Political leaders in the EU are incapable of leading us out of the current multiple crises we face. I think that’s generally understood. But what we’ve been incapable of explaining is why is leadership in such a bad way? Where is our Adenauer, Kohl or Delors when we need them?

First of all, our political context is markedly different from forty or even twenty years ago. The threat of war in Europe is no longer real, and the ending of the Cold War means the west has no convenient enemy any longer. The end of the Cold War also means capitalism won. The problems are more diffuse, longer term, more complicated, and harder to use to focus minds.

Then there is the changing nature of our political systems. The more politicians know, the more they follow. So daily polling and focus groups on anything and everything are used as a reason for not acting – it’s important to do what’s popular, not what’s right. Add to that the influence of 24 hour news with studios to fill, and the internet and social media, and proposals are picked over and taken apart before they have even been debated by parliaments. The leaders of the past – Kohl for example – would never have succeeded in modern politics. He would have been too brutish and fat for our current political culture. Yet we do not yet have any convincing leaders of the networked era – even Obama who used the net to get elected has been unable to effectively govern.

Our political parties are also sick, and good people arguably do not join parties, and if they do, they don’t lead them because their will to do so is killed off before then. Poor people and those that are ideologically flexible are instead understandably promoted – in the EU Günter Oettinger and Olli Rehn are cases in point. Better someone weak who will not cause offence than a dangerous but brilliant maverick.

The breakdown of traditional left-right ideology (partly due to the post-Cold War effect) has led to a multitude of parties, and by definition it is harder for complicated coalitions to take tough or long-term decisions. Even in countries like the UK or Spain without this multitude, declining turnout and extra-parliamentary movements pose a valid challenge to the status quo. I’m not quite as pessimistic as the outcomes of Bawn et al’s paper, but I’m getting there.

Throw into this the sheer complexity of our interdependent, multi-level, partially globalised political systems, and the battle of markets versus politics, with the latter seen to be subservient to the former. Then add a dose of ageing population, and scandals among political elites over the years and, hey presto, we are where we are…

Any way out of this?

Stepping back for a moment, why are we in this predicament?

It starts, I think, with the nature of representative democracy in the era of the internet (building on the era of 24 hour news), and the way that political parties function internally.

About representative democracy James Madison wrote that it would “refine and enlarge the public views by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations.”

Where are we today with efforts to achieve that end? In the formal sense our representative institutions – at least at a national level – are still working (although thousands of Spanish would disagree). However, as Madison implies, representative democracy is a process through which the interests of different groups are weighed up, evaluated, and decided upon. From Aberystwyth dealing with parking infringements via Merkel’s U-turn on nuclear to the UK government’s EU bill, the balance between the people and their representatives (the governors and the governed) is in a state of flux.

In the era of 24 hour news, furthered by the internet connected era, it is possible to muster mass critique of anything and everything to a much shorter time than throughout most of our history of representative democracy. Importantly it is much easier to muster critique than it is to build something positive instead. Taking long term or tough decisions against that backdrop is more complex than ever.

With this in mind, politicians think they need to be more and more conscious of what citizens think, and shape their policies on that basis – in the UK context it’s the sort of stuff written about by Paul Richards on LabourList, and can be gleaned from focus groups and listening exercises: “the greater danger for Labour [...]: to be on the wrong side of the public’s attitude towards NHS reform, tackling Islamist extremism, reforming parliament, or providing council houses for people on £100k“.

In short it’s ‘if the people are there, we’ll go there’.

The paradox of this is that while politicians are trying to be ever closer to the people, so trust in them also declines, a point developed further in New Elites by George Walden. Taking that a step further, within a political party what incentive is there to choose leaders who are bold or interesting? Surely better to choose some that give the impression that they are in tune with the people (although of course that continues trust seeping away in the paradox).

But hold on, what if the people are wrong? Or at least politicians have not weighed up their relative interests correctly?

Sorry, rather shocking to say it this way, but it is not hard to imagine how such a situation would arise.

What should happen if 55% of the population as a whole want to leave the EU, but 85% of business owners in the UK don’t want to? (stats are made up for illustration purposes only) Or every citizen wants to keep driving and flying and doesn’t want restrictions on either, but unless the common interests of all of us are taken into account, we will end up with gridlock, chronic air pollution and runaway climate change?

Democracy is more than 50%+1 of the people wanting something. It’s a delicate balance between leading and listening, and balancing the needs and requirements of different groups and individuals. It’s about deciding what’s right, setting a moral vision for countries and for Europe, and finding practical ways to get there.

There is a politician at least partially capable of doing it, and there are plenty in Europe who idolise him. Interesting is that he is less bound by party political constraint than his European counterparts. Time for Europe’s heads of states and governments to learn some lessons?

Es ist im Augenblick keine Führungsperson da. Das ist eine schlimmere Situation, als wir sie jemals in 60 Jahren der europäischen Integration erlebt haben.

The gist is that at the moment there is no leading person there (in the EU), and that it’s a worse situation that we have seen in 60 years of European integration. Schmidt also goes on to have a rant at the whole enlargement of the EU.

Former foreign minister Joschka Fischer also has a go (as covered by Kosmopolit, Google translation here), although his focus is more on how he sees Germany as a brake on European integration at the moment, different to Germany’s traditional role as a motor for integration.

Broadly I agree with the statements of Schmidt and Fischer. But why is it so? It’s all very well for them to decry the demise of EU leadership, but what are we going to do in the future to address the situation while Fischer and Schmidt enjoy their pensions.

In the end leadership at European level emerges when there is visionary, determined and long term leadership at national level in the Member States. When leaders behave like states(wo)men, realising something needs to be sacrificed nationally for the sake of the future of the continent. Leaders who see the national interest and the European interest as being one and the same thing, and do not hesitate to communicate as such.

The problem is that in the era of 24/7 news, the internet, fracturing party political systems, demographic issues, decreasing election turnout and decreasing trust for elected politicians how can such leaders emerge? Would people like Genscher, Kohl, Mitterand, Palme even become leaders of their respective parties in the political environment we face today?

Can you imagine Merkel and Sarkozy holding hands at Verdun? Probably not.

It strikes me that party politics is in a dangerous predicament in many EU Member States, with prevalent poor quality leadership, and short-termist populism as a result of thinking about short term strategic advantage rather than longer term thinking.

So that’s the start of answering why. Then comes the much harder question what do we do about it?

Look Lucy and anyone else trying to defend that line in public – it’s a load of crap. Labour is not united behind Brown. It’s not united behind anyone as an alternative to Brown either. People might not be behind Hoon and Hewitt (and especially not their timing), but there’s scarcely any Labour person I know that doesn’t have some sort of misgivings about Brown’s leadership. There’s no way to gloss over that. To do so is futile. But, conversely, what I write does not necessarily mean that Brown is not the best person to lead Labour into the election.

That leads me to the conclusion that I am not especially bothered about whether Brown is now ousted or not, and I say this as someone who joined Labour at the age of 16 and still carries the card. If Brown is ousted then a new leader will have too little time to change things much. If Brown stays then Labour will potter ahead towards an election with a wounded leader. Either option is rather sub-optimal.

All I want is some sort of quick decision, some clear line about what is going to happen. No rumbling news stories for days on end. This must be the very last effort to deal with the leadership question before the election. And after that – with a bit of luck – some sort of pragmatic, policy based approach that activists can use in the run up to the election can be developed. Remember the Tories will outspend Labour 3-1.

MPs in the corridors of Westminster: please think of the country, please avoid the crass soundbites about unity, and – above all – do not dither, whatever way the decision goes.