WE have been witnesses to a disturbing epiphany. The ersatz public servants at the very pinnacle of governmental power – those whose principles, in a democratic state, are “like rags that would fly off at the first good shake” - have been exposed, and all their hypocrisy and all their contradictions can be viewed now with greater clarity.

Stanley Kubrick’s controversial film Eyes Wide Shut – an exploration of “the corruption of a world where wealth can buy anything and where power can conceal its crimes” – offers an appropriate lens through which to see the need to unmask the immorality and base selfishness that exist among a political class (capable of generating a Cabinet-wide apologia for a man with seemingly limitless ambition and untrammelled get-up-and-go), motivated more by individualism than by any sensibility for the common good.

“Something terrible goes wrong when we have no goal but ourselves.” Yet such is the nature of the drama, the tragedy, being played out in these days, and from which we dare not remove our focus, or “move on”, as with some elegant evasion.

At a time when solidarity should be the one most burnished and highly visible defence – the shield without equal in our panoply – we have seen, with no blurring of our vision, a manifestation of solipsistic “instinct” break through the pretence at unity. In the painful and costly struggle against this pandemic, it is immoral for the officer elite to leave the field and expect the hard-pressed foot soldiers – following orders and “doing the right thing” – to hold the line.

Yet manipulation of the facts – indeed, of the truth – is so menacingly real at the dark heart of the UK administration, that if any journey needs to be taken at this time, it must surely be that into honesty. Whatever vacuous and spurious claims these charlatans may make about their imagined and meaningless achievements (“we got Brexit done”), the challenge put by Walter Benjamin – “the victory arches of ancient Rome are tombstones over the graves of forgotten victims – clearly holds when applied singularly to them.

The insidious impresario, seated in the midst of No 10’s herbaceous borders, fatuously sought a fig leaf, but his appeal reached only the naive and the impressionable. He cannot stage manage the truth. His actions were – all of them – irresponsible, incautious, and inane.

The apologia, and the choric refrain to move on, have been seen without the masks and the make-up. It is yet more dangerous and contumely cover-up. The acolytes of agitprop are myopic malefactors caught in the full glare, now, of public scrutiny. “The horror, the horror!”

Patrick Hynes

Airdrie

IN the furore surrounding Dominic Cummings and Boris Johnson I am struck by one key character trait that clearly differentiates Nicola Sturgeon from them and is reflected in recent polls.

I understand from multiple press reports (although not from his own lips) that Boris Johnson likes to think of himself as the heir to Winston Churchill. This made me think on the leadership displayed by the generals in the Second World War, including Dwight Eisenhower, who I quote, “The supreme quality of leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.”

Unlike Dominic Cummings, Eisenhower didn’t put himself on a pedestal, didn’t act as if there were rules for soldiers that didn’t apply to him, and didn’t follow Cummings’s maxim of “Do what I say, not what I do”.

Integrity is fundamental to leadership. This was demonstrated clearly in a survey conducted by the recruitment firm, Robert Half to assess attitudes to key leadership traits. This survey found that integrity was valued as both the most essential leadership trait and the top quality in an executive. Without integrity, there is no leadership and what this episode shows in spades is that both Mr. Johnson and Mr. Cummings are simply unfit for their jobs.

Christopher Bauer, PhD, a fraud specialist and author of ‘Better ethics NOW” stresses that leaders need to empathise and highlight their commitment to integrity at every turn. They need to lead by example. He comments, ‘If they are modelling behaviour that lacks integrity, what message is that sending about what is acceptable behaviour?’ In this pandemic, breaking rules will kill people. There can be no more serious an issue.

It is a lesson writ clear. A man or woman without integrity cannot be an effective leader. Integrity, honour. Old-fashioned ideas perhaps but as critical today as they ever were to leadership.

David Cairns

Finavon