I didn’t watch Piers Morgan interview Gordon Brown last night. I had seen the clips, and the pre-briefing, and the rolling back from the ‘floods of tears’ at the beginning of the week to the ‘welling up’ on Thursday and decided that while I feel desperately sorry for the Brown family in many ways, it does not add anything to my understanding of him as Prime Minister to see him cry (or not).
I think we owe it to our politicians to accept that they are human like the rest of us. They feel pain, and loss, and happiness – and yes, hubris and over-confidence and pride as well. I don’t think we need to trot them out on camera every time they have a tough few weeks to cry on demand. Pity is a dangerous thing.
It’s a difficult line to draw though. Whatever our weird constitution says, we have ended up electing our Prime Minister. This election campaign is going to be Gordon Brown vs David Cameron. So at what stage do we say, no that’s private?
I think it’s right that we ask questions about what motivates our politicians, about what makes them tick. It goes to the heart of what sort of leader they are. Sometimes it can go too far – I really have no interest in forcing politicians to conduct every part of their private lives on TV.
But once again, this comes back to what kind of politicians we actually want. Do we want absolutely squeaky clean, dull, automatons with no understanding of humanity standing for election? I don’t. I want politicians who can acknowledge mistakes, who can empathise but not be overwhelmed, and who can fail or succeed like the rest of us.
The most important thing that politicians can give us is not their tears and emotion, but their judgement. And I don’t think that tears on demand are how they prove their fitness for office.
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I agree! And also, while the Camerons were mourning their infant son, Derek Draper was finalising plans with the knowledge and consent of senior Labour Party members to smear them and others atrociously. What price their tears?