Scansals are not the whole story
It is surely a symptom of a country’s rapid decline when the public finds itself concentrating exclusively on small and large, old and new scandals while the country itself is drowning in debt as well as being confronted with a crisis in values and institutions like Greece is right now. Sure, we must investigate and punish the politicians and senior officials who are responsible for the scandals that have dogged the two conservative administrations. In the meantime, however, we must not forget that the country needs to be governed. And responsibly steering the country requires a government that has the courage to make bold decisions about the future as well as a political opposition that has the courage to tell the truth about the issues in question and put forward pragmatic solutions – instead of merely telling voters what they want to hear. At the present time, however, society is seriously in danger of being overwhelmed by a deluge of information about the scandals without, however, truly grasping the full significance of the fiscal and institutional deadlocks that confront the country.
