The Tribune

“The rollercoaster career of a politician who had defied political gravity for nearly four decades has finally come crashing to earth.”

– BBC story after the fall of Boris Johnson

THE main theme for the July/August edition of Foreign Affairs is “What is Power?” Several articles explore the topic, including Ngaire Woods’ “What the Mighty Miss: The Blind Spots of Power.”

The Professor of Global Economic Governance at the University of Oxford mainly utilizes Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Russia to describe the classic blind spots of the powerful, who typically sow the seeds of their demise, believing they are immune from human nature, political gravity and the insidious lure of conceit or “excessive pride.”

The major blind spots: “The powerful often imagine themselves to be above the rules. Leaders often think they are stronger than they are – (and there is) an unwillingness to seek counsel and countenance criticism.”

Dr Woods may have also applied these blind spots to outgoing British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and politicians of all stripes who power infects with drug-like traits. There are drugs which induce euphoria and those that anesthetise. Those in power are often seduced and bedeviled by both.

INADEQUACIES

Some of the pathologically egomaniacal desperately need power to anaesthetise or ease deep-seated and chronic inadequacies, which can never be externally quenched.

Power reveals and often turbo-charges certain character traits, good and ill, as well as the admixture of personal and larger ambitions of those who rise to the top. It can bring out the very best and the very worst.

Sir Max Hastings, Johnson’s former boss at the Daily Telegraph, foresaw that the latter’s premiership would “almost certainly reveal a contempt for rules, precedent, order and stability”.

A former teacher explained: “Boris sometimes seems affronted when criticised for what amounts to a gross failure of responsibility – I think he honestly believes it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception, one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.”

Power worsened this disposition in the charismatic, charming politician. With Johnson at the helm, the Tories won a landslide election in 2019, in what some deemed a political realignment with the Conservatives winning traditionally Labour or red wall seats.

Johnson’s formidable campaigning skills helped the party to defeat a traumatised opposition that wondered how long it might have to endure in the proverbial political wilderness. Yet three years later Johnson is on his way out, and Labour has revived, though a victory at the next general election is by no means secure.

The Tories won the 2019 contest for a number of reasons. One of the more compelling was the great fortunate of having the socialist and leftist Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn as a bogeyman and opponent.

Labour once again committed political suicide by veering left in a mostly centrist UK, where older voters, more weary of leftist leaders, make up a disproportionate share of the electorate.

Johnson’s excessive confidence after the victory is a classic tale: euphoria after victory, with the certain belief that another victory is near destined or likely. This is what the FNM believed after its landslide victory in 2017, only to be crushed at the polls by events less than five years later.

BUNKER

There is a simple test as to whether one is already in the bunker with hermetically sealed windows and blinders on one’s shuttered eyes and closed ears: the firm belief that one will have a second consecutive term.

Mesmerised by seizing power, the PLP is making the same classic mistakes as many have before at home and abroad. Campaigning and governing are not the same thing. Voters sour very quickly, especially in difficult economic times. In The Bahamas, breaking the 25-year cycle of one-term governments will not be easy.

Leaders, increasingly isolated in bunkers with blinders on, typically listen to those who are telling them what they want to hear, including how well-liked or popular they are. They are often deaf to discordant voices and those issuing warnings about the perils ahead.

There is another lesson those who once possessed great power learn after their downfall. Many once supposed loyal followers, sycophants and bootlickers can turn on the proverbial dime, quickly and easily castigating the fallen prince. Boris Johnson is already experiencing the loss of fealty and grace and favour-like patronage.

Power often dulls judgment, common sense, reason and insight. Certain emotions in the powerful often overrun rational analysis. Stanford University Business School psychologist Deborah Gruenfield has studied how power alters reasoning, even among those trained to be judicious and analytical.

She reviewed over 1,000 US Supreme Court decisions between 1953 and 1993. Her conclusion: “As justices gained power on the court, or became part of a majority coalition, their written opinions tended to become less complex and nuanced. They considered fewer perspectives and possible outcomes.”

PARADOX

In the article, “How Power Corrupts”, by Jonah Lehrer in WIRED, the writer notes: “Psychologists refer to… the paradox of power. The very traits that helped leaders accumulate control in the first place all but disappear once they rise to power. Instead of being polite, honest and outgoing, they become impulsive, reckless and rude.

“According to psychologists, one of the main problems with authority is that it makes us less sympathetic to the concerns and emotions of others. For instance, several studies have found that people in positions of authority are more likely to rely on stereotypes and generalizations when judging other people.”

Johnson’s belief that rules did not apply to him became writ large in scandal after scandal. He was investigated over who paid for the redecoration of his flat in No 10.

The Partygate scandal revealed his contempt for rules which his government instituted for the wider public. There are serious and ongoing questions over his private meeting with Russian oligarch and ex-KGB officer Alexander Lebedev.

There has been ongoing controversy over some of those receiving peerages to the House of Lords. He initially sought to rewrite the disciplinary code for MPs to help an ally. He also rewrote a part of the ministerial code to help himself as Partygate exploded. He would eventually lose two ethics advisors.

Weaker and more insecure leaders are more comfortable with obsequious advisors who are often less capable than the principal. This is typically a recipe for disaster as a leader or politician may not access the best advice possible from a mix of advisors.

The better politicians appreciate this. They try to be clear-eyed about their flaws and inadequacies, compensating for them through restraint and the avoidance of a bunker mentality.

Such restraint and perspective is typically best achieved through the advice of family, friends and advisors who constantly try to keep them grounded as power tends to inebriate many, if not most, of those who drink from the fountain of its intoxicating nectar.

In her Foreign Affairs piece, Dr Woods describes the effect of power on the wealthy:

“Psychologists have found that wealthy people are more likely to lie and cheat when gambling or negotiating, to cut people off when driving, and to endorse unethical behaviour in the workplace.

“But wealthy people’s status can lead them to believe that their own needs and desires are more important than any rules, so much so that they absolve themselves from complying with the rules altogether.”

Wealth is a type of power. Like all cocooned power, it often leads to all manner of conceit, often indifference to the realities and daily struggles of others. Power has an extraordinary psychological effect on those who are in possession of such authority over the lives of others.

It requires tremendous personal restraint and the counsel of others to help the powerful to limit the abuse of such power, which is always fleeting as is life itself. The last words are Boris Johnson’s advice to Tony Blair as power began to drain away from the successful Labour Prime Minister, dogged by the invasion of Iraq: “It is a wonderful and necessary fact of political biology that we never know when our time is up. Long after it is obvious to everyone that we are goners, we continue to believe in our ‘duty’ to hang on - to the perks and privileges of our posts. In reality, we are just terrified of the come-down.”