain on their resources. And how do those children turn out? They become ill informed, unsure, unskilled, demoralised, unwell, depressed and stressed. They, we become moribund.