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Anyone who wants to be prime minister should have a course of therapy first

Our toxic political system rewards all the wrong traits and produces the worst possible leaders writes George Monbiot in The Guardian 

 

‘Toxic personalities thrive in toxic environments.’ John Bercow (centre) mediates during a Commons debate on the EU withdrawal bill. Photograph: Mark Duffy/AFP/Getty Images


Who in their right mind would want the job? It is almost certain to end, as Theresa May found, in failure and public execration. To seek to be prime minister today suggests either reckless confidence or an insatiable hunger for power. Perhaps we need a reverse catch-22 in British politics: anyone crazy enough to apply for this post should be disqualified from running.

A few years ago, the psychologist Michelle Roya Rad listed the characteristics of good leadership. Among them were fairness and objectivity; a desire to serve society rather than just yourself; a lack of interest in fame and attention; and resistance to the temptation to hide the truth or make impossible promises. Conversely, a paper in the Journal of Public Management and Social Policy has listed the characteristics of leaders with psychopathic, narcissistic or Machiavellian personalities. These include: a tendency to manipulate others; a preparedness to lie and deceive to achieve your ends; a lack of remorse and sensitivity; and a desire for admiration, attention, prestige and status. Which of these lists, do you think, best describes the people vying to lead the Conservative party?

In politics, almost everywhere we see what looks like the externalisation of psychic wounds or deficits. Sigmund Freud claimed that “groups take on the personality of the leader”. I think it would be more accurate to say that the private tragedies of powerful people become the public tragedies of those they dominate. For some people, it is easier to command a nation, to send thousands to their deaths in unnecessary wars, to separate children from their families and inflict terrible suffering, than to process their own trauma and pain. What we appear to see in national politics around the world is a playing out in public of deep private distress.

This could be a particularly potent force in British politics. The psychotherapist Nick Duffell has written of “wounded leaders”, who were separated from their families in early childhood when they were sent to boarding school. They develop a “survival personality”, learning to cut off their feelings and project a false self, characterised by a public display of competence and self-reliance. Beneath this persona is a profound insecurity, which might generate an insatiable need for power, prestige and attention. The result is a system that “consistently turns out people who appear much more competent than they actually are”.

The problem is not confined to these shores. Donald Trump occupies the most powerful seat on Earth, yet still he appears to seethe with envy and resentment. “If President Obama made the deals that I have made,” he claimed this week, “the corrupt media would be hailing them as incredible … With me, despite our record-setting economy and all that I have done, no credit!” No amount of wealth or power seems able to satisfy his need for affirmation and assurance.


Those who should be least trusted with power are most likely to win it

I believe that anyone who wants to stand in a national election should receive a course of psychotherapy. Completing the course should be a qualification for office. This wouldn’t change the behaviour of psychopaths, but it might prevent some people who exercise power from imposing their own deep wounds on others. I’ve had two courses: one influenced by Freud and Donald Winnicott, the other by Paul Gilbert’s compassion-focused approach. I found them both immensely helpful. I believe almost everyone would benefit from such treatment.

The underlying problem is the system through which such people jostle. Toxic personalities thrive in toxic environments. Those who should be least trusted with power are most likely to win it. A study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests that the group of psychopathic traits known as “fearless dominance” is associated with behaviours that are widely valued in leaders, such as making bold decisions and bestriding the world stage. If so, we surely value the wrong characteristics. If success within the system requires psychopathic traits, there is something wrong with the system.

In designing an effective politics, it could be useful to work backwards: to decide what kind of people we would like to see representing us, then create a system that would bring them to the fore. I want to be represented by people who are thoughtful, self-aware and collaborative. What would a system that elevated such people look like?

It would not be a purely representative democracy. This works on the principle of presumed consent: “You elected me three years ago, therefore you are presumed to have consented to the policy I’m about to implement, whether or not I mentioned it at the time.” It rewards the “strong, decisive” leaders who so often lead their nations to catastrophe. A system that tempers representative democracy with participative democracy – citizens’ assemblies, participatory budgeting, the co-creation of public policy – is more likely to reward responsive and considerate politicians. Proportional representation, which prevents governments with minority support from dominating the nation, is another potential safeguard – though no guarantee.

In rethinking politics, let us develop systems that encourage kindness, empathy and emotional intelligence. Let us ditch systems that encourage people to hide their pain by dominating others.

Time to get cracking on fracking

S A Aiyer

After years of consideration, the government has come out with a disappointing shale gas policy. The public sector companies, ONGC and Oil India, will be allowed to drill for shale oil and gas in blocks they already have, but fresh auctions will be conducted for all other shale deposits. Private sector companies will not be allowed to exploit shale formations in their existing blocks. This means delay and unwarranted red tape. There is little reason to have separate auctions for conventional and non-conventional oil and gas.

Shale gas and oil have changed the face of the US. Huge increases in production have taken the US close to self-sufficiency in oil, and created a big gas surplus. By 2020, the US may get all its energy needs from its own fields and those of Mexico and Canada, eliminating the need for oil from the Middle East or Latin America. India’s prospects are much poorer. Yet preliminary data suggest that India has 63 trillion cu. ft of shale gas, 20 times as much as in Reliance’s offshore field. Additional prospecting could raise reserves considerably.

One good feature: the new policy mandates auctions based on simple production sharing between the explorer and government. The current cost-plus system has led to endless disputes in Reliance’s case. This new policy will apply to conventional as well as non-conventional deposits.

The question remains, why treat shale gas as different from conventional natural gas?

Gas and oil have been formed by the decay under great pressure and heat of marine life trapped in sands millions of years ago. Conventional oil and gas are produced by drilling into rock formations that are porous (lots of holes in the rock) and permeable (the holes are interconnected, letting the oil/gas to flow out under its own pressure). Limestone and sandstone are rocks with good flow rates. But other rock formations can be “tight”, having low porosity and permeability, in which oil does not flow easily.

This is true of shale and some other rock formations. These formations have long been known to contain enormous deposits, but extracting them was earlier not economically viable. Then a new technology, fracking, was devised in the 1990s. It used horizontal drilling and highpressure water with sand to crack open tight formations. This improved the flow enough to make drilling viable.

Now, many oil and gas deposits lie in multiple layers of different rocks. Thick sandstone and limestone formations may be interspersed with shale layers. The oil and gas lie trapped in all the layers, but conventionally were extracted only from the easy-flowing ones. Now they can be extracted from the tight layers too.

Does it make sense to decree that an explorer can touch only conventional strata and not tight layers, which should be auctioned to a separate company? Is it logical to have two companies drilling in the same block, one in the limestone strata and another in the shale? Apart from the duplication in cost and effort, it could lead to endless disputes and litigation. It could jeopardize safe field development too.

The US makes no distinctions. An explorer strikes deals with landowners, and can extract any gas or oil from any sort of rock. After all, nobody knows in advance whether oil or gas will be discovered, and if so in what sort of rock.

Exploration policy in India should similarly have no distinctions in exploration policy. However, fracking will need separate environmental clearance, because it poses special challenges.

Fracking needs very large quantities of water, mixed with chemicals, for blasting open tight formations. Waste water after fracking could contain toxic chemicals, and so must not be dumped.

To begin with, fracking in India can be limited to areas with abundant water. Only deep aquifers should be tapped for fracking, avoiding shallow aquifers used for irrigation or drinking water. Maybe sea water can be used in coastal locations.

Second, waste water after fracking must be recycled for use in new wells, not dumped. This will not only check toxic hazards but reduce the water needed for additional wells. Only certified safe chemicals should be used for fracking.

If surplus fracked water is pumped underground for disposal, it can cause small tremors (misleadingly reported as “earthquakes” by activists). This can be managed by gradual, deep disposal.

Activists will undoubtedly ask the courts to ban fracking, even though not a single case of contamination has been established after two decades in the US. The government should get an advance ruling on this from the Supreme Court, clarifying conditions under which fracking can take place. This may take a few years, so we need to start forthwith.

Drinking two cans of Monster Energy drink on consecutive days kills 14 year old?

The company is also being sued the family of Anais Fournier, who had a pre-existing heart condition, but says it does not believe its product was 'in any way responsible for the girl’s death'

Monster Beverage Company is being investigated by the US Food and Drug Administration after a 14-year-old girl died after drinking just two cans of its popular energy drink.

The company is also being sued the family of Anais Fournier, who had a pre-existing heart condition, but says it does not believe its product was “in any way responsible for the girl’s death”.

The lawsuit, and reports of several other similar deaths, is likely to add to questions over Monster’s safety, and to escalate calls from its critics to change the way the beverage, which is the fastest growing energy drink in the US, is marketed.

Ms Fournier died of a heart attack brought on by ‘caffeine toxicity’ after drinking two 24-ounce Monster cans - containing 240 milligrams of caffeine, or seven times the amount of the caffeine in a 12-ounce cola - on consecutive days in December 2011.

An autopsy revealed the teenager, from Hagerstown, Maryland, died of cardiac arrhythmia due to caffeine toxicity that impeded her heart's ability to pump blood. The medical examiner also found that she had an inherited disorder that can weaken blood vessels.

Miss Fournier's parents Wendy Crossland and Richard Fournier claim Monster failed to warn about the risks of drinking its products.

Ms Crossland told the Record Herald: 'I was shocked to learn the FDA can regulate caffeine in a can of soda, but not these huge energy drinks.

“With their bright colors and names like Monster, Rockstar, and Full Throttle, these drinks are targeting teenagers with no oversight or accountability. These drinks are death traps for young, developing girls and boys, like my daughter, Anais.”

With double-digit growth through the third quarter of 2012, Beverage Digest Editor John Sicher said he expects energy drink sales to exceed $10 billion this year. He declined to speculate about future growth.

“I don't think they are going to ban energy drinks,” said Morningstar analyst Thomas Mullarkey. “The question arises whether or not it gives them more firepower for increased regulation.”

Monster Beverage Corp said it does not believe its drinks are 'in any way responsible' for Miss Fournier's death.

'Monster is unaware of any fatality anywhere that has been caused by its drinks,' the company said in a statement. It said it intends to vigorously defend itself in the suit.

Bullying Interns the Goldman Sachs way

Back on 12 June 2000, as the dot-com bubble was deflating, young Greg Smith was all puffed up, clutching his "extra-large coffee" and looking up "at the formidable tower that housed Goldman Sach's equities trading headquarters" in New York. "Holy shit," he thought, as he arrived for the first day of his summer internship at the Wall Street bank.

More than a decade later, on 14 March 2012, not long after a different financial bubble had burst, the remark may well have risen in a hush over the Goldman dealing room as wide-eyed traders poured over an opinion piece in The New York Times. Title? "Why I'm Leaving Goldman Sachs". Author? Greg Smith. "Today is my last day at Goldman Sachs," Mr Smith proclaimed. Over 12 years, he said, he had understood what made the bank tick. "And I can honestly say that the environment is now as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it."

Now, Mr Smith, who had risen to become a Goldman executive director and head of the firm's US equity derivatives business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa before quitting, is preparing tell us the full story. According to reports, his biting commentary on Goldman won him a book deal and a cool $1.5m (£930,000) advance, with the product of his labours, imaginatively titled Why I Left Goldman Sachs, set to hit the shelves on 22 October. The night before, he is reported to be planning to break his self-imposed hiatus from the public square with a US television interview. Ahead of the launch, Goldman yesterday said it had conducted a detailed review of Mr Smith's claims and found no evidence to support them.

But as we near the release date, it seems the firm's President Gary Cohn, who along with chief executive Lloyd Blankfein merited special mention in Mr Smith's op-ed for losing "hold of the firm's culture on their watch", is likely to be among those waiting in line for a copy of the tome. "I probably will read it," he said during an interview on Bloomberg television earlier this month. If Mr Cohn wants an early look, the first chapter was released on the Apple iBookstore this week. Titled "I Don't Know, But I'll Find Out", it offers a glimpse of Mr Smith's first days in the belly of the "great vampire squid", as the bank was memorably dubbed by Rolling Stone.

Back then Mr Smith was a dedicated convert to the Goldman cause. That summer's day, the 21-year-old had no premonition of what – in his view – Goldman would become, and how he would go on to feel. Young Mr Smith, then on a scholarship at Stanford, was, to his mind, justifiably proud. "The selection process for any type of job at Goldman Sachs is extremely rigorous. On average, only one in 45 people... who apply for a summer internship, or a full-time job, get an offer," he says. To get ahead, he'd prepped hard for the interview. "I'd read The Culture of Success, a history of the firm by Lisa Endlich, a former Goldman VP," he reveals. Who doesn't, right?

With a toe in the door, Mr Smith was issued with a folding stool and a "big orange ID badge" on a "bright orange lanyard" – status markers to remind an intern that he or she was mere "plebe, a newbie, a punk-kid". "It was innately demeaning," he says, recounting how interns had to carry around the stools "at all times because there were no extra chairs at the trading desks".

The internship itself was demanding. "You came to work at 5:45 or 6:00 or 6:30 in the morning," Mr Smith recalls. Goldman interns were put through two "Open Meetings" a week, where "a partner would stand at the front of the room with a list of names and call on people at will with questions on the firm's storied culture, its history, on the stock market".

"Depending on the personal style of the people in charge, the meetings could be brutal. They were always intense," Mr Smith says, recalling how, on one occasion, an intern was rebuked by a VP for not knowing enough about Goldman's stance on Microsoft shares. "What is our price target? What are the catalysts coming up? How has the stock been trading? Come on," said VP barks, according to the account. The hapless intern "starts to tear up and runs out of the room".

Smith also recalls the treatment handed out to an intern after a managing director ordered a cheddar cheese sandwich and was presented with a cheddar cheese salad. The boss "opened the container, looked at the salad, looked up at the kid, closed the container and threw it in the trash". "It was a bit harsh, but it was also a teaching moment," Mr Smith writes.

The anecdotes chime with the caricature of Wall Street as a laddish jungle where ritual hazing is just part of doing business. But at this early stage there is none of the greed that Mr Smith spoke of in his op-ed – he claimed, for instance, that people in the firm "callously talk about ripping their clients off". Instead, the gruelling intern routine is presented as a way of training new initiates to be "truthful, resourceful, collaborative".

Tantalisingly, though, Chapter 5 is titled "Welcome to the Casino".