Vince Cable received a grilling on Newsnight last night and from Jeremy Paxman you’d expect nothing less.
The combative presenter scented blood over the business secretary’s volte face regarding the timing of spending cuts. Pressed repeatedly why the Lib Dems had agreed to immediate spending cuts when they’d cautioned against cutting spending this year during the election campaign, Cable could only respond that he’d changed his mind due to a change in economic circumstances.
Paxman was characteristically unimpressed by this, and challenged Cable to say whether the Lib Dems would have performed the same U-turn if they’d been elected with a majority. The implication was clear: was it really because of the conveniently-timed eurozone crisis and fresh advice from the Governor of the Bank of England or had he jettisoned his principles to win power?
It was, I suppose, a fair line of inquiry from someone whose impatience with evasive politicians is both entertaining and a valuable public service (the best example being his hilarious interrogation of Michael Howard).
Surely, changing your mind is often a sign of an ego kept in check and essential if you're to to respond nimbly to changing circumstances and new evidence and prosper in business, politics or life generally?
But aside from the fact that a party whose last spell in government was 94 years ago would be a strange vehicle for anyone obsessed with gaining power, it did raise an interesting question: why is changing your mind invariably seen as a weakness in politics? Doing so opens you up to charges of 'flip-flopping', irresolution and sacrificing your principles for short-term expediency.
But surely, changing your mind is often a sign of an ego kept in check and essential if you're to to respond nimbly to changing circumstances and new evidence to prosper in business, politics or life generally? I'd love to hear politicians have the humility to suppress their pride and admit they were wrong sometimes.
In the case of Cable's U-turn, you can't deny that the 'facts on the ground' have changed substantially since the election and manifesto pledges relating to such delicate economic decisions need caveats.
I have more respect for people whose views evolve according to their experiences and observations and by genuinely listening to arguments that contradict their own, than for those whose outlook is fully formed early and set in stone thereafter, and who only consume media with an agenda that simply entrenches their own views.
Most people wouldn't disagree with that sentiment, and yet the former, open-minded group are much more liable to change their mind - a cardinal sin in politics it seems.
