According to the myth, Catherine II’s courtier Grigory Potemkin recruited peasants to populate fake villages erected along the Dnipro River, so the Russian empress, passing in her barge, might get a favourable impression of conditions in newly conquered Crimea. Historians doubt that it happened, but the idea of counterfeiting progress to appease the boss was plausible enough for the name “Potemkin village” to have stuck.
In a democracy, the boss is the electorate, which leads governments to erect Potemkin policies – paper pledges puffed up as substantial measures – to convince voters that all is well. Rishi Sunak’s announcement on defence spending this week is a case in point.
