aibu to wonder why someone who worked as PR for ITV can now run the country?

[southeastastralbeing]

?? explain!

No-one, if you think about it, is ever specifically 'qualified' to be PM (there's no A' Level or Degree Course for Being Prime Minister) and few ministers are qualified in their particular fields either. Everyone relies very heavily on the people in their departments such as civil servants & special advisors to provide them with information and the implications of various options. Lobby groups also have a place in the decision-making process.

The most important qualities for a PM or president are leadership, conviction & an ability communicate. Career history is almost irrelevant.

'Leadership, conviction and an ability to communicate'. So that makes Thatcher a great PM then? And Hitler qualifies on all three counts. I'd prefer integrity and compassion combined with a brilliant mind.

SEA you are very, very much not unreasonable to wonder that.

It's a joke. So, so sad.
But - I will say - floating voter types who fawned over him on live chats and the like are the chumps, not him.

If he'd been PR for the BBC would that somehow be more acceptable? I can' tell which bit you're sneering at more.

I believe that our media is extraordinarily powerful and manipulative, and it's impossible to navigate all the inherent biases (to left AND to right) WITHOUT being experienced or naturally good at PR. I also think it's important to have worked in a job that isn't just politics prior to becoming a politician - people who shuffle straight off to being a researcher following university and work there way up have no experience of the working world outside government, and I think that is worse.

Actually, Lucky, it probably would have been more acceptable if he'd done PR for the BBC. The BBC has a responsibility to educate as well as to entertain and is answerable to licence payers and to government. ITV is a purely commercial organisation.

Hang on. It's crucial for a PM to have experience in spin and flannel? I realise the media is a monster but there are employees to deal with that.
FGS the best thing we can say about DC is 'he knows how to deal with the media'....? We're fucked.

Absolutely, Unprune. When did being PM stop being about responsibility to the electorate and start being about doing their little dance with the press?

Sadly, we are indeed fucked.

That's not the best thing we can say about DC (or not the best thing I can think of) but it is a plus point in his favour in a media driven, image obsessed country.

Thre may be employees todeal with it, but they didn't work that well for Gordon Brown.

Ed Miliband has never had a job outside politics and Alan Johnson used to be a postman before entering politics.

"When did being PM stop being about responsibility to the electorate and start being about doing their little dance with the press?"

When the press became more than capable of destroying people's careers who didn't do the little dance with them?

Someone once said

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts"

The PM is no different. He's on a grander stage and plays a grander part.

so what is the best thing you can say about DC, apart from the fact that he is good at spin? I'd really like to know. What, that Dave 'cares'?

And ROFL saying Reagan was a good prime minister because he was a former actor. Reagan was an absolute puppet. You cannot possibly compare him to Clinton and Blair, who were talented politicians, with great brains. The superficiality of your argument Claig is very worrying.

Great to hear Shakespeare, Claig, but your point is?

My point is, we are fucked. It's a black comedy and the parties take us for a ride. The parties look for PR people to head up their troupes, so that they can put on the best possible show for us. It's what is good for the party that counts, not what is good for us. They put on their rehearsed performance and we pay the fee. We shouldn't think that the act is for real and that they are talented politicians with great brains.

Having said that, Cameron is truly better than Brown.

I think most people who switched to vote Tory this time around did so an an anti immigration vote. And now it is going to come back and bite them on the arse.

I would hardly say Arnie is doing a good job in Ca- they are utterly bankrupt.

How is he better than Brown? Just saying it doesn't make it true you know.

Cameron has integrity. He does care. he feels a duty to sort out the mess that Brown left him.

Wow- you know this how exactly?
Or is he just a good actor?

Cameron has integrity! He's only been PM for 5 months and he's broken virtually every election promise he made. Like every other Tory, the only 'duty' he feels is to protect his class and hammer the rest of us into the ground.

Cameron plays his role with dignity and respect for the office. He adheres to the protocol of the role. He waits until the final curtain falls, he doesn't flounce off stage like Brown. Brown started driving to see the Queen and hand in his resignation without waiting until the actors in the wings had created a new government. He stormed off stage in a huff and then didn't turn up at the theatre of parliament for weeks after. He had retired from the stage.

Integrity has to be proven. As does caring. As yet he has proved the opposite. On the contrary Brown did prove he had integrity, and that he did care, which is not the same as saying he did not make mistakes. And when it comes to integrity, being good at spin rather proves the opposite. It is rather telling that Brown never used his children once during his time in government to boost his media image. The only time they were photographed was when he brought them out as he left No. 10. Cameron on the other hand consorts with the media and uses his family image to gain an image of integrity, rather than actually having it.

Heard a Liverpudlian on the radio yesterday when they were asking people what they thought about the cuts. He said of course the Tories were cutting services, because they don't use them. Why should they care what happens to meals on wheels or libraries when they never need them? Why should they give a damn about state schools when they don't send their children to them? That totally sums up the Tory party as far as I'm concerned. They look after their own and everyone else can go to hell. THAT"S why I think political leaders should be forced to work/live amongst the homeless and other people on the margins of society, so they actually know who these people are and step outside their own tightly knit, privileged class.

Integrity, my arse. What has Cameron ever done that shows integrity? That word is becoming totally devalued.

CaptainNancy, yes Cameron is a good actor. We can't know for sure yet, whether he really has integrity or if he is just a consummate actor like Blair. It's too early to say, but we will find out as the drama unfolds. So far, I think he is for real.

"He's only been PM for 5 months and he's broken virtually every election promise he made."

How unlike Labour, wouldn't you say?

" It is rather telling that Brown never used his children once during his time in government to boost his media image."

He talked about them endlessly, he paraded his pregnant wife around in best "see, I've done it with a lady so I'm not that odd" style and his inability to make a speech without her holding his hand is pitiful. Why can't politicians do anything without their wives alongside them?