Should good leaders be 'ordinary folk'?

[Chil1234]

Inspired by listening to a documentary about one of our more inspirational prime ministers, Winston Churchill, in which it was stated that his proud boast was that he had 'never visited a shop'. If a man born in a palace & into the aristocracy could capture the hearts of the masses and convinced them to suffer and die for their country... I wondered just how important it is for political leaders to be men/women of the people. Some of the current administration get accused of being 'toffs' - with the implication that this means they are out of touch with reality - but which is more important? That they have good leadership qualities and have the courage to take tough, even unpopular decisions ... or that they 'feel our pain', empathise more than impose, and are nothing much out of the ordinary?

I think they should at least have experience of what they are making a decision about. Maybe before qualifying they should have to spend some time volunteering in a charity which helps the poor, or the elderly, or young mothers, or families with disabled children/carers for disabled adults.

I know much of it is staged by the cameras but in programmes such as "Tower Block of Commons", "Secret Millionaire", "How The Other Half Live" etc, the rich or privileged featured always seem to have a massive shock when they realise how people really live - as though they thought that it was all a media frenzy and people on benefits live in mansions with swimming pools, and/or people were only poor because they are "feckless" or deserve it, and then they actually have to confront the fact that poor people are human too and have often quite shitty lives and often through no fault of their own.

(Or whichever area of politics they want to go into, I should have said, sorry)

I don't agree - you could have all sorts of useful experience of the police, but know sod all about teaching; or lots about inner city children, but nothing about nursing, etc ad infinitum.

There is no way that one person could gain the direct experience needed for all the challenges that might come their way during their tenure.

A leader needs skills in leadership. This should, of course, include working with the experts who do know the nitty gritty of the issues.

I think that an exceptional person can lead, no matter the nuts and bolts of their background.

The trouble is that what we're seeing is NOT exceptional people being elected.

We're seeing career politicians, who use their contacts (the call from Buck Pal to support Cameron?) and comparatively privileged backgrounds to get in. And Blair was the same, I'm not partisan in this regard.

I wouldn't put Cameron, Brown or Blair anywhere near Churchill. Would anybody consider them to be similar?

BTW saying you'd never been to a shop in the ?30s? isn't like never having been to a shop nowadays...you'd have to be living an extraordinary life not to have entered a shop by 2011, whereas Churchill as a man and as an aristocrat wasn't unusual for his time.

The 'shop' revelation may not have been particularly unusual among the aristocracy in the 1930's and 40's but it would be PR death today for a politican to say they'd never been in a supermarket. Our current leaders are swatted down for everything from 'never having a proper job' to 'going to public school' or simply for having some cash in a trust fund. In the past, when ordinary standards of living were way below where they are now, these things didn't seem to matter so much.

A latterday Churchill simply wouldn't get a look in today. Look at the withering scorn heaped on someone like Zak Goldsmith! I wonder does our collective inverse snobbery and llove of the prosaic mean we're missing out on potential leadership excellence?

I don't feel the need for politician's to be just like me, I want them to be a hell of a lot better than me, I want my politician's to be the kind of people who find TV dull and know nothing about pop music because they prefer curling up with some nice policy documents instead.

However, as a whole, the government should represent the population and the huge problem with the current government is that there is incredibly little range or variation between them and so they are in no way representative, and in the end are focussed on protecting not a country but a social class.

Bertie, I like the idea of compulsory volunteer work.

I think there is a broad consensus that Churchill was a great war time leader, not so good in peace time requires different knowledge and skills.

There is a real problem that our 'leaders' have led such cosseted lives, the worst thing being they are not aware of just how incredibly priviledged they are in relation to the vast majority of people.

They have never had to rely on essential public services like the NHS, state schools, lollipop ladies, public transport, so they just see them as an opportunity for their pals to cash in, not as part of the social fabric of most peoples lives.

I do feel at the moment that since the govt (and the last) is essentially focusing on keeping the City of London Corporation sweet and the rest of it is window dressing, it doesn't matter who's in.

A good leader who has a grasp of the reality of a low-income life and how to improve life for many of us isn't going to get near the upper echelons of government for a long time - I really no longer give a stuff who's in, they're all (atm) single-mindedly dishonest, disingenuous bastards.

All good leaders and politicians need to be in touch with real life. Churchill lived in a different time. People were more accepting and often believed that someone born with a silver spoon in their mouth was somehow 'better' and more able to govern/lead. I would hope that is no longer the case but sometimes I do wonder...

I think the current trend for career politicians really worrying. Elitist pompous twits who appear to have known each other since they were in nappies ( some look like they are still in them) telling us all how to do things. Why do we accept this?
What do they teach them on PPE at Oxford? Perhaps we should all know the content of the course because that's where they all seem to spend 3 years and then feel they can govern.

I know we don't live in a meritocracy but we were heading in that direction until relatively recently however, with all these 'pals' from public school and Oxford in power - the downward spiral from the top.

I suggest all politicians need to spend a minimum of 2 years working in genuine found, paid work before they can be considered suitable to stand for election. This work could be in the private or public sector!

The soldiers on the front never liked Churchill who, when on the few times he deigned to visit them, would openly puff away on his fat cigar whilst the poor boys were literally dying for a fag. He didn't convince anyone to die in the war. There was conscription for that and prison for who resisted. He lost the elections immediately after the war. His sanctification began in the 1990s by tories and then New Labour lot to align themselves to him in order to justify intervention in Iraq.

The working classes loathed Winnie.

"The working classes loathed Winnie"... is that why the whole place stopped and they turned out in their millions for his funeral?

i would settle for a leader who's face doesn't make my hands itch to slap it.

No, I don't expect country/world leaders to be ordinary, I expect them to be extraordinary. One of Gordon Brown's big problems was that he was way too ordinary and identified far too much with ordinary people, wanting to spread largesse the country didn't have to improve ordinary lives.

"Elitist pompous twits.... " But that's my point again. It's really easy to fall into knee-jerk name-calling based on nothing more substantial than prejudice. Are we so determined to have a 'Government of the Beige' that we write anyone off that happens to be well-educated, from a well-to-do family or something as trivial as a 'posh voice'? We're snooty about intellectuals... Michael Foot fell victim to that one. Or older people... adios Menzies Campbell, poor bloke. Gay we really don't like... sorry Michael Portillo & most of the Lib Dem front benches, you won't do at all. If we write off so many for silly reasons of prejudice, what the hell do we want? Doesn't this dumb-down tabloid attitude prevent a lot of talented people even entering politics for fear of having the piss ripped out of them?

The Brits turned out in droves for Diana's death but most couldn't stick her in life. Such are we.

I was querying your point re. his posthumously painted all round adoration. It's revisionism. He had no affinity or compassion for the men he sent to die. I suggest you read round a bit and don't limit yourself to tory induced fanaticism. I distrust anyone who sends others to die.

Vis a vis contemporary situ I agree with Prunnhilda's last post that whoever's the nominal leader is not the de facto one. The big boys are the investment bankers, World Bank, IMF. The political leaders are their puppets so not alot of room for glory there.

Remember Winston Churchill actively and vehmently opposed votes for women.

He was also subject to fits of depression, almost certainly had alcohol problems, gave dictation from his bath-tub and was imperfect in many other ways.... However, he has passed into history as a 'great leader', despite all the failings. These days, by contrast, we're judging politicians not by their actions or even their failings but by their accent, school or bank account contents. Someone as horrendously flawed as Churchill wouldn't even make the selection procedure.

Men can never menstruate & give birth so they can never understand women. Does that mean that men shouldn't be elected to represent women?
The middle-aged haven't experienced the difficulties of old age. Does that mean that the younger generation shouldn't be elected to represent OAP?
What about heterosexuals representing LGBT? Or Christians representing Muslims. Etc, etc. You get my point.
I don't see why politicians have to 'be like us'. Besides, don't you think that they are like us? "If you cut me, do I not bleed?"

It suits the Lefties to pretend that rich people are in some way different.

Nothing wrong with a leader being a toff - either of the Tory kind like Cameron, or the Labour kind like Miliband (or even the Liberal kind like Clegg!).

There is a problem when all the senior leadership in a party are toffs though.

For purely electoral reasons, I hope the next leader of the Tories is a working-class woman, in the mould of Thatcher.

The thing about imperfections isn't a modern phenomenon - more a modern British phenomenon.

Berlusconi doesn't seemed to be harmed much despite his, ahem, lifestyle choices. And wasn't there some Scandinavian leader a few years ago who admitted to the public he was clinically depressed - and became extremely respected for his candour?

not necessarily; they just have to believe that people and planet are infinitely more important than profit; eg Anthony Wedgewood Ben.

Benn, even

glasnost "I distrust anyone who sends others to die."

If Churchill did not send troops to fight the Nazis, we would be all singing 'Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles'.

longfingernails is right, the problem with the current lot, especially, is that they are such an extreme elite - the top positions in cabinet are held by a bunch of people who aren't just millionaire ex-public schoolboys, they all went to the same small group of the very top public schools. And almost the whole cabinet was privately educated, apart from William Hague.

Governments need to include people from all sorts of backgrounds and with all sorts of life experience if they are to have any understanding of the country they are running. They need to be alive to the risk of recruiting and promoting in their own image.

As people have pointed out, Churchill's legacy and record is very complicated. He was a brilliant war leader - although it's often forgotten there was a coalition government, he didn't do it all on his own - but his peacetime record was rather less than shining and included some horrifying mistakes. Killing 250,000 men in the Dardanelles in WW1 (allies, an equal amount of enemy troops were killed) and sending in the army to fire on striking - starving - miners, for instance. A flawed hero. Seeing him as a real person instead of an icon doesn't take away from his success in WW2, btw.

So LFN a working class woman like Thatcher who actually, actively HATED the working classes and women? Mmm great. We really need that again.