Letters to the editor - July 13, 2022

The politician

One of the characteristics of our political system is that we tend to elect those who can afford to dispense favours and spend lavishly on a campaign, over those who can lead.

For a man or woman on the rise in politics, power first comes through character – that combination of station, social or otherwise – and strength of character that produces not just intimidation, which is power’s crudest form, but flattery too, which is one of its more refined forms.

After that, power begins to grow from its own essence, rising no longer exclusively from the man or woman but from the office itself.

And this is where some balance must be found between its achievement and its apportionment, between the unquenchable desire in any politician to rise and the often humbling and mortifying requirement that one’s station must now be used to some benefit for the people, by making oneself available to the people.

And here, of course, is where corruption begins, for power contains an irresistible urge to further itself.

There is always the next race. But when, finally, there isn’t anymore, when, at last, there is no more ambition to quench, no more nascent cause to follow as a guiding...