Elevating incompetence into an art form ...
It is my experience that almost all parts of the political spectrum contain people of the full range of competence from brilliant and capable through dreamers, competent but dull through to real people who are nearly as inept as the fictional character who the late Rik Mayall's creation Alan B'Stard once told "If your IQ was any lower you'd need watering."
There is a self-comforting myth on the left that their side has the brains and their opponents are fools: John Start Mill, who I will admit was himself one of the cleverest people who ever lived, said in a debate in 1866 that while he did not argue that Conservatives are generally stupid, he did think that stupid persons are generally conservative.
The dead giveaway that even a person of his enormous ability was indulging in unchallenged assumptions is that he went on to add "I believe that to be so obvious and undeniable a fact that I hardly think any hon. Gentleman will question it."
When anyone, even a genius, says that something is so obvious that it should not need to be questioned this is a warning sign that they are very possibly making an assumption they did not regard it as necessary to seriously consider. And in my experience, not thinking through your assumptions is where many people, including very clever people, make their worst mistakes.
Mill lived at a time when there were some very intelligent people involved on the radical and "progressive" side in politics while in his youth political conservatives were those who defended things like rotten boroughs and the Corn Laws. I have my doubts that he would still be of the same view if he were still alive today, but even if he were I certainly don't agree with him.
This week's example of members of the Parliamentary Labour Party indulging in behviour which demonstrates the IQ of plankton comes from Helen Goodman, Labour MP for Bishop Auckland, while opening a village fete in Ingleton in her constituency, as you can read here.
In her speech she confused the Ingleton for which she has been the MP for several yeras and where she was speaking with another Ingleton in North Yorkshire about 70 miles away.
According to the BBC, "Organisers said the Labour MP would not be invited back."
Let's hope the voters of Bishop Auckland take the same view next year.
There is a self-comforting myth on the left that their side has the brains and their opponents are fools: John Start Mill, who I will admit was himself one of the cleverest people who ever lived, said in a debate in 1866 that while he did not argue that Conservatives are generally stupid, he did think that stupid persons are generally conservative.
The dead giveaway that even a person of his enormous ability was indulging in unchallenged assumptions is that he went on to add "I believe that to be so obvious and undeniable a fact that I hardly think any hon. Gentleman will question it."
When anyone, even a genius, says that something is so obvious that it should not need to be questioned this is a warning sign that they are very possibly making an assumption they did not regard it as necessary to seriously consider. And in my experience, not thinking through your assumptions is where many people, including very clever people, make their worst mistakes.
Mill lived at a time when there were some very intelligent people involved on the radical and "progressive" side in politics while in his youth political conservatives were those who defended things like rotten boroughs and the Corn Laws. I have my doubts that he would still be of the same view if he were still alive today, but even if he were I certainly don't agree with him.
This week's example of members of the Parliamentary Labour Party indulging in behviour which demonstrates the IQ of plankton comes from Helen Goodman, Labour MP for Bishop Auckland, while opening a village fete in Ingleton in her constituency, as you can read here.
In her speech she confused the Ingleton for which she has been the MP for several yeras and where she was speaking with another Ingleton in North Yorkshire about 70 miles away.
According to the BBC, "Organisers said the Labour MP would not be invited back."
Let's hope the voters of Bishop Auckland take the same view next year.
Comments