We need our leaders to be self-confident. But are they capable of humility?
Matt Hancock (PA Images).
Confidence is the gift that transforms talent into success. Without it, countless abilities may go to waste. No wonder that we all admire and most of us envy those who exude confidence from every pore. There is a reason why we expect our leaders in every field to demonstrate their self-confidence: it has the power to make men and women mighty.
And yet it is possible to have too much of this indubitably good thing. This year, ministers have tried to bluff their way through the labyrinth of a coronavirus pandemic without anything resembling Ariadne’s thread. The confidence we demand of them has frequently proved to be misplaced. Now that we have reached what we hope will be a turning point in the nation’s fortunes, with a genuinely effective vaccination and testing regime within sight, we should pause to reflect.
“I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.” Oliver Cromwell’s words, in a letter to the Kirk of Scotland of 1650, echo down the ages precisely because the Lord Protector (as he would soon become) was blessed with a self-confidence that carried him from obscurity through generalship in a civil war to a political supremacy so great that he could afford to turn down Parliament’s offer of the Crown. If even those who claim divine inspiration must admit the possibility of error, then those who rely on the all-too-human institutions of democracy for their authority should not be afraid to reveal their own fallibility.
A little humility from this government, then, would not come amiss. Whether it be the comprehensive Covid-19 strategy, from carefully targeted restrictions to the blunt instrument of lockdown, or the fiscal measures required to pay for it while keeping the economy on an even keel, there is clearly scope for improvement across the board. Ministers routinely add, as if it were an afterthought, the weasel words “mistakes have been made”. But they seldom admit to making any themselves. Confidence ought to be all about taking responsibility for misjudgments, not to evade it.
An example is the treatment of care home residents. It is generally acknowledged that large numbers were infected with Covid-19 in the early stages of the pandemic, of whom many thousands died, as a result of the policy of clearing hospital beds and moving patients into homes. Yet rather than admit their own fallibility, ministers and officials have since then obliged care homes to “shield” their residents from their own families and friends. Given that very elderly residents, especially those with dementia or other incurable conditions, may only have a comparatively short time to live, it is a grave matter to deprive them of access to their loved ones. Now, belatedly, the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, has promised that tests for visiting relatives will be “available in every care home by Christmas”. By then, however, many more residents will have died without being able to see, touch or talk to their nearest and dearest. And it is scandalous that Hancock has not apologised for the brutally utilitarian decisions, authorised by him, which panicked homes into treating those in their care with such disregard for common decency. This whole aspect of public policy could and should have been managed so much better if those at the top had not deluded themselves with their overweening self-confidence.
Another case where a little humility is long overdue might be Sir Keir Starmer. The Labour leader was recently photographed on a visit to the South Hampstead Synagogue, presumably to indicate that the appalling attitudes that were revealed by the EHRC report to be rife in his party have now been forgiven, if not forgotten, by at least some of the Jewish community. It is easy enough to make gestures of this kind. But there is one person in particular to whom Sir Keir owes an apology: the former Labour MP for Liverpool Wavertree, Luciana Berger. As the first Shadow Minister for Mental Health under Jeremy Corbyn, she was Starmer’s colleague and, like him, a “soft Left” stalwart. Unlike him, however, she resigned along with others in 2016 after criticising the leadership. In 2017 she became parliamentary chair of the Jewish Labour Movement and thereafter the anti-Semitic abuse which she had already endured for years rose to a crescendo, as far-Left activists sought to remove her from her seat. Finally, in February 2019, she left the Labour Party to co-found the short-lived Independent Group. Hounded out of the party she loved, the sight of Luciana Berger — heavily pregnant and bravely defiant — was unforgettable for Jews and non-Jews alike.
At the time, however, she was abandoned by fellow Labour moderates, especially by Starmer. From September 2018 to October 2020, he did not speak to her. Not until the eve of the publication of the EHRC report last month did the Labour leader pick up the phone to apologise to her. “I will judge Keir Starmer on his actions now in the wake of the report,” she told the BBC’s Emma Barnett recently. She is clearly still angry: less about the loss of her political career, bitter as that must be for someone so talented, than about the sense of deep betrayal. If Keir Starmer has any humility, he should publicly apologise to her, not just for the anti-Semitic abuse to which she was subjected, but for his own failure to offer support when she needed it most. The Labour leader and his party won’t get closure until they make amends to those who have been wronged and humiliated by purveyors of the oldest hatred.
In leadership, confidence is not merely a desideratum, but a necessity. Yet those who have confidence in themselves should be the first to admit mistakes and to take responsibility for them. Only the truly confident dare to be humble. Are Matt Hancock and Keir Starmer big enough men to show humility? To think it possible that they might have been mistaken?
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