Weak leaders are bringing the West to its knees

 Weak leaders are bringing the West to its knees PETA CREDLIN 

At the recent meeting of the G7, the only democratic leader present with an approval rating north of 40 per cent was its host, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni. The best of the rest, at 37 per cent, was the United States’ Joe Biden (although this was before his debate disaster), followed by Canada’s Justin Trudeau at 30 per cent, Germany’s Olaf Schulz at 25 per cent, Britain’s Rishi Sunak also at 25 per cent, France’s Emmanuel Macron at 21 per cent, and Japan’s Fumo Kishida at just 13 per cent. Sunak is almost certain to be thrashed in the British elections on Thursday and a way-past-his prime Biden might well be dumped by his party even before November’s US election. Our own Anthony Albanese’s current 42 per cent approval (for a net approval rate of minus 11) looks almost glowing, yet his government will almost certainly go backwards at the next election. 

Not for almost a century has strong and confident democratic leadership been so needed yet almost never has the leadership of the main democracies been so lacklustre. And so, why? First, it’s because almost none of the current crop of leaders has addressed their societies’ underlying problems. Second, it’s because large percentages of the electorate in these main democracies feel politically homeless – indeed disenfranchised. And third, as suggested on this page earlier this week (“The West hasn’t figured out what’s going wrong. Voters are the problem”, 2/7), democratic electorates are, as yet, in no mood to welcome the leadership that’s needed. As the US commentator George Will said during an earlier dispiriting period (the late 1970s), “the cry goes up for leadership from millions of people who wouldn’t know it if they saw it, and would reject it if they did”. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the widespread perception that liberal market democracy was permanently ascendant, the main democracies have militarily, economically and even culturally disarmed. Yet it’s one thing to recognise the gathering storm; quite another to have a plan to deal with it. 

For all its residual strength, compared to China, the US is militarily much weaker than even five years back. Certainly, it’s a long time since the mere appearance of a US carrier strike force in the Taiwan Straits would be enough to deter any thoughts of aggression from Beijing. As the Ukraine war has shown, collectively, the main democracies’ preference for butter over guns means they’re woefully incapable of matching the armaments production, even of Russia, whose GDP in US dollar terms is scarcely a third more than Australia’s. And as the subsequent war in Gaza shows, not only are the main democracies scarcely capable of maintaining two democratic allies’ conflicts at once – let alone three, should China attack Taiwan – but large sections of their people and leadership can’t decide whose side they’re on: that of the Middle East’s only functioning democracy, or an apocalyptic death cult. 

Meanwhile, all the main democracies are engaged in economic self-harm in the name of climate change and other luxury beliefs. The latest example is our own parliament’s banning of the live sheep trade this week on the grounds of alleged cruelty to animals. And the main Anglosphere countries are full of doubt about their fundamental legitimacy and self-worth: America over slavery, Britain over colonialism, and Australia over the dispossession of the original inhabitants. Very few democratic leaders show unqualified pride in their countries or appreciation of how the Pax Americana has helped the wider world, until very recently, to be more free, more fair, more rich, prosperous, and more safe for more people than ever before in history; and that migrants to their countries have won the lottery of life and should be grateful. And almost none of them are prepared to say that in order to stay free, fair, and prosperous, the main democracies need to be less obsessive about reducing emissions and climate catastrophism, much readier to clamp down on out-of-control immigration, much more strict about morally relativist and culturally self-loathing education systems, and be willing to make at least some sacrifices in support of freedom. The partial exceptions are Meloni, who’s been better at railing against immigration in opposition than reducing it in government; and Donald Trump, although he never quite “built the wall”, didn’t even come close to “draining the swamp” and continues to pretend that there’s no cost to unilateral protectionism and no downside to America opting out of being the world’s policeman. 

Britain is about to get a greenleft Labour government with a super majority, not because the electorate has much enthusiasm for Sir Keir Starmer but because voters, especially strong conservative ones, are utterly disillusioned with a Tory party that (Brexit aside) hasn’t governed like one. France could be about to get a so-called “far right” National Assembly majority because the longestablished centre-right party comprehensively failed to respond to voters’ concerns about mass illegal migration that is impacting on living standards and social cohesion. That’s because when parties of the centre (left and right) consistently fail to address popular concerns, parties on the fringe that do so will eventually get traction. Both the Gaullists in France and the Conservatives in Britain have been part of the official “uniparty” consensus that immigration is always good and that renewable power is indisputably cheap, but that’s not the perception of people on “struggle street” which is why all the political establishments, left and right, are under pressure, either from fringe parties (such as Reform UK in Britain) or internal insurgents (such as Trump in the US). Yet almost no one contending for high office, establishment or insurgent, is prepared to tell voters the truth that there are few cost-free changes. Trump has nothing to say about America’s unsustainable deficits beyond “growth will fix it”. 

Looking at the creaking NHS, no British leader is prepared to say that patients simply cannot always get treatment that’s the best, immediate, and for free; so, one or more will often have to give. Here in Australia, it’s generally accepted that the NDIS, for instance, is a fiscal time bomb but no one will face up to the fact that eligibility and entitlements have to be curbed if the scheme is to be sustainable. Our officialdom recalls the fate of the 2014 budget, the last one that attempted difficult economic reform, and concludes that things might have to be much worse before most voters would willingly accept the need to wind some things back. In a democracy, there can’t be strong leadership without strong voters which is why countries ultimately get the leaders they deserve. And yet, some change-for-thebetter might be in the offing. By being upfront with voters that nuclear power is the only way to get to net zero and keep the lights on, and that the inescapable choice is between paying more for a reliable emissions-free system, or even more for an unreliable one, at least Peter Dutton has shown the political integrity we claim to expect of a leader. The question now is whether voters have sufficient collective character to recognise it.  

Crisis of entitlement

 Crisis of entitlement leaves West on the precipice of disaster. MATTHEW SYED 

“A nation is born stoic, and dies epicurean,” historian William Durant wrote in The Story of Civilisation. “If war is forgotten in security and peace … then toil and suffering are replaced by pleasure and ease; science weakens faith even while thought and comfort weaken virility and fortitude.” They are words that are perhaps worth pondering as the Western world moves closer to the precipice while distracting itself with endless cat videos and online spats about whether plaiting hair amounts to cultural appropriation. The alarm bells are ringing everywhere. You can hear them in the travesty of an election taking place in the UK, the rightward turn about to hit France’s Fifth Republic and the parody of a debate in which a pathological liar and someone apparently suffering cognitive decline were put forward as prime candidates to become leader of the “greatest nation on Earth”. Yet even now I fear the West hasn’t figured out what is going wrong and why. 

While pundits examine exit polls and consult focus groups, they miss the rot buried so deep in our system that it has become all but invisible. And – if you’ll forgive me for being candid – it has nothing to do with hopeless leaders, Russian bots, high taxes, low taxes or being members of the wrong trading bloc. The problem is Western electorates. Us. Let’s briefly look at what most people agree are the symptoms of political decay. Debt is rising: approaching 100 per cent of GDP in the UK, 115 per cent in France and 120 per cent in the US. These are highs previously reached at the end of World War II, when we had just financed a conflict, after which levels rapidly fell. Today they are set to rise – and rise (partly because of changing demography). The US Congressional Budget Office projects that the share of GDP used to service the federal debt will be twice what is spent on national security by 2041. The Office for Budget Responsibility foresees UK debt reaching 300 per cent by 2070. 

France – well, who knows what will happen if Marine Le Pen gets the chance to enact her deluded version of populism? Let us rattle through the other problems too: we can no longer build, whether it is homes, roads, railways or power grids. Then there is the addiction to low-wage immigration and funny money (otherwise known as quantitative easing) and our abject failure – notably in Europe – to spend adequately (or wisely) on defence. I gration means paying workers more in the here and now, but it also means that we are not storing up vast fiscal liabilities and putting extra pressure on our physical infrastructure and (if these immigrants fail to integrate) cultural capital. Or take public borrowing to finance current spending. We have a choice: do we resist the temptation to use the credit card today – which implies we will have less of everything else? Or do we max out the Amex, enjoy extra consumption and borrow again next year, saddling future generations with could go on, but allow me to cut to the chase. 

Policy wonks tend to analyse these challenges in isolation and come up with what look like solutions. For example: we can cut public debt by abiding by fiscal rules. The problem is such rules are serially broken or subverted. The same happens to promises on infrastructure, immigration, monetary realism, you name it. And the reason is that the dysfunction is a symptom of a deeper – much deeper – problem. For when you look again, you notice a single and, in my view, unavoidable cause: an inability to make short-term sacrifices to secure a brighter future; to defer instant gratification for long-term success. We have become a civilisation that’s all about “now, now, now” and “me, me, me” – the antithesis of what the West once represented. Building railways, for example, represents a sacrifice in the here and now because the money to hire diggers and pay workers can’t be splurged on day-to-day consumption. But guess what: if we make this sacrifice, in a few years we will have extra connectivity to fuel growth. Similarly, weaning ourselves off low-wage immi crippling interest payments and structural weakness? The latter choice is easier, but also – over time – insidious, chipping away at the vitality of a civilisation. 

My point is that success for nations, as for individuals, requires tough choices. This is what we tell our children, isn’t it? Work hard. Practise. This might not be as much fun as playing another game on the iPad but it will confer blessings that last a lifetime. And we have words, do we not, for children who refuse to make such sacrifices? Spoiled. Entitled. The same, I suggest, applies to civilisations. When Rome was lean and driven, it built infrastructure, created a superb military and grew. A few centuries later, flabby and complacent, it wanted the blessings of success but not the costs. The empire had entered a fantasy land, where expenditure on ever more generous welfare payments and bread and circuses rose beyond the capacity of the state to afford it. So when the money ran out, the emperors debased it, reducing the silver content until the currency was worthless. The West is (I’d estimate) three centuries into its period of global supremacy, roughly the time between the beginning of the Roman principate and Diocletian’s splitting of the empire. And is it not reasonable to note a similar pattern, with China playing the role of the insurgent Vandals? 

Yet instead of confronting the disease, we look for scapegoats: immigrants, populists, wokesters, MAGA, remainers, leavers and so on. Anything to distract us from the more challenging truth that almost every section of Western society has drifted into a state of endemic entitlement. And this is why, if I were prime minister, I’d be saying to benefit claimants cheating the system: I’m coming for you. I’d be saying to the army of rent-seekers in the administrative state: your time is up. I’d be saying to the entitled old: I’m no longer allowing you to use your voting numbers to rig the system. I’d be saying to the mobile super-wealthy: I’m closing your tax loopholes. I’d be saying to cronyist regulators: I’m locking the revolving door. And (some readers might not like this) to the homeowners who enjoyed zero interest rates generated by funny money after the financial crash, and who laughably think they deserve their inflated gains, I’d be saying: I want to claw some of this cash back to make the investments we so desperately need. Yes, I’m coming for you, too. 

But the devastating, potentially terminal truth is that a critical mass of voters are not ready to hear this. They are too  comfortable in the delusion of their own entitlement, pretending the problem lies with everyone else (in this sense, polarisation is another symptom of the rot). And let’s not pretend the problem is short election cycles or hopeless politicians, because these retailers – Starmer, Sunak, Biden, Trump, Farage – are merely regurgitating different versions of the fantasy voters wish to hear, but never daring to tell the whole truth. In a seminal intervention recently the superb Paul Johnson, of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, called the British election a “conspiracy of silence”, but I’d suggest the true conspiracy engulfs the whole Western world. Our only hope is to escape our delusion and embrace realism. For perhaps the killer point is this: as the audacity and brilliance of Western civilisation degenerates before our eyes, it is the world’s autocrats who are rubbing their hands with glee.