There have been many highly educated and knowledgeable leaders throughout history with finely tuned intellects, sharp analytical skills, a deep and abiding humanity and an uncanny ability to build and achieve the best outcome for oftimes seemingly impossible situations.
These are the people whose memory endures, are revered in the history books and are rightly lauded as having benefited mankind, be it in a broad, or narrow sense.
Of course, with greatness comes ego. By definition such people have to possess self-esteem and belief in themselves to achieve great things. It is when this self-belief spills over into conceit that negatives begin to become manifest. Or when pure egotists let rip and march ahead regardless without the attendant knowledge or skills to handle a situation properly.
Albert Einstein, certainly one of the smartest people who ever walked the earth, viewed ego as a simple equation. Ego = 1/Knowledge
Using this simple equation it’s easy to look back and know immediately where ego was, or is, justified in our leaders.
Which is why my old British heart sank when I heard that failed, widely ridiculed, figure-of-fun and worthless Parliamentarian ex-UK Prime Minister Mary Elizabeth Truss was to visit my adopted homeland apparently to pontificate about Taiwan’s geopolitical situation.
Alongside like-minded UK politicians, I think her visit is a bad idea. Not because I don’t fully support foreign politicians, diplomats and intellectuals coming here to support Taiwan and President’s Tsai’s geopolitical stance, but because, sadly, she is just too stupid to add anything meaningful to the debate, and could, indeed, do harm.
That may sound harsh, but it is based on fact. She recently broke the record for the shortest-serving Prime Minister in British history by serving just 45 days, beating the record by several weeks and that of someone who died in office in 1827 after 119 days. She effectively bankrupted the UK economy with ill-thought out and entirely ridiculous tax policies.
In the British weekend papers, which held Truss as “the disgraced former prime minister” a fellow British member of parliament described her trip as a vanity project to help Truss “keep herself relevant.” Her fellow Conservative MP, Alicia Kearns went on to say the trip was “the worst kind of Instagram diplomacy” and Truss’s confrontational antics could make things worse for Taiwan. Her trip is "performative, not substantive," Kearns added.
Which takes me back to Einstein's equation. If you do the maths the ego comes out at close to infinitely large as one divided by something very tiny is close to infinity.
Truss is not a thinker and has never shown her knowledge of global affairs as anything by trite. Her massive U-turn on Brexit is famous in the UK as she turned from once an enthusiastic backer of the UK's EU membership and voting "Remain" in the 2016 referendum and speaking out of the need to remain in the EU's single market which she described as “so precious” to undergoing a remarkable and almost instantaneous transformation into an ardent backer of Brexit when she saw it could gain her some political capital at home.
We all put up with political lightweights, generally know who they are, and the democratic process eventually weeds them out. It’s not perfect, by any means, but it’s the best process we have. There are shameless political shape-changers, Truss is one of them.
What I object to is when the selfish motives of intellectual lightweights with massive egos and their eye only on boosting their own political future in their own country, decide to stick their nose where it is not really wanted. Ergo UK Member of Parliament Mary Elizabeth Truss.
My heartfelt thanks to those politicians, diplomats and others who come to Taiwan with the aim of lending support and genuine help. But please, if you think just because Taiwan is a global headline story at the moment, a visit is easy and might just do your standing at home some good, stay away, please. I very much suspect, as do many others in the UK, that these are Truss’s motives with this trip.
I am certain President Tsai is smart enough not to actually share a platform with what is one of the dullest knives in the UK political kitchen, and that any meeting will be low key and not for the record. Truss is just an MP so I guess diplomatic protocol dictates a one-on-one is highly unlikely.
The MOFA website is, of course, diplomatic in its language, welcoming her visit to “strengthen the already close and friendly ties between Taiwan and the United Kingdom.”
The rest of the wording must have been a bit of a struggle for them as history shows her all too brief involvement in cross-strait affairs first as UK secretary of state for foreign, commonwealth and development affairs for just one year and then as Prime Minister for a flash-dance 45 days.
The poor old MOFA people had to make the right noises and they did a good job, but I would take issue with their use of Truss having ”long been” a staunch supporter of Taiwan. Given her record on policy U-turns, her cat-like ability to chase a laser pointer green dot will only last as long as a red-feather becoming more interesting and worthy of her attention.
I really hope her visit achieves something positive in the form of military aid and in Truss’s words “hard power” for Taiwan, I really do. I just somehow doubt it as she no longer has any political clout, so be prepared for disappointment, for all the above reasons. I really hope I’m proved wrong.
Taiwan needs friends, of that there is no doubt and it would be churlish and dangerous to refuse entry to anyone willing to speak out on its behalf. After all, the Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend as the old saying goes. It is just much more constructive to encourage those with real clout.
Of course the government could not have refused permission for Truss to come but the real danger in this particular case is she may do or say something that is actually damaging to relationships with other countries which are of material help. Just look at her recent history and it is not unreasonable to describe her as a one-woman disaster zone.
I am not the only one thinking she is grabbing a selfish political opportunity by inserting herself into a story which will carry global headlines, much as other politicians have used Ukraine.
Believe me, if the Taiwan situation was not such a global headline grabber, she would not be here.
Of course, the cynical journalist in me might suggest having had loads of play in the British press at the weekend with some well-timed comments the Truss entourage will leave Taiwan on May 20, which just happens to be a Saturday and just in time for a huge round of weekend press briefings and interviews.
Perhaps I misjudge her, and the now irrelevant ex-PM had no such thing in mind, but I very much doubt it.
I would so like to be the Immigration Officer stamping her passport today... "Welcome to Taiwan, and what exactly is the purpose of your visit?”
Tinkerty Tonk...
