Life & Mortality Quote by Alan Clark

Getting fired, in Alan Clark's telling, is less a career hazard than the one honest law of political physics. The line lands because it refuses every comforting story politics likes to sell about merit, destiny, or “service.” Power doesn’t just slip; it is revoked. “Sacked” is wonderfully unromantic: not “retired,” not “defeated,” not even “resigned,” but hauled out by the collar. Clark’s diction drags high office down to workplace humiliation, collapsing the distance between a junior minister and a middle manager.

The fatalism is deliberate, almost gleeful. By pairing dismissal with death, he frames political life as a closed loop: elevation guarantees demotion. That’s not just cynicism; it’s a warning about the psychology of status. If the endpoint is predetermined, then the scramble for prestige looks faintly ridiculous, even pathological. “It’s always awful” punctures the myth that seasoned operators learn to take it on the chin. Clark insists the wound is universal: the loss of proximity to power hurts, no matter how many times you’ve watched it happen to others.

The kicker, “Even Prime Ministers,” is the class-conscious punchline. In Britain’s theatrical hierarchy, the Prime Minister is meant to feel almost presidential, an apex role insulated by history. Clark reminds you the job is still contingent, dependent on party, cabinet, voters, scandal, luck. The subtext is bracingly anti-heroic: politics isn’t a ladder to greatness, it’s a revolving door with better tailoring.