Review
Books
Culture
Politics
4 min read

Is it OK to pray for the death of a dictator?

What happens when the mighty lose their thrones.

Simon is Bishop of Tonbridge in the Diocese of Rochester. He writes regularly round social, cultural and political issues.

Bullet holes on a wall and white paint outlines mark the site of an execution
The wall where Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu were executed.
NPR.

The end, when it comes, can be nasty, brutish and filmed. 

Muammar Gaddafi, self-styled Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution, spent the last moments of his life cowering in a Libyan sewer after an air strike on his convoy. On discovery, a mob subjected him to some ghastly final abuses before death – the kind of ending he had mercilessly condemned thousands to. It was almost biblical in its parabola, and it was recorded on a wobbly camera. 

But it was not the first of its kind in this generation. On Christmas Day 1989, the disfigured face of Nicolae Ceausescu was broadcast on TV following his summary execution by hastily assembled opposition forces in Romania. Only days previously, he had been an unassailable dictator.   

Vladimir Putin has spoken about Gaddafi’s ending, and it clearly troubles him, but perhaps Ceausescu’s death is lodged in the dark recesses of his mind because it was the one bloody end of all the communist leaders of eastern Europe. 

Being a dictator is an all-consuming job. Too many domestic and foreign enemies are made along the way for the dictator to drop their vigilance. And their downfall often comes at the hands of those closest to them; by definition, these people know the dictator’s movements and weaknesses better than others and are best placed to exploit them. The military must be equipped to suppress dissent, but give it too much power and the generals pose a risk to the dictator. Yet if the military lacks the hardware, control of the population becomes harder. Many dictators surround themselves with specially trained loyal guards to defend against the military, but the rule of terror means no-one speaks the honest truth and so risks appear everywhere. No wonder dictators are usually paranoid and themselves racked with the fear that a culture of capricious violence induces in everyone.     

These and other theories are explored by Marcel Dirsus in his compelling book How Tyrants Fall (John Murray, 2025). Dirsus notes how dictators require money, weapons and people to survive in office and for the elites around them to believe these goods will remain in place. They also need to immerse the surrounding elites in blood guilt, so that their fate becomes entwined with the dictator’s; Saddam Hussein compelled others to join him in the murder and execution of opponents. 

For Dirsus, there are two ways to topple a tyrant. The most direct is to take them out, but this is rarely straightforward. Coup attempts are often shambolic in their planning and even well-orchestrated ones usually fail; the consequences for those implicated are always horrendous. The second route is patient and pragmatic, looking to weaken the tyrant, strengthen alternative elites and empower the masses. External powers often have minimal influence unless, like the US in Iraq, the country is invaded and the tyrant deposed. Sanctions often fail to hurt the elites; a state’s geographic proximity to the tyrant’s nation can be useful, as it gives a base from which opponents of the regime can work. 

Modern technology is changing the face of political action, making it easier for large groups to mobilise against regimes, as seen in the short-lived Arab Spring. It also enables dictators to track opponents more successfully than even the feared Stasi in East Germany. Right now, it feels like the tyrants are ahead in this game. 

Shortly after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, a friend said to me that he was praying for Putin’s death or downfall. I asked him how sure he was that the person who replaced Putin would be better. If the pragmatic route for toppling a dictator involves strengthening different elites and empowering the masses, the likelihood is that the elites will take over, not the masses. Dictators never allow the components of civil society to form; democratic institutions take decades to build.  And they rarely anoint successors in advance, for fear alternative power bases are created. When dictators fall, it usually leads to initial chaos and violence before another elite can establish itself from which a new dictator will emerge.   

In her inspired song of praise at the news she would give birth to the long-awaited Messiah, Mary observes how God ‘has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly’.  It is a role reversal typical of St Luke, recorder of Mary’s song, a gift of eschatology many want realised today, not just in the world to come.  When the powerful are brought down from their throne today, they are typically replaced by the next most powerful person, and if the throne remains vacant or is contested, what follows often feels like the spirit that went out of a person in Matthew Gospel returning with seven other spirits more evil than itself, meaning ‘the last state of person is worse than the first’. 

This need not be a counsel of despair, but a call to informed intercessory prayer which is short on controlling advice for God’s geo-political strategy, and long on the wisdom and patience of the one throne that endures.  

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Article
Comment
Justice
Leading
Politics
5 min read

The consequences of truth-telling are so severe our leaders can’t admit their mistakes

When accountability means annihilation, denial is the only way to survive
A woman talks in an interivew.
Baroness Casey.
BBC.

Why do our leaders struggle so profoundly with admitting error? 

Media and inquiries regularly report on such failures in the NHS, the Home Office, the Department of Work and Pensions, HMRC, the Metropolitan Police, the Ministry of Defence, and so many more public institutions. Often accompanied by harrowing personal stories of the harm done. 

In a recent white paper (From harm to healing: rebuilding trust in Britain’s publicly funded institutions), I defined “harm” as a holistic concept occurring where physical injury or mental distress is committed and sustained and explained that harm is generally something that is caused, possibly resulting in injury or loss of life.  

When we look at harm from an institutional perspective, structural power dynamics inevitably oppress certain groups, limit individual freedoms, and negatively affect the safety and security of individuals. But when we look at it through the lens of the individuals who run those institutions, we see people who often believe that they are acting in good faith, believe that their decisions won’t have a significant impact, who don’t have time to think about the decisions they are making, or worse still, prefer to protect what is in their best interest.  

Even well-intentioned leaders can become complicit in cycles of harm - not just through malice, but through their lack of self-awareness and unwillingness to put themselves in the shoes of the person on the receiving end of their decisions.  

Martin Luther King Jr supposedly said, “the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” In contemporary politics, leaders are neither selected nor (largely) do they remain, because of their humility. Humility is synonymous with weakness and showing weakness must be avoided at all cost. Responsibility is perceived as something that lies outside of us, rather than something we can take ownership of from within.  

So, why do leaders struggle so profoundly with admitting error? 

The issue is cultural and three-fold. 

First, we don’t quantify or systematically address human error, allowing small mistakes to escalate. 

We then enable those responsible to evade accountability through institutional protection and legal barriers. 

Finally, we actively discourage truth-telling by punishing whistle-blowers rather than rewarding transparency. Taken together, these create the very conditions that transform errors into institutional harm.  

Nowhere is this plainer than in Baroness Casey’s recent report on Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse that caused the Government to announce a grooming gangs inquiry. In this case, the initial harm was compounded by denial and obfuscation, resulting not just in an institutional failure to protect children, but system-wide failures that have enabled the so-called “bad actors” to remain in situ. 

Recently, this trend was bucked at Countess of Chester Hospital where the police arrested three hospital managers involved in the Lucy Letby investigation. Previously, senior leadership had been protected, thus allowing them to evade accountability. Humble leadership would look like acting when concerns are raised before they become scandals. However, in this case, leadership did act; they chose to bury the truth rather than believe the whistle-blowers.

Until we separate admission of error from institutional destruction, we will continue to incentivise the very cover-ups that erode public trust. 

The answer to our conundrum is obvious. In Britain, accountability is conflated with annihilation. Clinging onto power is the only option because admitting error has become synonymous with career suicide, legal liability, and is tantamount to being hanged in the gallows of social media. We have managed to create systems of governing where the consequences of truth-telling are so severe that denial is the only survival mechanism left. We have successfully weaponised accountability rather than understanding it as the foundation of trust. 

If Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council had admitted even half of the failures Alexis Jay OBE identified in her 2013 report and that Baroness Casey identifies in her 2025 audit, leaders would face not only compensation claims but media storms, regulatory sanctions, and individual prosecutions. It’s so unthinkable to put someone through that that we shrink back with empathy as to why someone might not speak up. But this is not justice. Justice is what the families of Hillsborough have been seeking in the Public Authority (Accountability) Bill: legal duties of candour, criminal offences for those who deliberately mislead investigations or cover-up service failures, legal representation, and appropriate disclosure of documentation. 

Regardless of your political persuasion, it has to be right that when police misconduct occurs, officers should fear not only disciplinary action and criminal charges. When politicians admit mistakes, they should face calls for their resignation. Public vilification is par for the course. Being ejected from office is the bare minimum required to take accountability for their actions.  

The white paper shows that the cover-up always causes more damage than the original error. Institutional denial - whether relating to the Post Office sub-postmasters, the infected blood scandal victims, grooming gang victims, Grenfell Towers victims, Windrush claimants, or Hillsborough families - compounds the original harm exponentially.  

In a society beset with blame, shame, and by fame, it is extraordinary that this struggle to admit error is so pervasive. Survivors can and will forgive human fallibility. What they will not forgive is the arrogance of institutions that refuse to acknowledge when they have caused harm.  

The white paper refers to a four-fold restorative framework that starts with acknowledgment, not punishment. The courage to say “we were wrong” is merely the first step. Next is apology and accountability followed by amends. It recognises that healing - not just legal resolution - must be at the heart of justice, treating both those harmed and those who caused it as whole human beings deserving of dignity.  

Until we separate admission of error from institutional destruction, we will continue to incentivise the very cover-ups that erode public trust. I was recently struck by Baroness Onora O’Neill who insisted that we must demand trustworthiness in our leaders. We cannot have trustworthiness without truth-telling, and we cannot have that without valuing the act of repairing harm over reputation management. True authority comes from service, through vulnerability rather than invulnerability; strength comes through the acknowledgement of weakness not the projection of power.  

We must recognise that those entrusted with power have a moral obligation to those they serve. That obligation transcends institutional self-interest. Thus, we must stop asking why leaders struggle to admit error and instead ask why we have made truth-telling so dangerous that lies seem safer.