Let the Parrot have a brief word from the top of his tower, that cage with a view, overlooking a nation still suffering from its flood of lies. (for the reference, see ‘Parrot Addenda‘ in the right hand margin of this home page !)
It looks as if, at last, Mr Toad (of a newly acquired Toad Hall) is hopping dolefully and malevolently out of Westminster camera shot. He won’t be liking that and will soon come up with new ways to draw the lenses back in his direction. But it won’t be as Prime Minister, now.
We look again at the Toad and see – if we are willing to look clear-eyed – an apparently affable and articulate, but in essence emotionally under-developed and profoundly narcissistic, destructive and dishonourable individual, who has brought great harm and grief and shame to this nation. That he was serially deceitful and would betray people’s trust in him at the drop of a hat had become clear very early on in his career, but this did not stop the Toad progressing to become UK Prime Minister for a short and predictably disreputable time.
It seems therefore less important to seek to understand the Toad’s nature, than to look carefully at how our political systems and processes – and I suppose just our own plain human vulnerabilities – kept succumbing to him, despite that early record and the constant present day reminders of his character ; what fault-lines and weaknesses, what anachronisms and complacency and ugly calculations, allowed this warped and warty and un-developed creature through the various doors – this ‘great campaigner’/sloganiser/salesman who never campaigned on behalf of any cause except self, delusion and falsity.
And having looked carefully and comprehensively, and drawn conclusions, the nation’s executive and legislature must surely take immediate and decisive and comprehensive ameliorative action.
For our systems of governance are manifestly and comprehensively unfit for present purpose and conditions. For all our sakes, they need to be made fit very quickly. Such fitness must include that they be fully proof against people like Mr Toad of Toad Hall (with its shiny moat) – this inflated and boisterous inadequate, this mere brazen show, this smirky, truth-free air of certainty without substance, without real outline. Times are fraught. Perhaps that accounts for the ability of this blundering fraudster to con so many people so completely, for so long. But precisely and especially because our times are so fraught, we cannot afford to allow ourselves to make such a mistake ever again.