UK Political Reform

[Murph7355]

There's a chunk of off-topic commentary on the Brexit thread about UK political structures. Lovely as that thread is, the last thing it needs is distraction with items that are nothing much to do with our relationship with the EU

Political reform in the UK is something I've banged on about for a while on here, as have quite a few others. So I thought I'd start a thread (which might keep the Brexit thread cleaner and leave moaning about Sunak, Truss, Johnson and Starmer to proper, unadulterated whinging about them rather than our wider malaise.

Will start by replying to a bit of one of Rog's posts in the Breixt one:

roger.mellie said:

....
You're a Cummings fan. He wants to challenge and break that system. I think many of his views are wrong but on that I can overlap a little. However, having seen how politics works under PR, I don't think removal of FPTP will sort the other political problems such as talentless people getting seats, cronyism, media biases that sometimes you wonder who's leading who etc. What PR would allow for is a broader representation of the electorate in parliament. A scary prospect for a Tory politician.

If reform is to be successful, it can't just be tweaking around the edges or changing just one element. It has to be root and branch.

I agree that ditching FPTP on its own wouldn't solve the problems we have. The current party system is an equally big problem. Currently, we do not have two main parties. We have 4-5 of them, masquerading as 2.

I'm not sure how that could be dismantled, but it needs to happen. I think the whole whip system is wrong and should be abolished, which might help. Just because someone wears a particular colour rosette, doesn't mean they have to agree with 100% of the policies of that party, nor that 100% of those policies are best for that MP's constituents - it's a ridiculous notion that every one of the electorate can be distilled down to all "red" or all "blue" as a number of big topics recently have shown (Brexit; the green agenda; Covid etc).

I also think parachuting candidates into safe seats is wrong and could be tackled - MPs should have history and connection with their constituencies IMO. Pre-selection of candidates by constituencies from a larger pool of local alternatives might be an idea (though would also add cost/inertia I guess).

MPs who have real world experience would be a good pre-requisite too. We have too many who all they have ever known is the "system".

Even "small" changes like changing the environment the MPs operate in should be considered. I think the bickering could be eased (or at least changed!) if the chamber they operate in wasn't so "us and them". Mix them all up in a purpose-built debating chamber and the whole ping pong of stupidity might ease. And while we're at it, get it out of London. Even considered moving it every 20yrs or so - get it in Jaywick for 20yrs, then the next biggest deprived area. Consider this part of the levelling up budget

Plenty of opportunity is available for a better system using the two houses of governance more effectively too IMO. Maybe one done purely on national PR, and the other retaining more constituency based representation should be considered.

I'd even go as far as being more prescriptive on the big ticket items that governments cover. The way the NHS, for example, is politicised is a massive issue. These massive chunks of spend need to be handled differently - cross party oversight, governance panels by professionals and then parties campaign simply on how much money they will allocate to the service. That money is committed to for the term (they can state upfront whether it will be index-linked or not) and the cross-party plus professionals get on with running it.

There's so much that needs to change. We've been clinging on to archaic systems that have been failing us for 30-40yrs. It needs to change - considered change, granted. But keeping going as is will do nothing but lead to the same outcomes.

Discuss

[2xChevrons]

Murph7355 said:

I agree that ditching FPTP on its own wouldn't solve the problems we have. The current party system is an equally big problem. Currently, we do not have two main parties. We have 4-5 of them, masquerading as 2.

I'm not sure how that could be dismantled, but it needs to happen.

On just this point, I think that if FPTP was replaced by some other (more proportional) system you would see the two-party system disappear pretty quickly, because it is FPTP that keeps it together - if one faction within one of the current main parties was to break off and form its own party, then under FPTP the predictable outcome is that in constituencies where Old Party, New Party and Other Party stand, that the vote between Old Party and New Party is split and Other Party wins. Even if voters in that constituency actually more closely identify with New Party, a lot of them will be in a sort of Prisoner's Gambit situation where they keep voting for Old Party because what they really don't want is to let Other Party in by splitting the vote.

Under some sort of proportional voting system, if you're presented with the choice of Socialist Party, Green Party, Left-of-Centre Party, Centre Party, Right-of-Centre Party, Libertarian Party and Nationalist Party, you can vote for the one that most closely aligns with your views, and parliamentary representation will be shared on that basis, without having to worry about 'throwing your vote away' or effectively helping some party you really don't like into power.

At the moment FPTP means there is almost no incentive for factions within the two main parties to split, and every incentive for them to stay.

[Murph7355]

That would be the hope.

I suspect old patterns might endure for a cycle or two. Though the 2019 election possibly suggests otherwise.

Question is, how do we get to a point where this is properly discussed and change proposed? I expect Labour to go quiet on it, now the Tories are imploding. The Tories won't propose it yet (maybe it'll be a vote winner when they're in opposition?).... Etc.

I voted for AV in 2011. Not because I thought it the best choice in existence, but because change is needed and that was the only one change choice given. The next time we get to choose, the options need to be broader.

[Boringvolvodriver]

Totally agree that our system is not fit for purpose for all sorts of reasons although given that it is our politicians that have the power to change it, then I am not convinced things will ever change.

FPTP suits both of the two major parties very nicely thank you and with the current system, there is little incentive for any break away parties to form from say the left of the Labour Party or the right of the Tories.

The Gang of Four tried with the SDP which didn’t really take off - maybe if they could have drawn in support from the centre of the Tory party, it might have happened.

I have long supported PR and the referendum that the Coalition had, used the wrong type of PR in my opinion.

For me, a starting point would be to have a better policy as to who can be an MP, including perhaps a better salary so that they didn’t have to take any other jobs. In any event second jobs and taking money from lobbyists should be banned.

There should also be a maximum period that a person can be an MP for and anyone who has only ever worked in the political arena should automatically be barred from being an MP!

[aeropilot]

Boringvolvodriver said:

Totally agree that our system is not fit for purpose for all sorts of reasons although given that it is our politicians that have the power to change it, then I am not convinced things will ever change.

FPTP suits both of the two major parties very nicely thank you and with the current system, there is little incentive for any break away parties to form from say the left of the Labour Party or the right of the Tories.

The Gang of Four tried with the SDP which didn’t really take off - maybe if they could have drawn in support from the centre of the Tory party, it might have happened.

I have long supported PR and the referendum that the Coalition had, used the wrong type of PR in my opinion.

For me, a starting point would be to have a better policy as to who can be an MP, including perhaps a better salary so that they didn’t have to take any other jobs. In any event second jobs and taking money from lobbyists should be banned.

There should also be a maximum period that a person can be an MP for and anyone who has only ever worked in the political arena should automatically be barred from being an MP!

Pretty much most of this.

Not sure a maximum term for being an MP is a good idea, as there are a lot of very good traditional back bench MP's from both parties that do a lot of good work, and never get into Govt, as their face doesn't fit or whatever, and it would be a shame to loose many of them on term basis.

However...... I would like to see a minimum term served as an MP for cabinet member consideration, to stop the Govt being filled with the next generation of young bright things that have done bugger all in their constituencies and are nothing more than face fits type, and in some cases have never even had a proper job and went straight from uni to political intern and then standing as a MP etc. There's been far too many utter idiots as cabinet ministers in the past 20 years.

[2xChevrons]

I'm approaching this thread in chunks (more accurately, in bouts of procrastination in between actual work on a tedious Wednesday...). It's a big and interesting subject.

Murph7355 said:

I'd even go as far as being more prescriptive on the big ticket items that governments cover. The way the NHS, for example, is politicised is a massive issue. These massive chunks of spend need to be handled differently - cross party oversight, governance panels by professionals and then parties campaign simply on how much money they will allocate to the service. That money is committed to for the term (they can state upfront whether it will be index-linked or not) and the cross-party plus professionals get on with running it.

I think there's a lot to be said for this approach, and for exactly the reasons you state. Public services and infrastructure really need much longer, and consistent planning than the five-year electoral cycle can provide. Some sort of Permanent Crown Commission overseeing them would potentially be much better.

I've talked about this before in NP&E (so apologies if you've seen it already) but it's close to the system that has evolved in France, where the civil service and the ministries have much more say over their areas of responsibility than they do in the UK and the politicians and ministries have correspondingly less. For instance, the French nuclear power industry is the result of a government-funding, technocratically-led programme to develop civilian nuclear power than began in the 1940s and was then rolled out in response to the Energy Crisis in the 1970s by Pierre Messmer. That was a political decision, but the implementation and subsequent management of that system was the responsibility of civil servants at the Department of Energy (and its successors) and various directors and managers at EDF. In France civil servants receive a specific education at degree level in an area of expertise and then climb the ladder within the relevant ministries for their entire career, after which they usually go back to the same colleges and universities that they went to in order to train the next generation. So the civil servants in the Energy Department of the Ministry of Ecology have been specifically trained in the science and business of energy generation, how the global energy sector works, how to administer it in France, the long-term aims of the French state with regard to energy and so on. Their job is to both formulate and implement policy as they judge it, within the broad framework laid down by the politicians. The politician's job is mostly to advocate for their Ministry to receive the budget required by the technocrats and to gain time and support within the politican system for laws and regulatory changes needed. Politicians can change the framework that the civil servants work within, but it either has to happen at a very high and public level (such as the re-nationalisation of EDF, which was done at the Presidential/Prime Ministerial level) or have overwhelming support within parliament.

Now, there are obvious democratic issues with this system, and France is not without its long-term systemic problems. And EDF in the 2020s is not exactly the shining example of technocratic managerial competence that it perhaps once was. But it does provide the long-term, informed and consistent policy that you need to produce effective national services and infrastructure.

To take a more PH case study, look at Renault versus British Leyland: The French government nationalised (expropriated, more accurately) Renault in the 1940s and it was then run and funded with the long-term vision of building Renault into a globally competitive car maker. The French state poured a fortune into Renault with new factories (in France and abroad), new tooling, new R&D facilities and subsidies/support that effectively amounted to 'buying' Renault a share in key markets. When rationalisation and redundancies were made the government basically paid off the workforce with generous settlement packages. Renault was grown on a 25-year plan, and it worked. Renault became one of Europe's Big Three and a global force, while being more productive and successful than BL ever was. When you tot up the various bailouts and support packages given to BL and the decades of losses and written off costs, it cost much less for the French state to turn Renault into a success than it cost the British state to turn BL into a failure. And that's because the British government always saw itself as a rescuer, not a manager. The funding was always just enough to stop the company collapsing and (a cynical person might say...) prevent job losses before the next election. But the amounts given were never enough to actually solve the root problems and the plans never looked far enough into the future or had a goal of what BL was going to look like in 10, 15 or 20 years. And so the industry staggered from crisis to crisis, always being shocked back to life but never actually cured. In France Renault benefited from 25 years of sustained political and financial support towards one goal - with a successful result.

I would say that this idea for technocrat, cross-party management of key sectors would ideally need to go hand-in-hand with another big political reform, which is a written constitution. As well as actually layind down rules and procedures for political process, such a constitution would also have to define the 'terms of reference' for the major public services and what basic form they take. For instance, whether the NHS should be a state-funded single payer centralised system, or something else, would be laid down in the constitution. That forces the hypothetical Permanent Royal Commission to focus on managing and delivering the service, not arguing about what the service is for and how it should be funded, or trying to implement or halt privatisation by stealth etc. etc. As a working example, the German constitution laid down that the railways and the postal service had to be nationalised - when they were partly privatised as required by EU rules that required a constitutional amendment. I think the principle of "if you're going to change the fundamental basis of how vital public services are organised, you need to have a lot of support and you'll be asked to explain yourself in great detail" is a fair one.

Boringvolvodriver said:

For me, a starting point would be to have a better policy as to who can be an MP, including perhaps a better salary so that they didn’t have to take any other jobs. In any event second jobs and taking money from lobbyists should be banned.

There should also be a maximum period that a person can be an MP for and anyone who has only ever worked in the political arena should automatically be barred from being an MP!

I think a better salary, and even a lifetime stipend, in exchange for zero second jobs while an MP and extremely tight rules on jobs after a political career (no 'consultancy roles' in firms with interests in areas where you just so happened to operate while in parliament...) would help.

I'm not so sold on the 'career limits' and this idea of requiring MPs to have 'real world' experience is, I think, deeply flawed. There are plenty of MPs who put in decades of public service on the back benches and are personally very popular in their constituencies - I don't see why they should be arbitrarily kicked out after two or three terms. Similarly, I don't really see any correlation between the quality of a politician and their career before politics. There are plenty of MPs who have had 'real careers' who are absolutely useless and others who have been lifetime political activists and campaigners who are excellent. And vice versa. It comes down to the qualities of the individual, their capacity for intellectual curiosity and personal empathy, and a baseline level of integrity and morals.

And what do you define as 'the political arena' or a 'proper job'? Is being a commodities trader in the City a 'real world' job? Or a lawyer? Or a long-serving trade unionist? Is someone who's never had a full-time job more or less in touch with the 'real world' (a horrible phrase...) than someone who has spent 30 years in academia? There are some nutters on NP&E who think that if you work in the public sector you shouldn't get a vote - if you've worked in the NHS all your career does that count as a proper job or is that the political arena?

I think the solution is a more effective selection/primary system for candidates. Then it's up to the electorate to decide whether the lifetime party worker with a PPE degree is better to represent them than the stay-at-home-parent, the doctor, the stock market trader or the small business founder.

[Randy Winkman]

2xChevrons said:

I think there's a lot to be said for this approach, and for exactly the reasons you state. Public services and infrastructure really need much longer, and consistent planning than the five-year electoral cycle can provide. Some sort of Permanent Crown Commission overseeing them would potentially be much better.

I've talked about this before in NP&E (so apologies if you've seen it already) but it's close to the system that has evolved in France, where the civil service and the ministries have much more say over their areas of responsibility than they do in the UK and the politicians and ministries have correspondingly less.

Hope you don't mind me snipping 2 related bits from what I think was a good post.

As a civil servant of 30 years (sorry if I'm boring anyone) I like these points. I think we need some very tough senior civil servants to start the process of overhauling the way that ministers work with the civil servants. For instance, to change their expectations on setting stupid panicky deadlines and for the whole system to work in a more professional and business-like way. I've been reminded in the office recently that on a night out with colleagues earlier in the year and after a couple of drinks I said that when I finally have my leaving-do, the main topic of my speech will be how we need to start doing things "properly". I just meant to look at the evidence and work through to sensible and compromising "real world" solutions rather than allow politicians to try and impress and make political points with things that are at least as likely to go wrong as go right. Take the recent sacking of the HMT Perm Sec for political reasons and subsequent total cock-up as an example.

You gave France as an example; I have family in Sweden and they explained that their response to Covid was much more evidence based. It was by no means perfect but it was along the lines of "This is what evidence tells us so that's what we have to do".

[2xChevrons]

Randy Winkman said:

You gave France as an example; I have family in Sweden and they explained that their response to Covid was much more evidence based. It was by no means perfect but it was along the lines of "This is what evidence tells us so that's what we have to do".

I really don't want this to descend into another Covid thread, but it's a good case of what you need to be careful of with technocratic government. 'Evidence' in itself does not provide an answer, it merely informs it. You need to give the technocrats a goal - which is what the job of politicians should be. In responding to a virus pandemic, do you want to minimise infections/deaths? Or do you want to minimise social and economic disruption? Both are entirely valid responses and there is evidence to support both approaches. It's where politicians have to provide the moral compass to the technocracy.

I think it's pretty obvious that the UK's response was (akin to the Renault/BL comparison I made before) a classic British fudge-up, where we managed to completely bks the economy, cause massive social/mental health damage and have an excess mortality rate higher than most of our peers. We didn't close the borders, we didn't mandate isolation, we weren't going to lock down, then we did lock down, then we did eat-out-to-help-out, we didn't get track-and-trace working properly, then we vaccinated, then we locked down again, then we left it up to individual businesses to work out their policy, then we began tapering off furlough and so on and so on. There was no consistency, precious little leadership and no consensus on what we were actually trying to prevent - infections? deaths? social collapse? economic ruin? Consistently prioritising any one of those four would have led to different approaches, all entirely evidence-based.

[Ntv]

2xChevrons said:

Randy Winkman said:

You gave France as an example; I have family in Sweden and they explained that their response to Covid was much more evidence based. It was by no means perfect but it was along the lines of "This is what evidence tells us so that's what we have to do".

I really don't want this to descend into another Covid thread, but it's a good case of what you need to be careful of with technocratic government. 'Evidence' in itself does not provide an answer, it merely informs it. You need to give the technocrats a goal - which is what the job of politicians should be. In responding to a virus pandemic, do you want to minimise infections/deaths? Or do you want to minimise social and economic disruption? Both are entirely valid responses and there is evidence to support both approaches. It's where politicians have to provide the moral compass to the technocracy.

I think it's pretty obvious that the UK's response was (akin to the Renault/BL comparison I made before) a classic British fudge-up, where we managed to completely bks the economy, cause massive social/mental health damage and have an excess mortality rate higher than most of our peers. We didn't close the borders, we didn't mandate isolation, we weren't going to lock down, then we did lock down, then we did eat-out-to-help-out, we didn't get track-and-trace working properly, then we vaccinated, then we locked down again, then we left it up to individual businesses to work out their policy, then we began tapering off furlough and so on and so on. There was no consistency, precious little leadership and no consensus on what we were actually trying to prevent - infections? deaths? social collapse? economic ruin? Consistently prioritising any one of those four would have led to different approaches, all entirely evidence-based.

I have a slightly different view which is that it was the stunning failure of leadership across so many disciplines that facilitated the hijacking of the COVID response by Whitty and co.

Attempting to limit the spread of the disease should have been very clearly articulated as a choice, with uncertain chances of success, and with a very large social, health and economic cost involved. Scaring the population excessively created the context for all this to happen of course.

There are still many who believe "we had no choice". How can that possibly be true about a virus that killed <1% of the elderly (and almost invariably very unwell) population, and almost no one else, over a period of 2 years?

Anyway, back OT, some element of PR, a written constitution, and paying MPs 1.5-2x what they currently earn, with zero additional earnings allowed (perhaps with very limited exceptions) seem to me sensible.

[biggbn]

What an intersting thread. I'll have a thunk and return!

[aeropilot]

I was hoping this wouldn't turn into a bloody Covid thread quite so quickly..........I'm out.

[Randy Winkman]

aeropilot said:

I was hoping this wouldn't turn into a bloody Covid thread quite so quickly..........I'm out.

As the one that brought up Covid ....... how about we forget Covid in this thread?

[Mark Benson]

Randy Winkman said:

aeropilot said:

I was hoping this wouldn't turn into a bloody Covid thread quite so quickly..........I'm out.

As the one that brought up Covid ....... how about we forget Covid in this thread?

I think that's a good idea, it'll prejudice what could be an interesting thought exercise.

My concern is that a thought exercise is all it's destined to be; where's the incentive for change among those who have the ability to enact the change?
FPTP recently favoured whichever rosette is in government at the time so why change it?
Public service reform suggests public servants will be made to do thing they don't want to do, so why are they going to enact it?
MPs make good money from second jobs/directorships/after dinner speaking so why would they want to take a little extra salary while they're MPs when they could be building up the 'business' for when they're out of parliament?

The whole system is stacked against change, regardless of what we, the people would like to happen (and the thinking on this thread so far, Covid excepted mirrors my thinking on the subject).

So how could we make it happen short of some kind of mass uprising?

[StevieBee]

Murph7355 said:

I also think parachuting candidates into safe seats is wrong and could be tackled - MPs should have history and connection with their constituencies IMO. Pre-selection of candidates by constituencies from a larger pool of local alternatives might be an idea (though would also add cost/inertia I guess).

Such a move assumes there's sufficient numbers of willing and competent people wishing to serve as an MP within each constituency which can't always be taken as given.

The geographic provenance of an individual is of less importance at this level of government. The vast majority of local issues are served by parish, borough, county and city councils and councillors.

Personally, I'd weight competency, skill, efficiency and many other things as more important than their local knowledge.

[Murph7355]

StevieBee said:

Such a move assumes there's sufficient numbers of willing and competent people wishing to serve as an MP within each constituency which can't always be taken as given.

The geographic provenance of an individual is of less importance at this level of government. The vast majority of local issues are served by parish, borough, county and city councils and councillors.

Personally, I'd weight competency, skill, efficiency and many other things as more important than their local knowledge.

In the constituencies I've lived in (5 or 6) there have always been plenty of names on the paper. So the number of people willing to have a go are not, IMO, the issue.

I don't disagree on the other competencies required, though some can only be truly gauged after election. Mistakes happen.

However I do think that it's important for the elected MP to know about his constituency. Truly know about it. What makes the constituents tick, what the issues are etc. And to have accountability for them. Also bear in mind that the council and parish structures serve different purposes. But I think a local MP would also be more able to work effectively with those structures (all other things being equal).

It shouldn't be the only determinant of course. But I do believe it should be a strong one.

Mark Benson said:

...
So how could we make it happen short of some kind of mass uprising?

I think we've had two very close "inflexion points" in the last 3-4yrs. I have a feeling, a hope, that these won't be isolated incidents.

1) The Brexit impasse. The fractures across both main parties were laid bare. I'm glad the impasse was broken as the damage it was doing to the country on many levels was orders of magnitude greater than the actual vote itself IMO (NB I am NOT making this a Brexit thread! It's the politics here that were dysfunctional!). But it was unfortunate that Boris managed so successfully to unite the electorate behind his message.

2) The recent Tory leadership debacle. A further demonstration, along different philosophical lines, that the Tory party is broken. I don't think this one is over yet. Unfortunately, Truss made such a pig's ear of things that I suspect it will have emboldened Labour not to need to promise reform in order to gain power.


If the Tories can recover some semblance of sanity in the next 2yrs, and put Labour under more pressure, one or both of them might well be inclined to take the gamble and offer up electoral reform. It would be really good if they both decided it was a vote winner.

This may not happen for the next cycle. But the fractures in these parties is not going away. The problems we have in this country (global problems to large degrees, but with UK icing on top) that are exacerbated by our outmoded system of governance are not going away either.

Another option would be for Sunak to fk up in the next 6mths. I don't see us putting up with another leadership debacle, so a GE it is. Labour wouldn't have to offer reform, but being in power will see their fractures open up too. And so their own death spiral will begin.

(Of course it's also possible that either the Tories or Labour make a real success of being in government and completely convert me to thinking that the old ways are best after all. I don't see this as likely. But it's possible. As is me winning the lottery).

[Murph7355]

2xChevrons said:

I think a better salary, and even a lifetime stipend, in exchange for zero second jobs while an MP and extremely tight rules on jobs after a political career (no 'consultancy roles' in firms with interests in areas where you just so happened to operate while in parliament...) would help. ....

Couldn't agree more with this.

2xChevrons said:

....
I'm not so sold on the 'career limits' and this idea of requiring MPs to have 'real world' experience is, I think, deeply flawed. ...

Also agree that limits on how long they can serve for are not a great idea. I think experience counts for a lot in all walks of life.

But...I do think non-politics experience is important for MPs.

Your idea of technocrats who have learnt their trade and go on to serve in that trade in government is a good one (I do not see politics as a "trade", nor being an MP). But I want MPs to have life experience. Not study politics at Uni, hang around only with people who did the same, get an internship under an MP or senior Civil Servant and then get dropped into a safe seat etc etc...

Defining it with rigid rules might not be easy, but it's possible.

2xChevrons said:

...
I would say that this idea for technocrat, cross-party management of key sectors would ideally need to go hand-in-hand with another big political reform, which is a written constitution. ...

It would certainly be needed in some areas. I'm not sure they are good idea when they try to be all encompassing. Some sort of middle ground would be ideal.

Codify those areas that should be governed this way, as you note the framework behind that, and how changes in these frameworks should be made. Maybe also do the same in areas where the need becomes apparent - prorog' being a favourite of mine

But great care is needed not to create bigger problems. Look at the FTPA. Well-intentioned legislation, but very poorly executed.

[Mark Benson]

Murph7355 said:

But...I do think non-politics experience is important for MPs.

Your idea of technocrats who have learnt their trade and go on to serve in that trade in government is a good one (I do not see politics as a "trade", nor being an MP). But I want MPs to have life experience. Not study politics at Uni, hang around only with people who did the same, get an internship under an MP or senior Civil Servant and then get dropped into a safe seat etc etc...

Defining it with rigid rules might not be easy, but it's possible.

This is one of the key reasons I think we have civil servants running the country rather than politicians.

In an ideal world we'd have ministers given portfolios for areas they'd previously worked in - but if all they've ever done from the age of 18 is 'politics' in some form or another, they rely totally on what advisers and lobbyists tell them. Those advisers and lobbyists are therefore far more powerful than they ought to be - no longer just advisers, they're directing policy any way they please because their 'boss' hasn't a clue what they're talking about and probably won't be there for long before being replaced by another 'boss' who has similar life experiences. Add in the much-publicised civil service 'groupthink' and you have a reciple for stagnation and a complete lack of imagination.

[Randy Winkman]

Mark Benson said:

Murph7355 said:

But...I do think non-politics experience is important for MPs.

Your idea of technocrats who have learnt their trade and go on to serve in that trade in government is a good one (I do not see politics as a "trade", nor being an MP). But I want MPs to have life experience. Not study politics at Uni, hang around only with people who did the same, get an internship under an MP or senior Civil Servant and then get dropped into a safe seat etc etc...

Defining it with rigid rules might not be easy, but it's possible.

This is one of the key reasons I think we have civil servants running the country rather than politicians.

In an ideal world we'd have ministers given portfolios for areas they'd previously worked in - but if all they've ever done from the age of 18 is 'politics' in some form or another, they rely totally on what advisers and lobbyists tell them. Those advisers and lobbyists are therefore far more powerful than they ought to be - no longer just advisers, they're directing policy any way they please because their 'boss' hasn't a clue what they're talking about and probably won't be there for long before being replaced by another 'boss' who has similar life experiences. Add in the much-publicised civil service 'groupthink' and you have a reciple for stagnation and a complete lack of imagination.

Not specifically aimed at you but I'm not sure why people think that career civil servants have less life-experience than
bankers, shop-workers or carpenters.

Civil servants have caring responsibilities, disabilities and health issues, charity interests, are school governors, army reserves, etc etc etc. Isn't that where "life-experience" comes from rather than from what job you do? They might not see as much as nurses and teachers but they see as much as most people.

[Mark Benson]

Randy Winkman said:

Mark Benson said:

Murph7355 said:

But...I do think non-politics experience is important for MPs.

Your idea of technocrats who have learnt their trade and go on to serve in that trade in government is a good one (I do not see politics as a "trade", nor being an MP). But I want MPs to have life experience. Not study politics at Uni, hang around only with people who did the same, get an internship under an MP or senior Civil Servant and then get dropped into a safe seat etc etc...

Defining it with rigid rules might not be easy, but it's possible.

This is one of the key reasons I think we have civil servants running the country rather than politicians.

In an ideal world we'd have ministers given portfolios for areas they'd previously worked in - but if all they've ever done from the age of 18 is 'politics' in some form or another, they rely totally on what advisers and lobbyists tell them. Those advisers and lobbyists are therefore far more powerful than they ought to be - no longer just advisers, they're directing policy any way they please because their 'boss' hasn't a clue what they're talking about and probably won't be there for long before being replaced by another 'boss' who has similar life experiences. Add in the much-publicised civil service 'groupthink' and you have a reciple for stagnation and a complete lack of imagination.

Not specifically aimed at you but I'm not sure why people think that career civil servants have less life-experience than
bankers, shop-workers or carpenters.

Civil servants have caring responsibilities, disabilities and health issues, charity interests, are school governors, army reserves, etc etc etc. Isn't that where "life-experience" comes from rather than from what job you do? They might not see as much as nurses and teachers but they see as much as most people.

But those in Whitehall (and beyond tbh) generally don't have employment experience outside the civil service 'bubble'. Working and living in the kind of environments the rest of the country has to work in - the gig economy, self-employment, farming the land, making your benefits last the week and at management level being responsible for P&L and delivering shareholder value, budgeting that doesn't mean spending up to this year's budget so it doesn't get cut next year. I could go on and on but you take my point.

No-one disputes civil servants don't have life experience, but the whole Whitehall machine is, or appears to me who occasionally has to work with it as very self-contained and full of 'lifers' which promotes groupthink and resitance to change. Add in a ministerial level who've all been to Oxbridge to study PPE or been shop stewards then spent their life from their early 20s in the party machine, you have a recipe for the malaise we find we've sunk inot politically in this country and many others.

[Dynion Araf Uchaf]

There is a good book, discussing the British political landscape called End State by James Plunkett.

The main thrust is that we as a society are on a major economic shift due to the internet and technology in general. These happen every 100 or so years and ultimately occur because technology changes quicker than policies and thus leaves the political classes out of touch. And unable to govern in the same way all on top of an inability or desire to change.

In the book he has suggested the following:

There is a disproportionate number of people voting who are over 50, and over retirement age, v the population as a whole. This leads to short term policies by incumbent governments to ensure pensions are secured, as well as the voters voting in policies that in reality they will not have to suffer from. Therefore, there should be a change in having a maximum voting age of 70, whilst at the same time lowering the voting age to 16.

I can imaging this would get a lot of people frothing at the mouth. But my answer to that is why would you allow short and long term policies be disproportionately impacted by voters who aren't going to live long enough to see the consequences.

If you are now having to manage younger voters, change will have to happen sooner, and policies would have to be more relevant to the younger, working population.

How would the COVID response, or the current economic crises look, if policies were implemented to look after the young and not the old?

Having said that PR is a better option than FPTP, and I think MP's should be given a fixed number of terms, suspended if they make the Cabinet ( which should hopefully mean that protest resignations are made with more thought that they currently are), so that time in cabinet does not count towards time as an MP. Also absolutely no hereditary peerages.