Let’s not make saviours out of Sunak or Starmer

Politicians do not live up to messianic billing.

Cameron Wiltshire-Plant

Cameron is training to be a vicar in the city of Leicester.

Looked down upon by crowds in galleries, a politician stands amid a throng of supporters

Kier Starmer at Scottish Labour's election launch.

Pam Duncan-Glancy via Twitter.

It was 2015 and I thought Ed Miliband was the saviour of the free world. Remember, this was before Covid and Brexit and Trump, and politics seemed so binary and easy. Left-Right. Government-Opposition. Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown. Monoliths in my teenage eyes.

The excitement of the novel 2010 hung parliament and the injustice (as I saw it) of Nick Clegg (remember him?) ‘getting into bed’ with David Cameron instead of Gordon Brown had carried me all the way to the A-level Politics classroom. I was watching Ed attempt to tell Jeremy Paxman that, hell yeah, he was tough enough. A hung Parliament threatened again, until it didn’t. The Conservatives won enough to govern and the hope swelling in my breast was trodden down by spending upper sixth watching Donald Trump sweep to power.

I have learned enough since then not to cast Sir Kier Starmer in the same mould. Sunak’s snap election is not a choice between two saviours, but two politicians compromised by the grit of reality and the inheritance of a set of global circumstances.

Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, figures held up for their political savvy and economic foresightedness respectfully. To put it mildly, they did not live up to their messianic billing.

Often, we can make these political figureheads into messiahs, those who will come on a wave of hope to fix the nation’s problems, govern wisely, and bring unity. Perhaps, approaching July 4th, these feelings are intensified.

There is much in these pages excellently denoting the deliberate co-opting of Christ for nationalistic political purpose, and I am suggesting that we are often willing collaborators, bringing a religious devotion to our ideology and those which propound it: “If only it were insert politician who were running the country, then everything would be much better!”

This almost cultic reverence was present in some circles surrounding both Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, figures held up for their political savvy and economic foresightedness respectfully. To put it mildly, they did not live up to their messianic billing. For others, this devotion was saved for Thatcher, Blair, Cameron, Corbyn.

A word of wisdom to my teenage self? Passion for politics is no bad thing, but devotion to human ideology is misplaced.

Rishi Sunak and Sir Kier Starmer do not quite have the same star power, with Starmer especially coming across as the more doughty-and-dependable type. But it was ever thus. Human nature is inherently cyclical, and we swing from one archetype to the next, always in the hope that the next one in will do a better job than the last.

The messiah is of course a Jewish concept, the awaited one who will deliver them from their enemies and lead them to a state of peace. Many have claimed to be the awaited one, but only one has convinced a multitude. We read of Jesus of Nazareth in our carol services every year that the government will be on his shoulders and the greatness of his government and peace will have no end. At the end of this year in which a new government is formed, perhaps these age-old claims have increased significance. They invite us to look beyond the immediate and the physical, to look beyond those names who dominate headlines, claiming to be the one who will deliver change and reverse decline.

Saint Paul has some wise words for those of us wondering how we can engage with a political world feeling more divisive and divided than ever. He tells us to pray for our government, whether you want Labour or Conservative and end up with the reverse. It is a tough job, and he tells us to give due honour to those who lead us, engaging with politics, giving it the respect it is due. But looking to politicians for deliverance? St Paul would call that folly. He only had one saviour.

For deliverance, we must look beyond the territorial and the electoral, to one who does not promise vote share or positive polling, but sacrifice and justice; to one who comes to us not with populism or popularity, but with lowliness, humility, and integrity. A word of wisdom to my teenage self? Passion for politics is no bad thing, but devotion to human ideology is misplaced. Do not put your trust in the cycle of human proclivities, but in the one whose government will have no end.

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Feminism

Leading

23 October 2024

5 min read

Can Kemi really have it all?

For female experiences to mean something, we need to be part of something bigger.

Sian Brookes

Sian Brookes is studying for a Doctorate at Aberdeen University. Her research focuses on developing a theological understanding of old age. She studied English and Theology at Cambridge University.

A woman works at a laptop on a desk surrounded by picture frame.

Kemi Badenoch campaigning.

Kemibadenoch.org.uk

Apparently Kemi Badenoch is unfit for leadership due to a ‘preoccupation’ with her children. Such comments are hardly a surprise. After all, she is both a mother and a woman vying to be in a position of power. Since the beginning of time women have been mothers, but women haven’t always been in positions of power. So it is not surprising that some people have problems adjusting to the change. But it isn’t just Robert Jenrick who finds this adjustment difficult. In my experience, most women find it hard too. Becoming a mother is a beautiful but body-breaking, exhaustion-inducing and identity-questioning process. And that is just in the first few months. Add to that the expectations of also having successful careers as well, and it is no wonder we find it hard.

Kemi Badenoch’s response, naturally and rightly, was to show how capable she is to lead the Tory party alongside her maternal responsibilities, whilst challenging the view that just because she is a woman she is more responsible for her kids than a man with similar age kids would be. But her lack of acknowledgement of the hardship involved in being a mother and having a successful career does leave an awkward silence around what is an ongoing imbalance in many relationships when it comes to holding the fair share of parental, household and professional responsibilities.

This relentless pursuit of the ability of mothers to do everything else as well as being a mother says something about what we expect from women in our society. We need to prove that it is possible to be a woman and do all the things men have traditionally done. Yet sometimes I do wonder if we make it harder for ourselves. Is it our own expectations which make this thing called being a woman much harder than it needs to be?

Perhaps she is valuable not because of what she does or the choices she makes and what that says about the feminist cause, but because her worth lies elsewhere.

I’ve been blessed with the task of raising three boys, but I think about my friends who are raising little girls and the hopes they have for them. The hopes that they will grow to defy the expectations placed on them because they are female; to counter the oppression put upon them by breaking through the ceilings that may be built over them by others, to become whatever they want to be; engineers, consultant doctors, CEOs, even builders or plumbers if they so desire.

At the same time, (if the girls want them), they are expected to build families and loving safe homes. All of the things our mothers hoped for us and their mothers before them hoped for their own daughters.

Yet now, alongside those hopes for domestic fulfilment, so many other expectations have been added. Of course, the obvious solution to this, as Kemi has argued, is for men and women to share the load on both sides – to build the home and work life in a way that benefits both in the partnership. But the fact remains that relatively speedily in the course of historical development, we have come to a position where we are all expecting to have it all, all the time. And especially for our girls – we want them to be strong, powerful, successful, fruitful and productive all at once.

Now, this is not to say that we should revert to a time when only women ran the household and only men inhabited the professional domain. But sometimes perhaps it’s OK for a woman just to be a mum, if that is what she wants. She doesn’t have to also show the world she can be everything else as well. Some would criticise that decision as selling out on the relentless need to fight for equality with men. But not everything a woman does has to demonstrate some ideological end in fighting for equality, as though that is what gives her value as a woman. Perhaps she is valuable not because of what she does or the choices she makes and what that says about the feminist cause, but because her worth lies elsewhere.

Whatever we do, we do it to witness to a love, a truth which goes beyond whatever we can give to the world.

Many of the friends I spoke of earlier who have those little girls chose to have their daughters baptised as babies. This act of infant baptism puts the stake in the ground for the belief that before they could do anything, before they could prove their worth as a female member of society demonstrating all that power, strength, purpose and ability to right all the wrongs of the past, they were loved and valued beyond measure, without condition.

As a girl, and before they grow to be a woman, maybe a mother, and then potentially the leader of a political party, they are a child of a God who values them not because of what they have done or will do, but because they are His child. At the same time, this doesn’t mean we sit back and do nothing – it’s central to the Christian faith to fight injustice and overturn oppressive powers, but this is never achieved by human action alone as though the weight of the world falls on our shoulders, it is done by bearing witness to a God who has a better plan for the world and for society than we could ever dream or imagine. It is only when we realise this that the burden might be lifted from all the women fighting for all the things we are supposed to fight for.

Of my three closest friends in the church, one is (currently) a stay-at-home mum, one a doctor, one a vicar. As for myself, I am studying for a PhD in theology. We also all spend a lot of time looking after children, cooking and doing the dishes (as do our husbands). And yet, when we reflect together, these choices feel less statements of how we might be empowered or not as women, but more the result of a belief that whatever we do, we do it to witness to a love, a truth which goes beyond whatever we can give to the world. And so, we can each celebrate what we “do” because in each offering of ours can be found meaning, purpose and life beyond our own abilities, even our own individual actions. Perhaps, this is better than any kind of feminism you find around these days, because it allows us each to do the small thing in front of us without loading more on ourselves than we can bear alone. Only together, and only in knowing we are part of something bigger than ourselves, can our variety of female experiences mean something. In this way of living, being a woman feels very free indeed.