Time to say a final goodbye to that worst style of leadership – the sanctimonious political preacher

Have you ever used the word sanctimony with anything but negativity. Of course not.

Instinctively nobody likes being told by a political leader that we lesser mortals are a bit inferior in the moral stakes and would just be happier if we were less….us.

So why did so many politicians of recent decades embrace the holier-than-thou as either their schtick or a phase. I’ll tell you why, because they genuinely believed it wasn’t sanctimony but solid righteous advice that was so blindingly good we’d be, not just fools, but immoral fools, not to accept it.

Me, I found it nauseating. Yes, I’m a cynic, I am a journalist for heaven’s sake, but even so ….who on earth thought winning votes would be best served by sermonising on why those listening really needed to be better people and overcome their baser instincts?

They should of course, but nobody likes being told that by a politician and feeling judged without cause. This is not a diatribe against religion either. My Dad was a vicar, not a tool maker. I’m not taking aim at those of faith. It’s about a style of politics.

Who am I railing at then?

Well most of the leaders we’ve had this century, in the UK, America and Europe have disappointingly dabbled in it too often. Barack Obama could stray into it, Kamala Harris fell doing it. Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May were sometimes accused of it. Boris couldn’t be, but for the wrong reasons. The lame-duck that is President Macron, used to dabble in it but discovered what a canard it is, when inevitably hung round his neck.

However the absolute gold medallists for sheer teeth-grinding sanctimony come from New Zealand and Canada.

Justin (or ‘just out’) Trudeau and Jacinda Ardern are the King and Queen of Holier-than-Thou politics. It’s not their left leanings that set my teeth on edge; it was the radiation of moral superiority and ever-so-humble bragging about it that brought out the rage.

And now they are gone, and hopefully this preachy habit is expunged forever from politics. It’s bad enough that voters think politicians live in ivory towers, why compound it with sermons from the balcony pulpit?

No it’s not exclusive to the left, but boy do they have an in-built weakness for it. If the last Government had a fault (it had a few let’s admit it) it was not acting quickly enough, and dithering, when dealing with those who had crossed the lines. But moralising before-hand has never gone well for those Conservatives who’ve tipped a toe in the warm bath of self-satisfied superiority. Back to basics was a disaster.

Our own Prime Minister, before he was Prime Minister, did not dip a toe in those waters.

No, he ran half the length of the pool, before bombing in the deep end and splashing all of his team with the same.

In the first half of 2024 Sir Keir, humble son of a tool maker, made it sound like he alone could deliver us from Tory evil, by simple dutiful ‘service’ and a new gold standard of ethical rectitude if only you would lend him your vote.

In the second half of 2024 Sir Keir slipped and fell flat, in someone else’s suits, glasses and home, having led an army to hear the wisdom of Taylor Swift, popped onto planes they’d ruled out using, lost a transport secretary who ‘lost’ her phone, and now has his governments appointed anti-corruption Minister, Tulip Saddiq, planted in Whitehall soil that may see some awkward things unearthed.

Now apparently, anybody even questioning Starmer’s orthodoxy is “far right”. I’m going to take a wild guess that line will not play out well.

Preach: Life comes back to bite you fast.

That’s the danger of the Justin and Jacinda model. Human’s, whether in government or in ordinary life, are humans. Life is complicated, and you nearly always get hoisted on your own petard if you pretend otherwise. Not even your colleagues like it (unless they want your job), as it’s a political time-bomb, ticking ominously throughout every statement of new moral intent.

Here in the UK that model has proved tricky enough for our more usual moral guardians. It’s rightly cost the job of someone who arguably is supposed to offer wisdom on our morality, the former Archbishop of Canterbury. A politician thinking it would play out better for them was always on a wing and prayer.

Am I advocating leaders lie? No. We all know how that ends up.

Do we want people defending the bending of rules when it involves their friends and allies, or worse advocating the breaking of rules ? Equally no.

Are we in favour in favour of moral ambiguity or neutrality from a leader? No, that is just a lack of principles and values, but show don’t say.

What might be better, and frankly always was, is someone who projects being genuinely as human as the rest of us, authentic in their aims for people to be “their best selves” but not shaming them into being so. Honesty and clarity are far more respectable, and attractive than the performative adoption of some moral and ethical superiority.

Jacinda’s star faded until she left the stage saying she had ‘nothing left in the tank‘. Truth is, she jumped before she was pushed. Justin may have hung on longer, but in the end the behaviour that once gave him popularity has turned into the very reason he’s  had to go. Yes the cliche says “all political careers end in failure” but don’t speed it up by pretending you’re above human failing.

You might argue a bit of moral direction from the top is to be wished for, but it’s always a risk, a huge hostage to fortune.

You might not like that. It’s true though.