Flip-flopping around

So, I’m on the A40 and I’m alternating between iPod and Radio 4 until my funk’s assaulted by the hyphenated euphemism that until recently was used only to describe beach footwear, but has now become a political slur of the highest order. Oh yes, the flip-flop. A term coined during the US election debates last year, and when I first heard it I knew I was present at the birth of a new phenomenon. The Republicans hit upon it mid way through their anti-Kerry campaign, and it entered the vernacular with all the precision of a Dick Cheney bullet. Pretty soon every journalist and anchor in the US was using it and Kerry’s reputation as an indecisive, mind-changing (read spineless, purpose-less) leader was forged. I came back to the UK and announced that it was only a matter of time before this new level of intellectual debate reached our shores, and sure enough, a month later it was being thrown lackadaisically at Charlie Kennedy. But until David Cameron arrived, the flip-flopping tag had failed to find a home. Labour have pounced on it as a strategy of undermining their new Nemesis, as they have on ‘National Security’ to use our fear and their superior ability to keep us safe as a vote winner.

Back on the other side of the pond, Hillary’s campaign hasn’t yet started in earnest, but she’s spent the last three years in the Senate modifying her political beliefs until they reach the neutral space that will make her a poll winner. Or at least not a vote loser. As the last two US elections have shown, it’s not about winning, it’s about not losing, not polarising opinion, not taking a stand that Americans don’t like. And Red-State friendly Mark Warner is sneaking quietly up from behind …… just don’t tell Simon Hughes.

I’m so OVER politics, almost over it enough to start a party, but there are probably too many skeletons in this closet. The endless dumb and dumbering down, the centrist pandering to voters, the lack of trust in institutions from the church, the state, the military, the ….. big brother house. Poor voter turnout during elections is too easily put down to apathy by political leaders ….. but a million people marching against the war is not apathy, it’s anger. Voter cynicism, however trenchant, is passion in disguise. Passion wearing black. It’s just hard to vote for someone when that someone looks and sounds so much like, well, everybody else.

Linguistically, this means lots of sentences beginning “Look, John, let me be quite clear.” “Look, John I’m afraid I don’t agree with that, but what I DO think is important is that ….” And the spin-meisters crank up the rpm.

Characteristically, it means you end up living someone else’s truth, mistaking it for your own. Spend less time looking up to others, and more looking into yourself.

Because you can’t fake leadership. Followers are too sophisticated for anything but the truth (with the possible exception of those 59 million or so who voted in the 43rd Pres).

If you do look at others, steer your gaze to those who are worthy of it. Ghandi’s ideals can be narrowed down to three …

Truth - Satyagraha, his policy of non-violence, literally translates as ‘fight for truth’.

Love - he believed in the inherent goodness of everyone.

Independence – not just for India, but for the individual.

From his white dhoti to his diet, his speeches to his marches, he lived and led by his Absolutes. When a journalist asked him to describe his message to the world, he said ‘My life is my message’.

And whether you like it or not, so is yours.

Oh and do me a favour?

Avoid homogeneity like you would Dick Cheney holding a rifle.

And never. Stop. Never use the term flip flop unless you’re packing for Ibiza.