AIBU to want politicians with strong academic and business backgrounds?

Of course she can stand... but if anyone votes for them, they want their head testing! If a woman doesn't feel capable of balancing a job with childcare how on earth are they going to run multi multi billion pound budgets whilst looking after 60million people?

Yes…
the problem is, most good scientists and engineers really want to be scientists and engineers not politicians. And tbh IME they’re not always ‘politically astute’. It’s one reason why our House of Lords is valuable as it can recruit experts later in their careers. I’ve heard it described as an institution which works much better in practice than in theory!

Keir Starmer, Boris Johnson and David Cameron are all objectively academically successful. They’ve done more damage to this country than we could possibly have imagined.

Donald Trump is a successful businessman - would you want someone like him as PM?

Pay MPs more and stop them having side hussles.

I didn’t say it wasn’t a business?

More scientists and engineers.

And your evidence for this is...? And parents don't have other Iife skills?

All of this is true, but what's worse I think is the life that now comes with being an MP, especially the risk to personal safety and necessity of having security at your home and office. Be an MP, earn (relative) peanuts, have people shouting abuse at you in the street and have security alarms throughout your home so that your children can raise the alarm when someone breaks and murders you, or earn 10 times as much in privacy and safety? Amazed anyone does it and I take my hat off to them for that, even the crap ones.

We certainly used to have a greater range of MP life experience years ago. I'd be interested to know how many lucrative second jobs were done by MPs in days gone by too.

I want MPs who've lived and achieved in the real world, not 25 year old Oxbridge graduates with a degree in PPE and an employment record of being a Parliamentary Researcher or similar.

MPs used to be doctors, lawyers, trades union officials, postmen, businessmen, farmers, miners, steel workers, soldiers etc. They had risen in their sphere through their abilities and brought a range of skills and experience to the job of MP. They had credibility and mostly a genuine mission to serve.

Move Parliament to Birmingham - then you'd get MPs who really want to serve their constituents, and not just people who want to swan around Westminster felling glamorous!!!

Who was in charge when self-ID was brought in? 🤔

Yes to academic success, not so much to business ... need a mix, people who have worked in health abd care, business, academia, law etc et

At this point I would be satisfied if they are not a felon and they can form a coherent sentence. I have really lowered my standards.

The trouble is (small) business people don't run the country, but actually employ most of it, it's largely people - in terms of civil servants and politicians - who have done a Politics, Philosophy and Economics degree and then gone straight into politics or the civil service and have a sheltered and narrow view of life. They sometimes don't understand profit and loss and are pretty blasé with public money.

Big corporations, banks, big media companies have huge power over politicians but SMEs have a lot less influence and are often disadvantaged by government policy, as they think "business" means Amazon and Sky, big banks, law firms, accountancy firms and not the SMEs who employ 60% of working people in the private sector.

Would rather have politicians who can relate to normal everyday working people.

The politicians who grew up rich, private schools, Eaton crew have no idea what it’s like to have a “normal life” yes they can experience tough times, but they don’t know what its like to live pay cheque to pay cheque or worry about energy or food costs, paying for the dentist etc etc most of them simply cannot relate.

Would rather have Joe Bloggs who has run the newsagents for 20 years, who see’s people in the community day in day out and genuinely cares about people.

I dont want "business" people running the country, no. I want people who have expertise in their field. Education minister - long career in teaching/ education. Health minister- experience within the NHS etc Why on earth should "business" people make decisions about everything?

I'd like a variety of people, certainly those who have run businesses and local councils, academic success is neither here nor there. I'd like people who didn't get on with school but did well in life anyway and/or who would value further education and vocational qualifications and training a lot more.

And Ed Davey, current leader of the LibDems, is another one: two economics degrees but doesn't know what a woman is and neither does his party.

The thing is, a lot of the of the current Labour Cabinet both a) genuinely come from fairly average working-class backgrounds and b) were the kind of academically able, politically interested young people who made it elite universities, where they got involved in politics and moved into politics-adjacent jobs.

So they actually do have early life experience of ordinary people's lives, and presumably maintain contact with childhood friends and extended family still living those kinds of lives, but they moved on from them by going to university.

I'm not saying this is good or bad - and there are exceptions, like Angela Rayner who was a care worker - but it makes them quite unrelatable to most people, because most people are not academic high-flyers who've experienced that kind of social mobility through education.