WTF? by Robert Peston
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Robert Peston for Prime Minister!
His North London Jewish background is so familiar to me from my own history and native place. He’s my kind of political commentator, too, and in this book (bracketed by a letter to his much-loved late father) he addresses the problem of why the world has gone ‘bonkers’. How come the world’s most successful, wealthy democracies are throwing themselves into the arms of mad populist leaders, and voting for such lunacies as Brexit and Trump?
Peston’s analysis and prescriptions sound totally like common sense; yet in the midst of all this madness which so often leaves me feeling really depressed, he somehow snatches hope, and a degree of optimism, from the jaws of despair.
The key fact is that behind the madness of those 2016 votes, lies the deep dissatisfaction of all those in our societies who feel they have been left far behind in the growing prosperity they see around them. It’s this inequality of wealth, opportunity, prospects, and the fair sharing of the wealth of nations, that we need to address and radically change. It’s a call to the 48% to stop trying to stop Brexit (and if we can’t stop it, at least hoping it will be the unmitigated disaster we’ve all along said it would be), and to work as hard as we can to make it work the best it can. What’s needed is some kind of ‘Brexit mission’ to reunite the country, and mend what’s broken in our economy and politics.
As Peston says, he doesn’t have all the answers, and maybe some of the answers he has are also bonkers. But we at least need to be thinking, and especially talking, about the issues he raises here.
Godspelled 