No particular place to go

THE EDITOR, Madam:

A recent panel of media mavens and political pundits discussed British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer on the BBC-TV show, Newsnight.  Although his Labour Party won a super majority two years ago, he has stumbled, fumbled and mumbled his way from one chaos to the next. 

The panel’s consensus was that he was a stellar, public prosecutor, but that brilliance did not transfer in any way, shape or form to the political arena. They added that France’s Emmanuel Macron was similarly blighted, a top banker with an outstanding reputation, but was just the opposite as a beleaguered French president. 

The expert panel deduced that career politicians like Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher and Franklin D. Roosevelt had a necessary ruthless streak to become successful leaders, something definitely lacking in Starmer and Macron. 

I watched this programme while the Spring Economic Update was introduced in Ottawa’s parliament, exactly a year after Mark Carney was elected as Canada’s 24th prime minister. The highly anticipated update turned out to be a damp squib, a disappointing mishmash of identical unkept grand promises and policies made a year ago. 

Mr. Carney was a bank governor in both Canada and England, but like his counterparts in London and Paris his expertise has definitely not transferred to his new position in Ottawa. He’s a prolific frequent flyer jetting around the globe, joined at the hip with Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy, who has received almost $26 billion from Canada to prolong his defence against Russia. 

Meanwhile, every community in Canada has a Homeless Encampment with mentally ill and drug-addicted people living in squalour and despair.  Something is tragically wrong with this picture. Canada looks like a well-worn race car sitting at the starting line, but not moving forward, because the driver is gone somewhere holding hands with President Zelenskyy. 

Mr. Carney sings the same old song, but he’s way out of tune, and nobody’s keen to listen any more. It reminds me of the line from Lewis Carroll: “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there”, or even Chuck Berry’s classic: No Particular Place to Go.

BERNIE SMITH

Parksville, BC

Canada