he gets us to contemplate a darker possibility: that doing rightly and well what a political leader should and fulfilling the proper duties of political leadership is at odds with being a good person. Machiavelli was preoccupied by a fundamental problem in politics: is it possible to be a good politician and a good person at the same time? And he has the courage to face the tragic possibility that, given how the world really is, the answer is no. He doesn’t just think that political advancement comes more easily to the unscrupulous. But soon after his appointment, Florence exploded politically, expelled the Medici family, who had ruled it for sixty years and suffered decades of political instability, as a consequence of which Machiavelli experienced a series of career reversals.

His father was a wealthy and influential lawyer, and so Machiavelli received an extensive formal education and got his first job as a secretary for the city, drafting government documents. Niccolò Machiavelli was born in Florence in 1469. Once we understand this basic requirement, we’ll be less disappointed and clearer about what we want our politicians to be. A good politician – in Machiavelli’s remarkable view – isn’t one who is kind, friendly and honest, it is someone – however occasionally dark and sly they might be – who knows how to defend, enrich and bring honour to the state. Machiavelli’s writings suggest that we should not be surprised if politicians lie and dissemble, but nor should we think them immoral and simply “bad” for doing so. Surprisingly, the very man who gave his name to the word “Machiavellian,” a word so often used to describe the worst political scheming, can help us understand the dangers of this tired dichotomy. We seem torn between our idealistic hopes and our pessimistic fears about the evil underbelly of politics. However, we are also regularly catapulted into cynicism when we realise the number of backroom deals and the extent of the lying that politicians go in for. On the one hand, we have an idealistic idea that a politician should be an upright hero, a man or woman who can breathe new moral life into the corrupt workings of the state. Our assessment of politicians is torn between hope and disappointment.

The wisdom of niccolo machiavelli