The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Letters to the editor
Politicians need parental experience
Sir, - That the new Taoiseach of Ireland, Leo Varadkar, who has just taken office is the gay son of a Hindu immigrant father shows quite how much the Irish Republic has changed in recent decades. And yet I can’t help feeling strong misgivings.
Like the three most important politicians in Europe, Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron and Theresa May and all bar one of the Scottish party leaders, Mr Varadkar is childless.
Politicians have a notorious tendency towards short-termism and looking no further than the next election.
Parenthood, on the other hand, encourages people to look to the long term.
How many of us have heard our parents say, or as parents ourselves said: “I worry about what sort of world we are leaving to our children”?
For example, would a German chancellor with children have thrown the country’s borders wide open, so that in a single generation Germany will be transformed from a European Judeo-Christian nation in to a bi-cultural multi-ethnic one in which European culture, laws and morals are all subject to permanent challenge by an evergrowing section of the populace who reject our Western values?
None of this is to say that a person can’t be childless and yet be a fine leader: counter examples are not difficult to find.
However, Europe’s increasingly childless governing elite is reckless, intellectually sterile and out of step with normal people, for the majority of whom parenthood is central to their life experience.