Political impostors in need of a crisis of self-belief

THERE is something really quite endearing about impostor syndrome. More of us should try this psychological condition on for size.

It is the affliction that urges us to mine our private selves for humility, for doubt – increasingly scarce resources in public life.

The TV presenter Holly Willoughby tells the Mail she suffered from ‘massive impostor syndrome’ in her early years on ITV’s This Morning and, with the greatest respect for her broadcasting skills, I have to say this was a healthy response to her station in life at the time.

An interview, two months into the job, with then Prime Minister Gordon Brown was a disaster, she recalls. Of course it was. She was in her twenties, had no pedigree as an inquisitor in the political jungle and was expected to go several rounds with its biggest beast.

If Miss Willoughby did not feel a fraud, if every synapse was not flooding her consciousness with urgent memos on the extent of her ignorance on the subject matter, I would warm to her much less.

The Glasgow-born author Douglas Stuart, who won the 2020 Booker Prize with his debut novel Shuggie Bain, admits he has felt like an impostor his whole life.

Confidence

Winning one of the most coveted awards in his field changed nothing. The publication this month of his second novel, Young Mungo, finds Mr Stuart ‘a nervy wreck’.

Part of this refreshing lack of confidence is no doubt inspired by his upbringing, a bleak experience informed by an alcoholic mother, an absent father and state benefits.

‘What is someone like me doing crashing the literary party?’ he may ask in moments of dark introspection. ‘I’m a boy from the Sighthill housing estate.’

Who knows? Perhaps there is an element of the Scottish cringe gnawing away at his self-esteem too. This is the voice that speaks to most Scots at some point in our lives, imbuing thoughts with the illusion that others are worldlier, better communicators, destined to go further.

The cringe and I hung out all the way through first year at university as supremely confident voices with more cultured vowels dominated tutorials. These products of private schools bounced ideas around, imagining somehow that their 19-year-old brains were on an equal footing with their educators.

Where did they find the nerve? Why were they not like Holly Willoughby, awe-struck by the vastness of the gaps in their knowledge, humbled by the extent to which their grey matter was outgunned?

By my second year a good number of these smart alecks had dropped out. Few made it to honours, and those who did achieved it by discovering respect for the hard work involved, never by bluster.

And the reticent Scots contingent? Those cringing state school kids from Kirkcaldy and Kirkintilloch whose silence in those first-year tutorial rooms spoke volumes about their sense of selfworth? We blossomed. We found our voices.

Surveying the climate at universities today, it is hard not to wonder whether a healthy dose of impostor syndrome is just what the doctor ordered for students’ sense of perspective. These are times where the professors’ grasp of their subject comes a poor second to ignorant students’ ideas of what that subject should be.

‘Watch your step with what you are teaching me,’ the learned educator is now warned. ‘Do not pollute my head with thoughts I don’t want to think; avoid reading matter which challenges my world view and, if there is any unpleasantness in this book, I reserve the right to skip it.’

Daunting

Time will tell what these people go on to do with their lives but neither interviewing prime ministers on daytime TV nor writing Booker Prizewinning novels are likely contingencies. A degree of humility, a propensity for fear at the daunting nature of a given task and for asking the question ‘Am I up to this?’ seem to me prerequisites for both.

Perhaps they will view a career in politics as the most natural fit. This is the area of life where it would be comforting to know that impostor syndrome thrives. Instead, of course, it is all but extinct. Scotland is increasingly governed by parliamentarians with no hinterland in useful areas of expertise to bring to the table and precious little life experience outside the political bubble. What they bring to the table are opinions – unshakeable ones – and they ask us to take them seriously.

They blow taxpayers’ money on ill-conceived projects such as the ferry fiasco – which nosedive precisely because they have no hinterland on which to draw to get these decisions right. Still they ask us to take them seriously.

Now, in its dismal version of wisdom, the Scottish Government is launching a consultation on allowing even less experienced people – youngsters of 16 and 17 – to stand as parliamentary candidates. Doubtless we will be prevailed upon to take the school leavers seriously too.

‘Where do they get the nerve?’ you may wonder. I suggest the answer lies in a lamentable absence of impostor syndrome in their mindset.

Which is a great pity. Our politics sorely need a crisis of confidence.