Earlier this year I wrote a post, Two Principled Politicians, about Zac Goldsmith and Adlai Stevenson. They both came to mind again yesterday.
Zac Goldsmith resigned his seat as a Conservative MP in protest at the decision to build a third runway at Heathrow. He said he would and he did. Boris Johnson said that he will lie down in front of the bulldozers – will he? Zac stood on Thursday as an Independent and was expected to win. The Conservatives did not put up a candidate and the Lib Dems a novice who only joined the party a couple of years ago. However, Zac also as a matter of principle supported leaving the EU. 70% of voters in his constituency voted Remain and punished him by electing the Lib Dem candidate on Thursday.
I hope that doesn’t mean the end of Zac’s political career. Were he to ask me, I would suggest that he take some time off to re-charge his batteries and enjoy being with his wife and family before standing again as a Conservative. For six years he was a notable success as a constituency MP and a man of principle is a rarity in politics.
I didn’t expect to run across Adlai Stevenson but I had forgotten how discursive Rupert Hart-Davis is in his letters. He wrote this in January 1956.
The only hope I see for the so-called Free World is Adlai Stevenson, a man of wit, culture, and a breadth of outlook such as only Winston and FDR have shown these last thirty years. Adlai, did I tell you? was married to my wife’s first cousin (who left him directly he was elected Governor of Illinois), so he is one of the family. I have seen him only twice – once in New York, once in London – but was most impressed and charmed. I published his little book of lectures (Call to Greatness) and now have in progress a bigger book called What I Think – mostly speeches and articles – which should have some importance in this Election year. If Ike runs they all think he’ll get in. If he doesn’t run, Adlai should romp home.
Eisenhower did run and Adlai lost by a landslide. He got only seventy-three votes in the Electoral College. In 1957, RH-D gave a luncheon party in honour of American poet, Robert Frost. Afterwards he drove Frost back to the Connaught and in the hotel sitting-room noticed both his mother-in-law and Adlai. He wrote: “I decided that these two – in many ways the most interesting Americans alive – should meet, so I greeted my mother-in-law and got the two men talking very successfully”.
You are a generous and kind hearted fellow. Zac may be many things but a politician he ain’t. He has showed himself twice this year to be so out of touch with the voters as to be cringingly embarrassing. His failure to shake the hand of the victor as London mayor came across as the action of a spoilt child. Combined with an unfortunate rich boy’s aura, he just doesn’t have what it takes to succeed in modern politics ( nor would he, I suspect, have succeeded in previous generations). He should return to philanthropic lobbying and publishing, particularly on the environment which is where he has been most successful.
I do think you over-admire Zac. Mostly you mis-cast him as rare amongst politicians in having principles. Let’s leave aside Zac’s not being a politician, as John rightly notes. Principles are not all that rare in politics, and are not all that important either. Being stubbornly for or against something or other as a matter of personal predilection or judgement or conscience is all very well, but politicians have to combine that line of thought with the survival of their general ideals; with what their constituents want; with what their general political faction wants; with the national interest; with what government or opposition at that moment require. I think Zac is that character (I bet there are a few in Trollope) who is maverick, either because he is driven or rich or maybe both. But the danger in admiring one such is that one joins the vulgar horde who sneer at the trimmers and turncoats we also need and who must predominate, and one forgets that there cannot be statesmen without party hacks, and that some party hacks mature into greatness. Beyond being charismatic, Zac may become remarkable and I hope he does, but he shows little sign of it.
Apropos John, and sorry to bang-on, but I think Zac had very little useful to say on the environment. Again, if he were to take that seriously, something very good might yet come of his interest.
I have no beef here: I have always found Zac extraordinarily attractive.