Easily distracted leaders

On my way to school in the mornings to drop off my little darlings, I regularly tune in to the headlines on the radio bulletin, just to keep abreast of what is happening in the wider world. Currently, it is dominated by the troubles in Ukraine as it should be, along with the rising cost of living and the continued presence of Covid-19. In Britain, it is also dominated by politics although don't be deceived into thinking that this means staunch, involved debate on tougher issues. No, discussion of politics can be in the form of dirt digging on party leaders as well as the latest cat to be welcomed at Downing Street to non-payment of speeding fines by those in politics who like to move fast.

You get the idea.

Take one of the headlines the other morning as a "for instance" of what can become a political headline. The Deputy Leader of the Labour Party in Britain, a politician called Angela Rayner has been accused of the most provocative of diversionary tactics: crossing and uncrossing her legs infront of the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, during Prime Minister's Question Time in the House of Commons, in a bid to distract him and "put him off his stride" in the same vein as Sharon Stone's character in "Basic Instinct" does with Michael Douglas.

I am sure that people are trying to find clips of Prime Minister's Question Time as we speak to verify if indeed there is footage of such a thing being performed by Ms Rayner as well as an indication of the level of distraction displayed by Mr Johnson as a result.

These comments have all been made by male members of the Tory party, Mr Johnson's' party, and cries of misogyny have been heard, with both male and female commentators coming to the fore to defend Ms Rayner, including Mr Johnson himself.

Long after hearing this headline, I continued to think about the accusation made against Ms Rayner. It is a heinous thing to imply of a professional, I think, that they are resorting to tactics that involve sexual distraction in a place of government! I cannot describe my shock at this and my disdain that there are members of our government, our leaders, our representatives, who think that it is okay to make these suggestions. And this is even if it is true.

I have to say that I was a little bit ashamed to be British. I was also annoyed at the undermining of Angela Rayner's ability as an MP to conduct herself in a professional manner as befits a person in her position and the whole misogyny aspect to the whole thing - women as easy targets, as sexual objects, etc. Unfortunately, with the "Me Too" discussion, we are made all too aware of the fact that sex, in the form of harassment and worse is used in many situations as a way to coerce and control. And it would seem that some less than scrupulous individuals are proposing that this can also be used in relatively more subtle ways by women to get what they want. Whatever the truth of this is, I am not sure that this is the case with Ms Rayner.

Terrible.

Quite rightly, the onus of this story has been the fact that Ms Rayner has been accused of this in the first place. This story reeks of immaturity and finger pointing; of gossip and besmirching; of cheap shots and nastiness.

However, what I also took from this and am disappointed that it has not warranted more detailed examination is the disparaging suggestion that raised itself about Mr Johnson and his attention span.

Putting the slight levelled at Ms Rayner to one side for a moment, what exactly does this say about our leader, our Prime Minister?

I don't know about you but it concerns me that we have voted people into power who can be so easily distracted. I don't often watch Prime Minister's Question Time, if at all, but I think it is fair to guess that serious issues are being discussed and debated or at least, I hope so. The whole occasion demands a bit of gravitas, I think - a nod to putting a full focus onto the items on the agenda and NOTHING else.

The thought that Mr Johnson does not have the wherewithal to steer his brain towards the gritty issues of running the country and that he can be thrown off his thread by the hint of someone's private bits, is to me insulting to him. I can't understand why he hasn't come out and spoken about what a preposterous slur it is. Unless he doesn't want to draw attention to it for fear of discussion. Perhaps there was an instance of a particularly cold day at the House of Commons and the sheerest of blouses on a particularly well-proportioned female representative, and a subsequent embarrassing incident where he dropped all his papers, a Top Secret report or some such government skulduggery, which led to an international incident that he would not want publicised. Who knows?

I, if I was him, would also want to draw attention to those "undisclosed sources" who choose to say such things about his ability to engage in sustained discussion without being diverted. I imagine him almost like the dog in Pixar's fine film "Up", when the dog sees a squirrel.

Whatever the reason for these comments being leaked, whether to disparage Ms Rayner or Mr Johnson, it does make me ask the question about whether this level of distraction is just a sign of the times and that the ability to maintain a prolonged focus on anything is a dying art.

You see it everywhere. For instance, language is being reduced to its shortest natural denominator, with U and LOL and IDK, and Tweets (although I have to say that there is more artfulness to Tweets with their pithiness sometimes), reducing the attention that we have to process communication down to the minimum. I could add memes to that too but they can be amusing. Still, they are a picture with a catchphrase or witticism - not a lot of depth.

We live in such a time of distraction: screens at the breakfast table, catching up with snippets of news; "pings!" on our phone to tell us the latest comment that Mindy has shared on Facebook; TikTok where video shorts are king.

My son is obsessed by TikTok. He will sit for literally hours (if I let him) watching shorts of what I can only describe as vacuous nonsense a lot of the time. I am curious as to what he gets from it, but he just shrugs his shoulders and says "I like it". You could argue that I am undermining myself here as he is actually concentrating on them for a length of time but he would never sit for long with a book unless forced and he's only able to sit at the cinema for the duration of the film if plied with popcorn.

However, he is not the only one. I am guilty of the draw of distraction as well although TikTok is not my thing. It is easy to be taken away from things that are more difficult by the attraction of easy entertainment; the instant gratification of visual stimulus over the concentration on a written task or indeed, listening to someone talk about serious issues. Our phones/tablets/laptops all provide us with the means to amuse ourselves instantly so that we don't have to get involved or engage our brains too hard and I find this a little troubling.

Which brings me on to the next thing.

Last week saw another incident being reported, again having taken place in the House of Commons and involving an MP, Neil Parish, looking at porn on his phone during a parliamentary session. He was seen by female MPs and they felt the need to mention it as inappropriate behaviour. He has since resigned.

Apparently, he was looking up some information on tractors and was diverted to a site of explicit material. A mistake. But then, he did it again. And was spotted again.

There is being distracted by your phone when you're bored and then, there is this. The tractors' thing is not good - he should have been focused on the meeting as a representative of the people who voted him in, but I don't think that ogling at farm machinery would have drawn the attention of other MPs to such an extent as lewd content. I could be wrong. To then indulge in looking at porn in a relatively public forum where the issues of governance were debated? Well, that is taking distraction to a WHOLE other level. How could he have thought that that was acceptable? Why take the risk?

It is outrageous that this happened. It is. I mean, I've been in meetings that I've found tedious - who hasn't? Some people just love the sound of their own voice. And I've drifted. Believe me, I've drifted. But I have never thought about looking at my phone nor, you'll be pleased to know, porn on that device. In fact, if I had to look at my phone, because, say, I was expecting a call about a relative being ill or my son was walking home from school on his own and I'd asked him to check in with me once he'd arrived, I would tell the people at the meeting about this as a courtesy so they would not think me rude nor distracted. I would not look at my phone unless I had to.

These headlines throw up a lot of discussion points for me about lots of issues. Distraction. Leadership. Responsibility. Duty. Manners. Maturity. Misogyny. Politicians. Society.

And questions.

Is it an indicator of our society that an individual in a high-ranking position can think that watching porn in an open forum could be attempted without discovery? Have images of sexuality become so mainstream that he thought it was worth the discovery? Was he surprised to be challenged? Are we afraid to challenge others for fear of the consequences? Are our leaders really leading? Are we so focused on giving ourselves momentary pleasure and distraction that we are prepared to take risks in order to get that gratification? Are we becoming less responsible, less duty driven? Are we becoming more selfish?

It's like Pandora's box filled with questions that I'm not sure that I really want the answers to but would love to see resolved.

In fairness to the MP involved in "Porngate", he did resign and he did apologise and did state that it would be something he would pay for for the rest of his life. He cut quite a sorry figure really when I saw him on the TV and I felt a sort of sad pride for the the fact that he was able to front it out. There are many other politicians in our world who would have lied about it or tried to wriggle their way out of it and whilst it was uncomfortable viewing, his apology and discomfort did go some way to making me, conversely, feel more comfortable about it.

These are strange times that we live in, no doubt.

Whilst I might now feel a little better about this incident, I am still unsure about the overall distractedness issue. I think what it leads me to believe, and this troubles me, is that we don't deal with things thoroughly enough anymore. We are interrupted constantly so that our focus is shifted and we are training ourselves more and more to be like this, unconsciously. I keep thinking - this is how things get overlooked, how things get missed, how mistakes are made. And it is so widespread and so invasive and so easy. It can only be combatted with awareness and that seems to be the thing that is lacking - it is the worst kind of Catch-22.

It is also a scary thing to think about in relation to anyone in a leadership role. If there was a role where we would be expecting somebody to do their due diligence and duty, be thorough and tick ALL the boxes, then leader of the country has to be near the top!

But it's not just leaders. Is it that we just don't care that much anymore? I wonder if we have all become apathetic and in the absence of real change, we have become resigned to the fact that we can do nothing about anything and so, resort to distracting ourselves instead. I don't know if this is true. I sincerely hope not.

So, where do things go from here? I suppose it is unlikely that we will hear headlines such as "MP remains continually focused on issue for whole duration of parliamentary session shocker" and to be honest, I can see that that would not make good news. Maybe it is the sensationalism of these stories that has led to them being highlighted and that distractedness is not really that big an issue after all. Neil Parish was looking at porn after all and with respect to Mr Johnson, the suggestion of sex and what the British call "a bit of sauce" is endemic to our culture as is the media's pursuit of it. If they can sniff it out anywhere, they will! And, not that I want to slate the media but they are guilty of fear-mongering and highlighting the worst rather than the best of a situation.

To conclude, I'm going to make a determination not to be concerned. I'm going to set my bar low. I have thought of my first step in combatting distractedness, a confidence building exercise, and it is this: to be hopeful that a number of you, despite the distractions of the environment you are in, can make it to the end of this article.

And then, with that reassurance of focus given, we can take it from there.

Perhaps I should send it to Mr Johnson?