GUEST BLOG: Ross Meurant – Power Seduces
Power is an aphrodisiac. It seduces – and I don’t only mean, sex in the Speaker’s Chair:
When I was an M.P. I soon realised that:
- If you were in the Opposition, you might as well stay home.
- If you were in Government, unless you were in Cabinet, you might as well stay home.
- If you were in Cabinet, unless you were in the ‘cabal’, you might as well stay home.
Without power in politics, you may as well stay home.
What then are the claims and counter claims which currently circulate the political atmosphere, about the lengths our current bevy of MPs will go to, to stay in power?
- Many out there accuse Jacinda of playing the COVID card – to get back onto the Treasury Benches.
- Many out there condemn Jacinda for failing to push out election day. “It’s unconstitutional to run an election during a national emergency”, they say.
On the other side of the fence we have Judy Collins.
- Many out there say that Crusher will take the issue of holding and election during a national emergency, to Court!
And of course, as we are speaking of staying in power- at any cost, what about NZ First?
- Will NZ First cross the floor in parliament and vote with National to delay the elections?
Based on low polling by NZ First, juxtaposed against the possibility of Jacinda losing votes the longer this COVID crisis endures, and definitely if lockdown emerges, logic suggest to me that a delayed election is Winston’s only hope.
Then there is the final ploy – which unequivocally reinforces my claim that Power Seduces.
In spite of Collins saying she will not do a deal with NZ First; to make doubly sure she gets a delayed election; will she offer Shane Jones Northland – if NZ First votes with National to defeat Labour and extend the current session?
Ross Meurant, B.A. M.P.P. Currently Honorary Consul for an African state and Trustee & MD of absentee Russian owned commercial assets in NZ. Former National MP, former police inspector
Interesting scenarios Ross. I hadn’t thought of Court proceedings but the possibilities are there knowing the players.
About power, I think there is one absolute I have heard in life, (which must be thought of in full):
Power TENDS to corrupt, and Absolute Power TENDS to corrupt absolutely.
When the ‘tends’ go in it means that the naysayers can’t find any weasleholes in the argument; there will be a small number that could be held up to show that some have risen above the seduction of power and kept their marbles. But it is corrosive, power, and it is always easier for the viewer to form firm decisions than the incumbent.
I remember often this from Bertrand Russell:
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/bertrand_russell_101364
But this one lays it all out for us I think – summarising all the thick documents and piles of CDs about our various avenues of thought and practice:
“Love is wise; hatred is foolish. In this world, which is getting more and more closely interconnected, we have to learn to tolerate each other, we have to learn to put up with the fact that some people say things that we don’t like.
We can only live together in that way. But if we are to live together, and not die together, we must learn a kind of charity and a kind of tolerance, which is absolutely vital to the continuation of human life on this planet.”
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/617557-love-is-wise-hatred-is-foolish-in-this-world-which