by Dan Hodges
Earlier this week, I dined with an old comrade. As it does, our conversation drifted to gurus.
“Alastair Campbell. Great communications guru”.
“No. Swore too much. Gurus don’t swear. They hardly even speak. They emit”.
“Peter Mandelson. He was a proper guru”.
“Not a guru. A svengali. There’s a difference”.
“What is it?”.
“Not sure exactly. But there is”.
“OK, got a real one. Gramsci”.
“The guy who used to work for Harriet?”.
“No. The Gramsci. Antonio Gramsci”.
“Oh that Gramsci. Yeah. The Ledg. Dead. Foreign. Funny little glasses. Ticks all the boxes”.
A guru. Wanna make it in politics, Mack? Gotta get yourself a guru. The true guru is part university lecturer, part parent, part deity. A strange creature. Ill defined, he occupies a curious netherworld somewhere between, or rather above, policy, communication and organisation. (more…)