What believing can do for you...

Matthew Parris as ever has an excellent article in the Times.
He makes the point forcefully that practically all the world's politicians are running around like headless chickens, because in general they are reacting to situations rather than looking at them broadly or through their principles. What principles you may ask - but read on...
"Did Gladstone, did Churchill, did Attlee, did Thatcher follow blueprints for their problems? Did they moan that the course was uncharted? When the challenge is unfamiliar, that's when you need politics; that's when you need philosophy, ideology, faith, hunch and the talent to link particular snarl-ups to a general view not only of how to manage traffic, but what cars are for. And you need the moral and intellectual confidence to follow your compass."
All these people had it. They had beliefs. They had principles. So when tested, they had the principles to guide them.
Not, as we have now, a party in power and a man in charge ( I use the term loosely) whose only idea is to do the opposition down, and extend state control.
George Osborne gave a speech yesterday to the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce. Don't forget it was one of the scions of Birmingham politics, a Chamberlain, who used the same event many years ago for a similar purpose - the redirection of his party. Many appear at the moment to think GO is a light weight, a tainted drink,not a helpful person in getting the Tories back into power. No one, however, has a greater thirst to put his policies into practice, nor the will and focus to achieve it. And before you ask what those policies are, they are the usual Conservative ones of sound money, value for money, an honest day's pay for an honest day's work - pretty much all of which have been destroyed by the present government.
Parris has this to say:"The Shadow Chancellor had stepped back, asked what at root he and David Cameron believed in, what at root they thought was wrong, followed this through to its consequences for policy, taken a deep breath - and said it in plain language. In a nutshell, that the banking bubble was part cause but also part symptom of our having lived beyond our means; that payback time is coming; and that in future we must cease rigging personal, business and national finances in favour of borrowing.
Right or wrong in its particulars, wise or ill-considered in its general sweep, Mr Osborne's speech stands as an example of what politics should be for: taking a view, a view of the whole, a view of your own; finding your explanation of the world; and navigating by that star. Deciding. And leaving managers to manage. That's what politics is for. "
Great stuff.Go for it.