A handy way of spotting stupid people is that they say things like, “Politicians! They’re all as bad as each other.” I’ve heard versions of this phrase all my sentient life. But since 2008 the sentiment has become almost universal. “Our political class is entirely mediocre,” as a faux-intellectual Parisian told me the other day. The standing of elected politicians is at its lowest since the 1930s. You can see why: after the Iraq war and the global financial crisis, it now turns out that the euro (brainchild of Europe’s political class) was a ghastly idea.
However, the bashing of today’s politicians is unfair. They deserve a break.
Modern western politicians divide neatly into three generations. The first lasted from 1940 until Charles de Gaulle’s resignation in 1969. Politicians of this era – Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, Konrad Adenauer and De Gaulle – either won the war, or helped rebuild their countries afterwards, or both. Even their contemporaries took them seriously: when Churchill stood against Clement Attlee in Britain’s elections of 1945, about half the population heard one or both of their campaign broadcasts. Today these politicians are revered. In the early 2000s Churchill, Adenauer and De Gaulle were voted greatest Briton, German and Frenchman.