蜜芽传媒

Good morning

The last eighteen months have been the story of a struggle. Not so much between Remainers and Leavers but between simplicity and complexity. Between the simple vote to leave or remain and the complexity of disentangling a forty year relationship.

It鈥檚 also been a struggle between the heart and the mind. Many of us voted with our emotions and have had to watch others negotiate with their heads.
And if that鈥檚 not been hard enough the struggles have been intensified by the debate about democracy itself and who should have the last word 鈥� a once-and-for-all Referendum of the people or a Parliament elected by the people.

Seldom have the two little prepositions 鈥榦f鈥� and 鈥榖y鈥� had such force in our history.

As we stand this week on the brink of a momentous decision and survey the channel between us and the rest of Europe there are many hidden currents.
The nation is divided, the two main parties are divided and many individuals are divided within themselves.

So let me take you to a corner of the United Kingdom, to the heart of ancient England and to a village in Suffolk near Bury St Edmunds and to a monk and poet of the 15th Century called John Lydgate.

He wrote words that allegedly inspired a politician who presided over a bitterly divided nation. The country was America, the politician was Abraham Lincoln and the words of the Reverend Brother John Lydgate were these:

鈥淵ou can please some of the people all of the time,

you can please all of the people some of the time

but you can鈥檛 please all of the people all of the time.鈥�

I guess in a pub quiz most would attribute the saying to a politician. But it was a priest and a pastor who coined them. For pastors as well as politicians know the fickleness of human nature.

But how are we, who are the led, to evaluate the competing leaderships at a time when it鈥檚 impossible to please everybody.

Over the last couple of decades there鈥檚 emerged a consensus about the principles of public service. Mostly they鈥檙e used retrospectively to judge a person鈥檚 past performance. They鈥檙e the Nolan Principles.

I doubt that many of us know them off by heart. But they鈥檙e worth pondering and applying to all those MPs who this week seek to lead us. They鈥檙e a sort of Seven Secular Commandments. Seven hallmarks with which to test and measure the stature of leaderships on offer.

They are: Selflessness, Integrity, Objectivity, Accountability, Openness, Honesty and Leadership.

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