R.I.P. Wolfgang Schäuble

[Arneb]

Another German politician I never voted for, but still respected.
He died aged 81 on Boxing Day, and he died in office - as simple Bundestag member, a post he had held continuously for 51 years, the longest Bundestag tenure so far.

He started his rise in the Christian Democratic Union parliamentary faction in the 70s when they were still in opposition. After Kohl became Chancellor, he became Head of the Chancellor's Office, an extremely influential, right-hand-of-the-boss type role. When German unification came up, he was Minister of the Interior and was responsible for negotiating the "4+2 treaty", which became the legal basis for the unified Germany we know today.

Severely injured by a madman with a gun in 1990 (in the run-up to the first German Bundestag election after re-unification), he spent the rest of his days in a wheelchair. He was touted as Kohl's heir apparent, but in the maelstrom of the Party-donation affair unfolding after the 1998 elecetion, he lost the Party (and Parliamentary Faction) presidency after only two years. Later, he became one of the men helping Angela Merkel along in her ascent in the party despite being a far more conservative soul. She thanked him for his loyalty (and secured a quiet co-existence with the CDU's more conservative forces) by giving him key cabinet posts in her first three cabinets: Interior, then Finances. He was the one holding things together in Europe when the Euro crisis threatened to tear the continent apart, and in 2014, he was the first Finance Minister since 1969 presenting a balanced budget. During Merkel's fourth term, there wasn't a place for him at the Cabinet's table due to coalition arithmetics, so he occupied the procedurally important post of President of the Bundestag (formally, the second highest office in Germany). After opening the Bundestag in 2021 as President-by-Seniority, he reverted to being a simple MP. He died after a long illness, against which he maintained an active lifestyle to the end, attending Bundestag sessions, giving interviews, advising those in his party who were interested to listen. Of which there were quite a few .

Schäuble to me is an exemplary politician. Of course he was ambitious, he vied for the top spot, and several times, he was close to getting it. He was a formidable opponent, and he could be nasty as a boss. But he never forgot that holding high office is service, and he was not above settling for second or third when he couldn't win. He was witty, humorous, supremely intelligent, abolutely a man of his word, and apparently, a very loyal friend. Thank you for your service, Herr Schäuble.

[Richard A]

The accolade that stands out is: "he never forgot that holding high office is service". Oh that we had such politicians! Actually, we do, but they've been exiled to the House of Lords - or forced out of politics completely.

A reminder of what the UK's House of Lords, the upper house of our Parliament, actually is in the 3rd decade of the 21st century. Yes, it still has a few hereditary peers - those who are Lord X because they are the 1st (or at least eldest surviving) son of the previous Lord X. Most were weeded out under reforms some time ago, though, so the majority are life peers - you are Lord (or Lady) Y for life but you don't get to bequeath it to your descendants. So what gets you one of those? A decent donation to the governing party - especially if it's the Conservative Party - should generally do it. This is always denied, but with less and less effort now. Political loyalty is another - exemplified under Boris Johnson, but I don't doubt we'll see more of the same, even if not quite so blatant, in due course from Rishi Sunak. But there are other ways. It used to be the case that having been Prime Minister qualified you - all sides understood fully that Edward Heath being denied a peerage by Margaret Thatcher was a deliberate insult - as did senior Cabinet service - but that's now gone; you generally settle for a knighthood now. Another route which had gone into abeyance until David became Lord Cameron was: X is no longer an MP but we want him in Parliament. Someone who became a Lord that way and would definitely qualify for the A Life Well Lived thread, albeit he passed away quite a while ago now, is Gerry Fitt. I might put him in belatedly anyway. In the UK, Schäuble would have got a peerage without question.

But then there are those who the PM and their coterie would like to purge, but whose constituency is likely to re-select them anyway. This works less well for the Labour Party, as the thorns in the side of their leaders tend to be too far to the left to accept a peerage - Ken Livingstone and Jeremy Corbyn would both have told their leaders very publicly what they could do with it. (Plus Keir Starmer would sooner drink a pint of Ribera and Mountain Dew in a 50-50 ratio, down in one, than give any kind of honour to Corbyn - Sir Keir doesn't appear to have many principles, but he does draw the line somewhere.) But for the Tories, it's a tried and tested technique, referred to openly as "kicking them upstairs". Off to the Lords, where you have limited political power - if the Lords refuse to pass a Bill, the House of Commons can override that if they really want, although it does take determination - and, at least under most party leaders, zero chance of any future political career. Go to the Lords, make speeches from time to time which we are free to ignore - basically be a political irrelevance. It's more gentle than being physically removed from the stage of the party conference, but the message is much the same. Current examples include Sayeeda Warsi and Kenneth Clarke, who continue to demonstrate that they see politics as service. So does Michael Heseltine - who although he got his peerage for service to Margaret Thatcher has now emerged as a scourge of the Brexiteers. Which as you know, qualifies him in the eyes of the current Tory Party as what their US colleagues would call a CINO. (Before you start imagining what that could mean, it's Conservative In Name Only.)