These days, Canadians and Brits are being treated to lessons in caucus management. Robin Sears writes:
This government is still fighting a controversy that has cost them two ministers, an MP, the clerk of the privy council, and the prime minister’s most essential adviser. Angst over the disarray erupted in a very tense, sometimes hostile, caucus meeting last week. It is reported that senior staff have been assigned to do a better job of listening to grievances, sending and receiving messages from the centre to caucus and back. In the nine weeks of parliament left it seems unlikely that this will do much for wobbly morale.
Again, last week, it is the mother of parliaments that offers the most gripping real-life reality TV about the strange combination of family politics and biker-gang style turf wars that are the nature of every caucus. The U.K’s delightfully irascible House Speaker John Bercow dealt a savage blow to the May government, forbidding them from a third whack at the same Brexit bill. Theresa “one-note” May has nonetheless told EU leaders she will try again. A deeply frustrated EU gave her only 14 days to get it done.
In the end, both governments will be faced with the question of whether or not they will keep their leader. In both cases, their opponents are playing peek-a-boo. And, in both cases, the life is being sucked out of each government:
A constantly fissiparous caucus leeches valuable resources from the job of governing. Treacherous caucus deal-makers can deliver some very poor policy — a Brexit referendum, for instance. Even in opposition it can be wounding, as voters reasonably ask whether a leader who cannot manage their own tribe should be given the keys to the kingdom.
Consider how many files must be gathering dust on ministers’ desks due LavScam management sucking all the resources at the centre. Consider the deep divisions among lifelong friends it has already wrought. Then contemplate what a body blow is has been to morale and to planning a campaign only weeks away from soft launch.
The question that should be discussed seriously -- and is being overlooked -- is whether or not the opposition party would make things better.
Image: Indy 100
