UK Politics

Where did I say Truss shouldn't be held accountable for her actions? It was right that she was removed from being Prime Minister, it's right that nobody is taking her seriously or would trust her with power again. The rules that allowed her to happen in the first place need to be tightened up and better enforced. I just don't think there's anything to be gained from continuing to punish her. Nor is there anything to be gained from assuming malice when incompetence is a better explanation.

Many, many politicians (Tory and otherwise) do actually suffer from mental illnesses. If they didn't when they went in, by the time they've been doing it for a couple of years, they do genuinely suffer from diagnosable levels of depression, anxiety, cPTSD, and the like. This has actually been documented. Those who vehemently hate all Tory MPs on principle probably wouldn't bother listening, but several Tory MPs have spoken out about their struggles with mental health - Steve Barclay (I think it was) gave a very eloquent interview on the subject, and Charles Walker has talked about it as well. I can empathise with the real emotions they experience as a result of their mental illnesses without agreeing with their political views or thinking their mental health problems mean they can do whatever they like with impunity.

But even without that, there's more to someone's state of mind than whether they've got something diagnosable or not, and the vast majority of politicians (of all parties) do suffer from distorted worldviews and maladaptive coping mechanisms, because if they didn't, they wouldn't want the job in the first place. The world isn't divided into the mentally ill and everyone else. Everyone is screwed up, it's just a matter of degrees and how it impacts on behaviour - and this impacts the kind of careers people want to go into. There's two types of people that go into politics: the ones who do it for power and influence, and the ones who do it because they feel driven to help others and that's how they think they can do it. That's not a guarantee that they can help others, or that they have the right ideas about how to do it; I'm speaking only about the motivation, not the methods.

I didn't say Liz Truss was mentally ill. I said she's emotionally stunted in ways that have led her to buy into ideologies that make sense to her, despite the fact they don't work in reality. Just because she doesn't meet the threshold to be diagnosed with a mental illness (that we know of - who's to say she doesn't have depression or anxiety? That's between her and her doctor), doesn't mean she's 100% okay. And just like I believe criminals deserve to have health care while they're in prison, I believe Tory MPs deserve therapy when they need it. That's because I can judge someone's actions without dehumanising them. Apparently my unpopular opinion of the day is that Tories are human, not monsters.

The mistake you appear to be making here is that because I'm not frothing with rage about how Liz Truss is evil incarnate, that means I don't think she's responsible for her actions. She is. She made choices and should have to face the consequences of those choices. Where we differ is you see entitlement and malice in her actions, and I see an emotionally damaged human being. I see that in Boris Johnson, too - once I realised that emotionally he's a 3 year old child who never grew out of the "everything is about me" stage of emotional development, it actually became kind of sad. I'm angry about the things he did and about the flaws in the system that allowed him as much power as he had, and he's still responsible for his own actions. But I can still recognise that as a person, he can't help but be anything but a child, and in many ways he's quite a pathetic figure.

And sure, we could argue about whether he should be an adult, given the position he was in, but reality is what it is: a lot of politicians, and indeed a lot of people in powerful positions elsewhere, are emotionally damaged, emotionally stunted people who cannot grow up. Boris Johnson is never going to be anything but a 3 year old yelling "ME ME ME". Liz Truss is a 17 year old girl who's learned some cool things at college and thinks the whole world would be better if those things were put into practice. Rishi Sunak is 21, thinks he knows everything, thinks hard work matters more than luck, and is very proud of how mature he is compared to the 17 year old Truss and 3 year old Johnson. Suella Braverman is 15 years old, has self-esteem so low you couldn't find it if you dug a hole to the middle of the planet, and has turned to being a mean girl because if she's bullying others, the other bullies will be her friend instead of bullying her. Jacob Rees-Mogg has never matured beyond the age he was when he was sent to boarding school, 7 or 8.

Most of these people could actually be better than what they are, but it's not something they (or indeed any human) can just choose to do: it takes work, and often a lot of help. Once you stop being blinded by hatred and see them for what they are, you can be angry at their actions, and even dislike them, without seeing them as inhuman. Personally, I think Suella Braverman is a really nasty piece of work that utterly disgusts me on so many levels... but I can simultaneously see the insecure teenager that she so clearly is.

Obviously, in an ideal world, there would be systems in place to prevent such people from gaining power in the first place. That's the kind of change I'd fight for, rather than yelling about how Tories are evil and therefore don't deserve help. If only well-adjusted, emotionally mature people were allowed to be politicians, we'd have a much better political landscape overall, regardless of which party was in power. They would be more empathetic, and more focused on practical solutions to real problems over ideology and imagined threats. And I wish the politicians we already have would get help. You might write off their various emotional development issues as not being "real" because they don't fit neatly into a diagnosis checkbox, but the reality is that if they got help, they would be more self-aware and empathetic, and would be better at their jobs as a result. That would be better for the country.