"STRONG AND STABLE" - IS THIS REALISTIC IN TODAY'S WORLD?

Apart from an irrepressible desire to giggle when I see or hear this I wonder how and why the Tories ever saddled themselves with such a curious steam-engine of a phrase. Presumably they hadn’t counted it on it being gainsaid so emphatically.

But was it even appropriate?

I imagine focus groups said they yearned for strong leadership. Oh for the days of Attila, Genghis Khan or Frederick the Great the respondents said. We want someone to stand up and fight for us. We want a strong leader to take a firm grip.

The researchers concluded that people want a more predictable and ordered life.

They want hot summers and cold winters. This has become a prosecco and pesto world and people really yearn for bitter, pie and gravy. They yearn for an era of 11 plus, ‘O’ levels, 45rpm, mini-skirts, shipbuilding and capital punishment; an era of upper class, middle class and lower class, of pen and ink, of slide rules, of the TV Test Card and of BBC interviewers who call the Prime Minster “Sir or Ma’am” when they interview them. They want the past because then they know what happens next. The future is just so unstable.

Thus said the researchers…..

But this brave new world isn’t brave at all. It’s a nervy place where what we want isn’t “strong” (if by strong you mean, Trump, Putin or Erdogan.) What we really want and need is “smart”. And “stable” is not what you get on the ice rink of modern life.  Maybe calm and controlled would be better. What we want is to be as good as we deserve to be. And what we need is a top team who’ll help us get there, avoid us making a mess of things and be advised by sensible experts who have no ideological axe to grind.

On Friday I spent a few hours with a very bright 26 year old who’s extremely relaxed in part because he’s resigned from his stressful, busy-busy job where he was offered a seat on the board. Instead of building a glittering, “stable” career he’s earning enough freelancing whilst he reflects on his future.

Chances are he’s got 60-70 years of this adventure left.

He’ll have time to write some great books, have ideas for some successful and entertaining TV series, invent some life-changing products and even eventually become part of a smart, creative and adaptable leadership team.

Whatever else he’ll undergo lots of rich and exciting experiences and never just be what we once called a “wage slave”.

Maybe the world will gradually lose its urge for growth; our Brexit decision may create a platform for economic retreat. Most of all “strong” will be replaced by receptive and “stable” by adaptable.  What we are heading towards is a more natural way of living and possibly a happier and more productive one.

It’s the end of the old normal but strong and stable it’s not.