Kemi Badenoch, in an act of unusual awareness for an MP, intends to learn from her own party’s mistakes as well as Labour’s. She must have been reading the Greek statesman Plutarch’s ‘How to profit from your enemies’, one of his 78 essays and dialogues on a wide range of topics, from the intelligence of animals to old men in politics.
Politics, he said, always encouraged spite, envy, and rivalry. These encouraged the wise man ‘to stay on guard, do everything with due care and attention, and lead a more mindful life’. The reason he gave for this was that there was a weakness in us that made us ‘feel more ashamed of our faults before our enemies than our friends’.
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