Sebastian Kurz, the 31-year-old leader of the conservative Austrian People’s Party (OVP), looks set to become the world’s youngest head of government after Sunday’s elections. The country of elegantly dressed, respectably middle-aged ladies and gentlemen has handed the keys of the Mercedes to a fresh-faced kid.
Kurz may look young but he is not a new figure on the Austrian political scene. Four years ago he was made foreign minister. Clearly it was time for a new challenge if his career trajectory was to be maintained.
Along with Emmanuel Macron, 39, and Justin Trudeau, a boyish 45, Kurz represents a new wave of perky, youthful leaders. In Austria they call him “Wunderwuzzi”, which translates roughly as “whizz kid” or “boy wonder”. The proof of the strudel will be in the eating, of course, but for now Austrian voters are making a big bet on youth.
This is not unprecedented. When Jack Kennedy was elected US president at the age of 43, he and his young family symbolised a break with the past. Present at his inauguration in January 1961 were some distinguished old men: former presidents Harry S Truman and Dwight Eisenhower. And Kennedy made explicit the point about his relative youth: “Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans …”, he said.
In May 1997, Britain elected its own bright young thing, Tony Blair, just short of his 44th birthday. Such was his youthful and bright-eyed demeanour that some critics had dismissed him as “Bambi”. When David Cameron resigned in June 2016 he became a 49-year-old ex-prime minister. Barack Obama, now 56, is hardly over the hill after having served eight years in the White House.
Energy is one thing, however, and experience is another. Leaders need both. If you don’t have first-hand experience yourself, it is wise to draw on those who can provide it. No matter how clever you may be, you can’t have seen everything before the grey hairs start to show. We don’t always know what we don’t know. Someone may have to point this out.
In the euphoria and excitement that surrounded New Labour’s arrival in power, some older, calmer voices were not heeded. Blair could have sought more advice from Jim Callaghan, Denis Healey and Michael Foot, for example, all of whom were still alive for most of his time in office.
There is a telling moment in one of Michael Cockerell’s documentaries with a young prime minister Blair being asked whether he would contemplate holding long cabinet meetings, as Callaghan had done during the IMF crisis in 1976. There is a look of amused disbelief on his face as Blair explains that, no, there shouldn’t be any need for cabinet to meet for such extended periods. But in 2002-03 that might not have been such a bad idea.
Businesses that eject older workers too soon destroy their corporate memory, and deprive themselves of grown-up people who might in the past have dealt with problems that are similar to those being faced today. In a world where more of us will work for longer, managers have to make the multi-generational workplace work. We are facing what Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott have called The 100-Year Life, Guardian reported.
We need to take a more balanced and more generous view of age. Having just turned 50 myself (meaning that I am, for the first and only time, on trend) I have discovered how varied opinions can be. According to some, at 50 you are still a youngster, with so much yet to learn and half your life still ahead of you. But others see you as decrepit and practically on the way out. I prefer answer a).
So good luck to young Herr Kurz as he takes on this daunting responsibility at the age of 31. I trust he’s getting some good advice. Presumably he hopes that his political career is only just beginning. But he should also be aware that sometimes they can be short – or, as they say in German, Kurz.
