AIBU to want politicians with strong academic and business backgrounds?

Go back into the 80s/90s, I don't recall quite so many senior politicians with economics degrees and/or public school attendance. It seems to have become endemic in the 00's onwards. I don't think it's a coincidence that we've had an awful crop of ministers/prime ministers over the past 20-30 years who seem to have achieved bugger all in terms of actually improving the country and life for the voters - in fact, in most respects things are worse now than they were 30 years ago in so many ways.

Quite. They’re supposed to represent their constituents. Basically no one goes to Oxbridge. Many go to uni now, but barely any Oxbridge (disproportionate amount of private school kids though!).

I asked politely three times and he didn't answer.
Called him an arsehole and bingo.
So there you go.

He did study at Oxford though. Your statement suggested he was stupid because he ‘only’ got into Leeds rather than Oxford for his bachelors which is obviously bullshit. He’s an incredibly intelligent man. I don’t like or support him, but you can’t argue against his intellect just because he studied his bachelors at Leeds. He did well enough to get into a masters programme at Oxford, which ain’t easy.

Your misplaced snobbery reminds me of Rory Stewart calling Gary Stevenson out because he ‘only’ went to LSE (one of the most selective universities in the country), despite the fact he then also did a masters at Oxford. As soon as Rory found out about the masters, Gary suddenly became acceptable. It’s ridiculous.

I say we need more politicians who have worked a minimum wage job at some point in their life. Too many of them were born into wealth and privilege; then Eton, Oxbridge, parliament, and at no point lived in the world many other people live in; always protected from the real world by money. What did Boris Johnson know about living in the same world as everyone else? We need more of those who worked their way up from humble beginnings. While they whisper about “national service”, I say we need a “national service requirement” for parliamentarians: that people can only run for parliament if they have worked in a customer-facing, preferably less well paid job.

@Winederlust Not that many have the stupidly termed “side hustles “ now. Many will do some work to keep professional contacts and knowledge up to date. These people are valuable because their knowledge is often broader and can be utilized in parliament. I don’t like MPs who have just been SPADs or have held no positions of responsibility and just graduate from student politics. It’s not good enough.
to date.

No I can't think of any that would meet your particular criteria and interpretation of that criteria which is why I was asking.

Thanks for responding

Oh of course not 🙄

As a consequence of the relatively low pay for an MP, politicians often have multiple side-hustles which one way or another inevitably leads to conflicts of interest which heavily influence their policy priorities.

...and why we end up seeing things like the PPE scandal.

@CatsandjkrI agree with you. Politicians do very little before being politicians. Starmer did but became a civil servant. I really think we need better business acumen and many MPs are just mouthpieces for poorly informed constituents. They will not tackle the big questions or long term issues - I think John Major will say this today at 3 on radio 5. Politics is in danger of being a side show that never changes anything. If MPs just see the role as campaigning for constituents, they have no true grasp on what large scale changes need to be made., let alone make them. They just look after their votes. They should work for the good of the whole country and that includes business and employment. Reeves does not have a clue.

I think we need a mixture of politicians from as many different walks of life as possible. It's dangerous to have too much of the same type of person, we need politicians to understand and represent the needs of all of society.

I know from my line of work that running a business does not necessarily mean you are capable, intelligent or understanding of the economy. Nor does being an academic mean you understand how to balance the practical needs of a society.

Seems to me you just want to have a dig at the Labour Party. The three you mention have strong academic backgrounds and relevant work experience.

You need better examples if you want to target Labour MPs.

What politicians of the last decade meet your criteria?

Maybe there is so much evidence that she needs the bank holiday to gather it all before posting? I’m sure she wouldn’t just make things up and assert them as fact…

He was ok because he studied classics at Oxford and the OP only wants MP’s who studied at Oxbridge.

What you are saying is you only want politicians who went to Oxbridge then? JUST the sort of representation we need, totally agree with you, more Eton boys please!

It is nice to see people are able put their political views to one side and agree that insults should be ignored.❤️

So I’ve just been looking up historians’ views of Bill Clinton’s presidency. They consistently rank him in the 50 th-75th percentile: a good to very good president, not a great president.

Clinton was and is a great orator, however.

I am agreeing with you that people should just ignore the 'unemployed Labour luvvies' comments the OP made.

Good general advice.

It wasn’t to you was it? Checks post.

No it was for the op.