BY STEWART SLATER

Back in 2013, after his fourth world title in a row, it was clear that Sebastian Vettel was one of the greatest drivers in history. Today, after a stint at Ferrari which was rather less successful than his Red Bull pomp, he appears to have been a very good driver (better than Mark Webber, certainly) who happened to drive an absolute rocket ship. Highly competent, but no longer a rival for Prost, Senna, Stewart et al.

For, reputations are like shadows – always with us, but susceptible to change as time passes. What may have seemed obvious at one point can, after the further passage of time, seem rather more debatable. In part, this is because reputations are always guesses. We can see that an individual was involved in some event, and assume that it occurred because of them. But the web of causes is a tangled skein and ascribing cause and effect definitively is hard. In Formula 1, this is clear, because the exact contribution of car and driver is always open to argument. In 2013, people assumed Vettel was doing most of the work, nowadays, that honour is given to his Red Bull.

In everything, however, there is an element of luck, something the ancients took as a sign of divine favour and we, in our desire for an orderly, predictable universe tend to overlook. I write this shortly after Emma Raducanu’s exit from the Australian Open in the Second Round, the third successive year she has failed to see the Third Round in that tournament, and the sixth Grand Slam in a row where she has won, at most, one match. Her reputation (and the media coverage it drives) is, of course, not that of someone who typically performs as the 60th best tennis player in the world. It is that of a winner, who is expected to triumph each time she steps on court because, back in 2021, she did just that at the U.S. Open. But her performances are explained just as well by assuming that she is a reasonably good player who once got very lucky (run enough tournaments (there have been c. 455 Grand Slams to date) and statistically, someone will, in one of them, come through the qualifiers to win as she did) as they are by assuming she is a great player on a poor run.

If a reputation is to remain constant, then the performances which underlie it must do so too. That was what did for Sebastian Vettel – his later career, when he was regularly matched by a 40-year old better known, by that stage, for his playboy lifestyle than the blistering speed of his youth, just wasn’t that good, his raw pace declining with age and errors creeping in as he over-compensated for the waning of his powers. Many more Second Round exits, and it will do for Emma Raducanu too. We are a simple species and we like the stories we tell ourselves (and reputation is nothing more than the story we tell about someone else) to be simple and consistent. We also believe the present is more important than the past. The notion that individuals may change over time is complex and requires thought, much easier to assume that people remain constant and update their reputation by ascribing to outside agency any previous achievement which differs from their current performance.

To sportsmen, reputation is a secondary concern. Whether, in 10 years time, we believe Emma Raducanu to have been immensely lucky or the British version of Serena Williams matters little. She will still have at least one Grand Slam and, having earned $15.2mn last year (only $200,000 of which was for hitting furry balls on a court), her bank manager will still take her calls. For others, though, reputation is vital.

The hours before Raducanu’s latest loss had seen the bathetic spectacle of the Third Reading of the Rwanda Bill. There had been amendments. There was fevered speculation about votes of no confidence. There were crunch talks. There were polls in the Telegraph. Everything was set up for a moment of titanic Parliamentary drama to rival the Norway debate or the collapse of the Callaghan government. And in the end, eleven Conservatives rebelled. Eleven. A perfect number for a football team, a decidedly sub-optimal number for a Parliamentary rebellion. There are damp squibs, there are squibs which have been doused in water and hidden at the bottom of the ocean and there is that vote.

Part of the blame can be laid at the door of the media. Desperate for something to put in their bulletins and, in the case of the rolling channels, desperate to retain eyeballs, it is in their interests to ramp up the drama of every Parliamentary occurrence, like a soap opera ending every episode on a cliff-hanger. When, in 1930, the BBC started its nightly bulletin with the words, “There is no news” and proceeded to fill the remaining time with light piano music, it may have been acting in an unpleasantly paternalistic fashion, but it was also, perhaps, showing rather sounder judgement than its descendants.

The greater portion of blame, however, must be laid at the politicians, particularly, and this pains me, those on the right of the party, who have, since the publication of the bill never passed up an opportunity to belittle and threaten to torpedo it. There have been secret meetings (carefully briefed to the press). There have been media statements. There has been plenty of self-aggrandizing – all that talk of “Star Chambers” and the “Five Families”. And, in the end, there has been craven defeat – one particular stoutheart changing his mind at the last moment because the opposition “giggled” at him. They may see themselves as the Godfather, but have behaved more like Lear – “I will do such things – what they are yet I know not; but they shall be the terrors of the Earth.”

Like Shakespeare’s tragic king, that faction of the party was powerful once. The “Spartans” – 300 is presumably on the playlist also – played a key role in preventing Theresa May’s Brexit deal from being enacted and, subsequently, in her defenestration. But they did so because they were willing to bear the consequences – a possible election. It was this reputation on which they relied, and this reputation to which they failed to live up. “Let justice be done though the heavens fall” was the old cry, “Let justice be done so long as no-one laughs at us” the new.

But as Don Corleone knew, if you would preserve your reputation, you must keep acting in line with it. He is an old man when the film starts, but he still organises the business with the horse’s head. To do otherwise would be to look weak, and to look weak would mean becoming weak. For, to a mafia don, reputation is everything. People bend to his will because of their belief that, should they not, they will suffer. When people believe they can defy him with impunity, his reputation updates and he loses his power.

The same holds with politicians. When they are thought ready to bring down the government, they have power. When they meekly slink through the lobby their whip directs them to, they do not. They go from “Brexit hardmen” to “busted flush”. Their reputation resets from fanatic to blowhard, high on their own supply. Their influence declines as ministers believe they can ignore them and (perhaps worse), the press starts to ignore them too. Having failed to prevent one policy they dislike, they can prevent no policy they dislike.

“If your enemy is superior, evade him” counselled Sun-Tzu, China’s warrior sage. But to do so requires an honest assessment of forces. Relying on reputation, self ascribed or otherwise, does not provide it. Had the rebels sincerely asked themselves how many were willing to go to the mattresses (to continue the mafia theme), much of this unpleasantness would have been avoided. But they didn’t, too caught up in their historic reputation to see they were risking their current reputation. And now they must live with the consequences of letting the country down, the party down and, most of all, themselves down. For if they have something useful to say, they have ensured that no one will listen to it. Never glad confident morning again!

Stewart Slater works in Finance. He invites you to join him at his website.