We don’t mind drugs if you had a real job, voters tell MPs.

[Isitmebut]

“Not having had a job outside politics or journalism is — by a large margin — the characteristic voters most dislike about Britain’s leading politicians.”

“According to a YouGov poll for The Times the most unwanted admission on an MP’s CV is that they never had a “real” job outside the world of national politics, think-tanks, journalism or local government.”


So what REAL job prepares a politician for understating, debating and implementing laws for the rest of the country on highly complex issues from national finances, departmental budget planning, national security & defence issues, cyber threats, law, order, courts, a sustainable NHS service, and numerous social issues the vast majority of people will never have hands on experience in most of those issues?


To my mind the key requirement of an MP, away from constituency issues, is an analytical mind that can get their heads around important issues, and understand what the right course of action is for the whole country now and for years ahead – so does that mean only bright university graduates need apply, if so, we’re back to square one with drugged up bells on.

[claig]

'so does that mean only bright university graduates need apply'

There is a famous former commodity broker who never went to university and got a real job straight after school. Some say he coud be a future leader. He is almost the politician with the highest popularity rating. Some of the "bright university graduates" are refusing to debate with him.

[claig]

also not almost

[Isitmebut]

Claig…you are correct, Mr Farage does indeed have both a degree level edumacation and worked in a (demanding) job in the outside world.

Furthermore he mentioned I believe in a Financial Times interview that during his time in he City wheeling and dealing, he was also heavily involved in personal spread betting, drinking and no doubt was taken to lap dancing clubs on broker expenses.

No doubt you would argue that this work experience has given him the tools to pass laws on all things to do with the City, gambling, alcohol abuse and the sex trade – but good luck selling those puppies to the public. lol

Meanwhile you can only debate policies with a party leader that has some - once he called his own 2010 manifesto "drivel" and therefore frees himself to just criticise the three main parties without them being able to discuss Ukip's, currently all made up on the opportunist hoof - he lost all credibility on domestic policy issues.

[NeoFaust]

Politics is a process by which a successful compromise is achieved. Statesmen use politics to achieve objectives. Politicians are like sous-chefs in a kitchen - they handle important but repetitive tasks essential to the process without the need to consider a final result. That's the chef's job.

The problem with a professional political class is that they believe it's more important that the process is perpetuated than an objective is achieved, because that's what justifies their pay. In the kitchen analogy, it's as if the sous-chefs thought that chopping vegetables was the most important thing in the kitchen and so arranged the menu so that the only thing available was vegetable soup. In political terms it's politicians obsessed with unending election campaigns, policies revolving around future elections and eternal, unending negotiations and committees.

The hope is that if politicians had a 'real' job they would be proficient in politics as it is a useful tool in many organisations. But more importantly they would be prepared to set concrete goals other than reelection; i.e. other than just the continuance of politics.

[columngollum]

Real employees are far from averse to setting up stupid policies or systems to perpetuate their employment. Think legacy bank IT systems. (In fact think all legacy IT systems!)

In fact, never having been a real employee is probably a bonus.

[AMumInScotland]

To my mind, the problem with politicians is that, for the most part, they haven't a clue about how the issues they debate actually affect ordinary people.

'Real' jobs might make some difference to that, but not if they are the 'boys club' jobs that are prevalent before/after politics for many of them.

Mostly, they live in a world full of people quite like themselves, and they see their own choices and values reflected back at them from all sides and think it is 'normality'. When they think about anything other than that, they think about 'the underclass', full of benefit scroungers and low-level criminality.

I don't think they have a clue about how most people's lives are made a tiny bit better or a lot worse by the things they think up.

[Isitmebut]

IMO there is no such thing as a good political ‘club’ as on one side a set of parliamentary MP’s might not dare utter a unified word against the leader, whilst their policies are screwing the people they are meant to represent, whilst on the other side they might form clubs within clubs and say far to much and shoot themselves in the electoral foot.

Every politician and political party is working for the ‘the people’, they just have to work out what is sustainable and what is not; national emergencies and plans to get out of them rarely makes voters happy.

If political ideology was fair, voters would ask themselves how with such a huge majority (with voices) in parliament we got into such a mess in the first place - and why their representatives were never brave enough to force their leaders to publish their own solutions to those problems prior to the 2010 General Election.

[columngollum]

A lot of the time it's (obviously!) a numbers game! Of course you live on a crumbling 1960s estate with every social deprivation known to mankind, but are there enough people who sympathise with your plight to vote to make a difference? For all the others, life might not be perfect, but it's good enough to retain the status quo. And then there are the obvious vote buyers, like tax cuts!


All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
For want and misery to flourish all that is necessary is to hope for ten pence of tax relief.