GARETH VAN ONSELEN: 10 characteristics of the perfect politician
'The perfect politician is a stereotype. Such a thing does not exist. Yet you get the sense that even if it did, we would not be satisfied'
So much of contemporary politics turns on perception and pretence. We expect politicians to exemplify some entirely virtuous archetype, usually defined absolutely by the parameters of political correctness. Not so much like Caesar’s wife, and beyond reproach, but beyond even the human condition — robots essentially, morally flawless and intellectually profound. When, inevitably, they are revealed to be otherwise, merely human after all, we despair and condemn. There is a fine line between demanding a high standard and the belief that, simply by embracing a profession, any one person instantaneously becomes the ideal for which we so yearn. We often cross it because the pretence, the illusion, that politics demands gods not mortals must always be maintained. It leads to no end of contradiction and paradox. That is no excuse for deceit or incompetence. It speaks to expectation and the conflation of what is realistic with what is not. More importantly, it speaks to the distinction betwe...
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