to think that the educated elite running the country can't be all that smart?

[MuseumofInnocence]

This is a Brexit related question, but it's not really about Brexit. The country is in a real mess right now, and the Government (and the opposition) looks woefully incompetent. Yet, if I look at their CVs, these, if not the brightest and best, should be pretty smart people - people with Oxbridge and top university degrees, experience working in industry at top levels, etc.

The example I can give is Stephen Barclay. Cambridge educated lawyer, high positions in City of London firms. The same is true of Dominic Raab (although he has degrees from Oxford and Cambridge).

Chris Grayling went to Cambridge and had a career in business.

I'm not saying I could do a better job, but how come those at the top seem it so incompetent?

Is it that those are top are incompetent, and they're not that bright, or is just too complex for mere mortals? AIBU to think those at the top can't be that smart?

It’s all the old boys’ network - Elton, Oxbridge, Bullingdon Club and whatever the Cambridge equivalent is, job in the City courtesy of Daddy’s mate, nice safe Tory seat. Absolutely zero clue about real life. Tossers, the lot of them.

You have to wonder how people that think the answer to knife crime is a GPS tracker in every handle manage to get through the day, let alone elected ...

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/knife-gps-tracker-tory-mp-scott-mann-national-database-knife-crime-statistics-a8822506.html

Every knife sold in the UK should have a GPS tracking device fitted in its handle, according to a Conservative MP.

(contd)

I think it has very little to do with IQ and test passing.

It all boils down to simple maths of common decency and the ability to actually, truly give a f*ck ...

Chris Grayling is our MP - his letters to his constituents about what he has done for the locals - his incompetence and arrogance is something to behold..

An incredible thread! Good old MN. First, it is the leave voters who are too stupid, then it is clever politicians who are stupid, then it's they are not clever they "bought" their education. Yes, it is an almighty mess. Interesting that no one ever mentions the big monies that lobby politicians all the time. Big influencers on both leavers and remainers. Do not underestimate the power of big business. Voters are at the bottom of the pile.

iggly start by standing in your local town/parish council election, then go onto council elections and either join a party or be an independent. start at the local level and give your input. Our PC hasn't had elections for years because despite not being small and having several hundred voters no one steps up. I have done it for 5 years before and it was really interesting and rewarding. I didn't want to go any further but it has led to serving my community in other ways. and yes, actually, you can just stand providing you fill in the forms and get the nominations from people on the electoral roll. you don't have to belong to a big party.

its only difficult to get elected because people have been too used to the binary choice of tory or labour. more people standing and standing for different stuff would be brilliant for politics.

I think they're very bright - they've been perpetuating a social and economic system that benefits themselves, and people like themselves, for generations.

Dominic Raab went to a state school and then to Oxford. How did he ‘buy’ his education?

Those who most want to be elected are those who should be the last to be elected.

In my work I deal with lots of local politicians.
The ones who plan to make it to Westminster stand out a mile.
They are generally arrogant psychopaths
Brilliant at talking any old talk
shit at getting things done
expert at passing the buck
rubbish at picking up the pieces
this applies to all parties

Public Schools create people with supreme self belief but few practical skills.
They genuinely think they are brighter than the hoi polloi
rather than just having richer parents
(this applies to the left and the right by the way)

We should try sortition ....

Grayling also went to a state grammar school.

Abra
Dominic Raab went to a state school and then to Oxford. How did he ‘buy’ his education?
Dominic Raab did not realise that Britain was an actual island until recently

So perhaps we should get rid of state grammar schools 😆

the HoC is at its highest ever level of state educated pupils - I'm afraid this quite probably is why we are screwed. I'd rather have privileged elite leading us thanks.

Ah yes, like David Cameron. And his mate George Osborne.

May is making a pig's ear of picking up the pieces, but these are the arrogant dimbos who broke the country in the first place. First through austerity, then through being too dim to prepare properly for a referendum.

See also those brave heroes Boris Johnson and Michael Gove.

But how did Raab buy his education!?

I don’t agree with him on pretty well anything, but all these claims of buying education seem a bit wild.

I'd rather have privileged elite leading us thanks.

I want intelligent people who base their policy making on sound evidence provided by subject matter experts leading me. I don't care what their parents did or where they went to school.

I do know I'll never suffer from imposter syndrome again having seen Chris Grayling at work. though.

Jess Phillips on her discovery, since entering Parliament, of the existence of high earners with "literally no discernible skills."

(Worth scrolling down to the video.)

www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/feb/03/jess-phillips-i-thought-i-was-quite-posh-ive-realised-im-basically-a-scullery-maid

I do know I'll never suffer from imposter syndrome again having seen Chris Grayling at work. though.

Oh so true.

Before you accuse them of not being smart ask yourself this

Who will benefit the most from this version of brexit?

Also ask

Who will benefit the most if we remain?

I think it’s just that what’s in their best interests isn’t the same as what’s in everybody else’s best interest.

MPs are really skilled and bright at making life very cushie for themselves. They simply don't care about the country, but they do like to win an argument. You just have to cross your fingers that the one you agree with wins.

I think we need a totally new system that actually invites people who know what they are talking about to run things.

We should have a much smaller cohort of mouth pieces, ie MPs, a PM committee and a large set of experts and advisors that are recruited from the population, like jurors are, but paid properly and seconded for a year.

Boneyback
Many of the politicians I deal with are Brexiters - a particular group are the Chris Chope fan club.
Others are remainers.
Others seem to have no view.
Some are UKIP, some are Tory, some are Libdem, some are Labour, some have no party affiliation.
BUT
Every single one of the ones aiming for Westminster is a self centred twat.

Very few people get to the top of a business or a professional firm and then go into politics. I suspect that the ones who move into politics are often the ones who would have never made it to the top elsewhere.

^ This. I was at university with some of the current crop of MPs and the students I knew who went into politics were, almost without exception, the ones everyone laughed at for being thick. It used to be the norm for all but the very thickest appalicants from the top public and private schools to get into Oxford or Cambridge and the mediocre students from the 'right sort' of state school (selective grammar) could get in pretty easily in lots of colleges if they were good at (the right kind of) sport. With an Oxbridge degree, you could then walk into a city job of some kind without much effort and if you were properly connected - as ex-public schoolboys tend to be - you could get a good job in the city even with a shit (Oxbridge) degree.

It's something I've been bending people's ears about for the last few years, once the utter uselessness of most of the government became obvious. All the clever people I knew at Oxford went off to make serious money in the city, or went into law, or became academics or journalists if they weren't motivated by money. None of them ever seriously talked about going into politics. I wonder if it was because after the end of the Cold War and the shift away from the very polarised politics of the 70s and 80s, the fairly bland, managerial politics of the UK just didn't seem very interesting. So the ones who went into politics were the others.

Oh and Jacob Rees Mogg ( avid Brexiteer) he's set up his Hedge Fund business in Dublin now!
Hahaha

In the Brexit negotiations they needed politicians like the ones who negotiated the Good Friday agreement, like mo molam and Bertie ahern. Psople who can negotiate a compromise from groups who hate each other with vehement passion. People who are Wiley and diplomatic. Not jumping in with their arrogant size nines. That's not something you can teach at Oxbridge.

TalkinPaece

My point is that no matter which way this went, the "educated elite" as the OP put it will come out on top.