"He's not the messiah. He's a very naughty boy" Brian's mother Mandy in Monty Python's 'Life of Brian'

BEWARE messiahs in politics. As Brian's mother might put it, they "promise you the known world" but inevitably aren't able to deliver.

That's no criticism of George Lee, who is clearly a decent, well meaning and idealistic individual. It's not his fault he was hailed a messiah-like figure last June, even if he didn't help matters with over-the-top declarations that he wanted to save the economy and be able to tell his grandchildren he had done something during the worst economic recession ever.

But the reality is that even if Lee had combined the economics wizardry of John Maynard Keynes, the political acumen of De Valera and the popular appeal of John F Kennedy, his Dáil career was doomed to failure almost from the point it began. He simply couldn't have delivered on the massive expectations that were heaped on his shoulders. Nobody could.

Lee's inability to make the kind of impact that he hoped in just a few short months in politics has been seized upon by critics of politics in this country as evidence of our political system's failure to take on board new ideas and adapt to new realities. Utter nonsense.

This column has long argued for reform of our political system. Power is overly concentrated at cabinet at the expense of the Dáil and our electoral system encourages TDs to concentrate on parish pump issues at the expense of legislating. The tightness of results it creates also has the effect of giving far too much power to minority vested interests at the expense of the common good. The system should be changed.

But that is totally separate to what happened to Lee. There is no system in the democratic world today that would allow a newly-elected member of parliament for an opposition party to come in to play a central role in the country's development within a matter of weeks. That simply isn't how politics works and for good reason. The dangers of handing over enormous power and influence to a total political novice ? however honourable his or her intentions might be ? are surely too obvious to have to outline.

And the reality is that there are no easy solutions or answers in politics. Nobody has a monopoly on wisdom. There are no panaceas to the various problems that every country, regardless of how well run it is, faces.

It's amazing the number of times one hears people say that if only John O'Shea/Michael O'Leary/Ben Dunne or some other business person was running the health service or the country things would be different. Yet any time a newspaper asks figures from business for their proposals, what is most obvious is the absolute paucity of credible ideas (as was the case with Lee). Brilliant and all as these people are in doing what they do, it is simply not comparable to running a country, a state, a society, which is a far more complex task.

Look at the time, for example, it's taken Mary Harney – a hugely experienced politician of conviction – to make progress in improving the health service. Harney went in knowing exactly what she wanted to do but ran into innumerable obstacles and barriers. Not everyone welcomes change and reform.

It's the same for Barack Obama, who was greeted like a messiah across the world. Watching the faces in the crowd in Chicago's Grant Park on the night he was elected president, it was impossible not to fear for Obama. Even as the most powerful man on the planet, there was simply no way he could satisfy the monster expectations of the people. He may yet prove to be a great president but, as the opposition to his healthcare plans and his difficulty in achieving the closing of Guantanamo Bay have demonstrated, any progress will be slow and incremental. That's the reality of politics. It's a slog and a grind. It's very easy to get things terribly wrong, but it's often difficult to do good.

Tony Blair, another messiah in his day, is testament to that. People naively expected Britain to change overnight once he took over from the hated Tories. And yes, he did many good things – as, whisper it, did Margaret Thatcher – but his legacy is a mixed one, not least because of the Iraq war.

And Obama and Blair, whatever one might think of them, were trying desperately to do the right thing. If the likes of those two world leaders, enormously skilled politicians to their fingertips, struggle to make a difference, how realistic was it to believe George Lee, by no means a natural politician, would be able to radically transform this country?

There was much talk last week that Lee's departure would discourage other so-called celebrities from getting involved in politics. Let's hope so. It has become fashionable to deride the country's politicians. The government is rubbish. The opposition shower is no better. Such an attitude might be understandable because of the undeniable mistakes that have been made, but it's also highly simplistic.

The likes of Brian Cowen, Brian Lenihan, John Gormley, Mary Harney, Enda Kenny, Richard Bruton, Eamon Gilmore and Pat Rabbitte may not be perfect but they do understand politics and I have yet to see anybody come up with a remotely credible alternative to run the country.

They're not messiahs, and thank God for that.

scoleman@tribune.ie