Lest you think the people of the West are being governed by their betters. It’s gotten to the point that we need a new word to collectively describe the increasingly inept oligocracy. I suggest “an incompetence of politicians”:
Her rapid rise to become the youngest minister in government has taken some colleagues by surprise. Now extraordinary claims are circulating at Westminster that Chloe Smith was appointed because David Cameron was confused about her credentials. Miss Smith, who became the youngest MP in Parliament when she won the Norwich North by-election in 2009, was promoted last weekend to become Economic Secretary to the Treasury in the mini reshuffle that followed Liam Fox’s resignation….
After Mr Cameron told Miss Smith he would like to offer her the post, she is said to have replied: ‘Well, thank you Prime Minister. . .It would be an honour, but the Treasury…it’s a little daunting…’
The Prime Minister allegedly responded: ‘Not daunting surely for someone who was a chartered accountant?’
The confusion may have arisen because the MP, an English literature graduate, worked for accountancy firm Deloitte before entering politics, but as a consultant not an accountant. The confusion may have arisen because the MP, an English literature graduate, worked for accountancy firm Deloitte before entering politics, but as a consultant not an accountant The Norwich North MP is then said to have admitted: ‘Er, well, actually Prime Minister, I wasn’t an accountant. I was a management consultant in an accountancy firm.’
Mr Cameron apparently then said ‘never mind’ and welcomed Miss Smith aboard.
So chartered accountants are supermen? What? Anyhow, it can be little surprise that the economies of the West are sinking into a slough of debt and contraction when they are overseen by such a group of astonishingly corrupt and incompetent individuals. Now, I’m not a credentialist by any means, but even I would say it is going a just a bit too far in the other direction when, in a time of very dangerous economic and financial crisis, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury is a young woman with a degree in English Literature.
That being said, she’d be hard pressed to do worse than Gordon Brown did as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Or, for that matter, as Paul Krugman would if given half the chance.