Listening and leading

After large local election losses, the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said his job was to listen and to lead. That is almost a contradiction in terms. Leaders lead and others follow. Someone who only goes where he thinks his followers want to go is no leader.

When he was London’s Mayor, Ken Livingstone listened to the wrong advisers. They attacked the Pink Triangle Trust for publishing something they did not like, and threatened to refer it to the Race Relations Board. I shall not be sorry to see the back of such advisers now that there is a new mayor in London.

The Pink Triangle Trust is a charity and acts responsibly as such.

The committee of the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association is listening and leading, or so it says. Like Ken Livingstone, it is listening to the wrong people and leading in the wrong direction in wanting to become a charity.

Will it now take note of the likelihood of a government with a different view of the role of charities?

I doubt it. It wants to surrender its freedom of action in exchange for a dubious status and at some cost. Its freedom is something it will not be able to get back.