Making It Look Easy: The essential attribute of the successful courtier, according to the Renaissance writer, Baldasarre Castiglione, was sprezzatura. It's a difficult word to translate: "effortless ease", " nonchalance", "careful negligence". What sets apart the political winner from the political loser is also captured in the word "cool". Hard to define - but you know it when you see it. (And you don't see it in Aaron Gilmore!)
THE BEHAVIOUR of National List MP, Aaron Gilmore, raises
some interesting questions about the qualities required of a successful
back-bencher.
Mr Gilmore, himself, has fulsomely apologised for the errant
conduct which thrust him, battered and blinking-back tears, into the news
media’s searing spotlight.
Has he done enough to rescue his political career? Probably
not. The National Party’s ranking committee is unlikely to give the
accident-prone Mr Gilmore a third
chance.
What should he have done differently? Is there a clear path
for ambitious and capable back-bench MPs to follow?
Sir Keith Holyoake’s advice to his new entrants was
succinct: “Learn to breathe through your nose.” Which was the orotund National
Prime Minister’s way of saying: “Keep your mouth shut.”
Strange advice, perhaps, for someone formally charged with
representing the people of New Zealand.
Sound advice, however, for a back-bench MP keen to negotiate
his way through the caucus hierarchy that dominates the real-world functioning
of Parliament.
Watching, listening, assessing and, when the time is right,
forming durable political alliances, is the optimum path for new, back-bench
MPs. And, while they’re keeping their eyes open and their mouths shut,
undertaking cheerfully and effectively whatever tasks the Party Whips assign
them.
The spirit in which back-bench MPs perform these often
mind-numbingly boring parliamentary chores, plays a crucial role in how well,
or badly, the newcomers’ colleagues rate them. Are they hard workers? Do they
complain? Do they get the job done? Are they team-players?
Affirmative answers to these questions are the paving stones
of the back-bencher’s path to success: to being trusted, promoted and,
ultimately, given access to the levers of executive power.
But the successful back-bencher needs something more than a
reputation for being a “good soldier” in the party’s army. Six centuries ago,
an Italian Renaissance scholar and politician, Baldasarre Castiglione, gave
that ‘something more’ a name.
In his famous Book of
the Courtier, Castiglione called that special quality that separates the
Aaron Gilmores from the Simon Bridges; the Jacqui Deans from the Amy Adams: sprezzatura.
Now, as is so often the case with such words, there is no adequate
English translation of sprezzatura.
Professor Emeritus of Cultural History at Cambridge University, Peter Burke,
one of the world’s leading specialists on the early-modern period of European
history, describes this crucial political quality as “nonchalance” and “careful
negligence”.
The successful sixteenth century courtier, writes Professor
Burke in his 1996 book The Fortunes of
the Courtier: “conceals art, and
presents what is done and said as if it was done without effort and virtually
without thought.”
Or, as we might
say: “Today’s successful practitioner of the art of politics – makes it look easy.”
Alternatively, we could simply translate sprezzatura as “being very, very cool”.
Cool politicians earn that description by doing everything
in style, effortlessly, and without the slightest suggestion of boastfulness or
trying too hard. They’re as indefatigably polite and charming to the cab-driver
and the hotel waiter as they are to Prime Ministers and Presidents. They are
never afraid to make a joke at their own expense and know, instinctively, when
it’s time to say and/or do nothing, and when it’s time to take a stand.
I’ve known a great many politicians in my time, but only a
handful had Castiglione’s sprezzatura.
On a good day, Richard Prebble could make politics look easy. So, too, could
Rod Donald. And, if the extraordinary esteem in which he continues to be held
by his fellow citizens is any guide, the Prime Minister, John Key, has sprezzatura in spades!
Indeed, a PR maven of my acquaintance reckons Mr Key has
more “emotional intelligence” that any other politician he’s ever met.
And who, among the more recent intakes of New Zealand
parliamentarians is demonstrating the “effortless ease” with which the game of
politics should be played by twenty-first century courtiers?
Were I looking at National, I’d say Sam Lotu-Iiga; at
Labour, Phil Twyford.
How NOT to play the game?
Mr Gilmore – take a bow.
This essay was
originally published in The Dominion Post, The Waikato Times, The
Taranaki Daily News, The Timaru Herald, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 10 May 2013.
