… apart from one.

I think it’s excellent – I could never see that happening here. Good luck to them.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-50709422

Ok Boomers

It’s brilliant.

isn’t the ratio of females to males unusually high in Finland or is that just Helsinki? either way, it’s a good way forward.

Well we are being run by (predominately) a bunch of middle aged men and look at the state we are in, so good on them.

That’s explain why Finland felt like such a nice, civilised place when I visited it.

The Finnish cabinet was 58% female with a median age of 45. Only four are below 40. The OP appears to have been misled by the BBC’s reporting, quite possibly deliberately.

I’d happily take their coalition of 30’ish women over the options we get to choose from on December 12th.

I’d happily let my daughter run the country over the shower that we have to choose from on 12th.

OP appears to have been misled by the BBC’s reporting

Er, not misled at all.
Coalition of 5 parties all being led by women, 4 of whom are <35 years old.

Awesome balance of optimism, experience and X chromosomes. I’m envious – good luck to them!

Objector states

The Finnish cabinet was 58% female with a median age of 45. Only four are below 40.

According to ITV Boris’ first cabinet was 24% female with an average age (unsure median/mean) of 48.

The article states that four of five party leaders in Finland’s five-party coaltion are female under 35 so I’m with the OP on both sentiment and fact. Objector’s cabinet numbers are less meaningful IMO.

The Swedish Peoples Party of Finland ? How does that work then?

The Swedish Peoples Party of Finland ? How does that work then?

Well as a wild stab in the dark, I guess there are some Swedes who have settled in Finland and decided to form a party to voice their own political concerns.  And if that’s right, there may be enough of them to elect those politicians into government.

Unlike the Party for Swedish People in Finland.  Splitters.

ETA – Actually, Wiki says it’s for Swedish speaking Finns who want to keep the Swedish language used in Finland.

There’s a small population of Finns that speak Swedish.

There’s a small population of Finns that speak Swedish.

Shplittersh

Err – Finland used to be part of Sweden! In Helsinki the road signs are in Swedish and Finnish, since both languages are used in Finland. A sizeable proportion use Swedish as their first language.

There’s a small population of Finns that speak Swedish

Including Moomintroll author Tove Jansson.

Err – Finland used to be part of Sweden! In Helsinki the road signs are in Swedish and Finnish, since both languages are used in Finland. A sizeable proportion use Swedish as their first language.

That makes sense, I didn’t know that either. Thanks.

*Edit – So its like the opposite of the Brexit party. If we left the EU we would have a British Peoples party of the EU.

She will lead a centre-left coalition with four other parties, all headed by women, three of whom are under 35.

Awesome.

The UK will never ever be like that, it’s full of sad miserable fops who only seek to line their own back pockets.

The British people in general like to be trod on and manipulated rather than work together for the greater good. Its generic, it’s in the genes.

They are the Finlandssvensk. I spent a large part of the weekend drinking a lot of coffee with one. Nice chap, a bit mad.

Actually, it reminds me that I know a couple of other women that are Finlandssvensk as well. Lovely people, but a bit mad.

“cabinet numbers are less meaningful IMO”

Only if you believe Nick Clegg ran the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2015 and George Osborne didn’t.

Finnish coalition share is a bit different to UK 2010.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Finnish_parliamentary_election#Results
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_Kingdom_general_election#Results

I would kill for a centre left coalition led by younger people, in the uk. The current adversarial 5 year election cycle is dragging us into the abyss.

Weren’t far off that up here, Sturgeon, Dugdale and Davidson would all have been 30/40.

I’d happily let my daughter run the country over the shower that we have to choose from on 12th.

Me too and my daughters only 10…

Finland being run a bunch of 30’ish women

The impact will be felt one or two generations down the road good or bad.

My view is:

Young leaders – make the same mistakes again due to lack of experience so steep learning curve. i.e. don’t learn or disregard history.

Old leaders – make the same mistakes again either because they don’t want to learn or cannot learn, hence stick to the same problems.

We (and I’d imagine the Finnish) have an excellent civil service who gets shit done. Our politicians are there to generate policy and direction for the shit shovelling.

I’m still of the belief that our politicians should have been something beforehand. Imagine a cabinet where the education secretary had been a teacher, the health secretary a doctor, a defence secretary in the military, the children’s secretary in social services and the business secretary actually in business. Imagine a debate in the house where, for example, ex medical professionals of different political persuasions and different opinions about the future direction of the service debated the topic from the perspective of actual real world experience and understanding.

A quick look at Sanna Marin’s wiki page shows that much like the vast majority of older men and women in politics she has precisely zero experience of anything beyond local and national government and clawing her way to the top of her political party. To that end there is no reason she will be any better or any worse that the rest of the closeted buffoons.

It is not that I want to be in a nation led by old men and women; it’s just that I want to be led by people with life experience beyond political greasy pole climbing. If getting that experience makes them old(er) then so be it.

I really can’t see a good news story in another politician with no life experience getting to lead their country regardless of their gender or their time on the planet getting to that point. Just another fud.

That’s not young…

🙂

Convert is spot on.

Convert for Prime Minister!

Insert token misogynist comment here….
Soon to be known as Fatland once they hit 40

I’m still of the belief that our politicians should have been something beforehand.

Some of our finest older generation politicians came from the diplomatic service. They knew where other countries were.

There’s a tendency amongst left leaning Brits (myself included) to see Finland as a political utopia. It has a much better education system than the UK, and, when I’ve visited, everything seems to work well.

However, a Finnish friend of mine recently moved back there with her family, after living in the UK for 20 years, and she was able to give a less rose-tinted view of the country. Taxes are very high and so is the cost of housing, and almost everything else. The net result was that she and her husband had to work longer and harder for less money and the overall quality of life was actually lower than they enjoyed in the UK.

They ended up coming back to the UK after a year and are now much happier.

The grass isn’t always as green on the other side as you might imagine.

JP

Weren’t far off that up here, Sturgeon, Dugdale and Davidson would all have been 30/40.

Was wondering if anyone was going to point that out.

+1 for real world experience.

There’s a tendency amongst left leaning Brits (myself included) to see Finland as a political utopia.

Not with me it ain’t!The Finns party are the 2nd biggest party in Finland,populist,right wing anti immigration, anti same sex etc and make Farage’s lot seem like Clare in the community.Walk round Helsinki if you’re non white and be prepared to be spat at.

There’s a tendency amongst left leaning Brits (myself included) to see Finland as a political utopia. It has a much better education system than the UK, and, when I’ve visited, everything seems to work well.

However, a Finnish friend of mine recently moved back there with her family, after living in the UK for 20 years, and she was able to give a less rose-tinted view of the country. Taxes are very high and so is the cost of housing, and almost everything else. The net result was that she and her husband had to work longer and harder for less money and the overall quality of life was actually lower than they enjoyed in the UK.

They ended up coming back to the UK after a year and are now much happier.

The grass isn’t always as green on the other side as you might imagine.

JP

Thems be fighting words round here.

Prepare to get repeatedly screamed at about “social democracy in the European tradition” by people who don’t know anything about the political reality in those countries they are talking about.

Walk round Helsinki if you’re non white and be prepared to be spat at.

😲 is that serious? Don’t they know they are in EU?

I have a Finnish colleague who is so dull you think you are watching a typical stereotype movie character of Finns. She never smile at all or say hello to anyone at all. I said hello to her several times and with a smile but no response so I stopped greeting her. I know Finns are very serious at work with no small talk etc but she is in UK Not Finland. If she is a looker then fine but she is absolutely Not and trust me she is Not … 🤣

However, the best memory of Finns for me are my old Finnish housemates … crazy Finns as we called them. Nice people but we find their seriousness very funny 😄

Chewk – it sounds like your finish colleague is perhaps just an astute judge of character.

education secretary had been a teacher, the health secretary a doctor, a defence secretary in the military, the children’s secretary in social services and the business secretary actually in business

I think this is a common misconception about how best to pick people for roles: ah, you spent 5 years at medical school, you’ve met and patched up thousands of patients, presumably are very compassionate and clinically competent – you are the ideal person to run the largest organisation in the country with a budget of billions; despite the fact you have only ever worked in two or three tiny parts of that machine, and likely never had any real exposure to different ways of thinking (the – that’s not the way the NHS works problem).

Now that’s worked so well let’s pick the person who taught maths to fourteen year olds ten years ago to decide how we should manage education. They worked in both a comprehensive and a grammar school and so have definitely got an understanding of all the issues in all the schools for all of today’s children, after all they made it to principal teacher before quitting teaching in despair at the paperwork, and because their union career was leading them nicely towards politics.

Etc etc.

There are of course people who would be brilliant health ministers who have exposure to the health service (a nurse might be better than a doctor though) and ex teachers who would be good education secretaries. But that is much more because they are intelligent, understanding, empathetic, sensible, reasoned people with the right understanding of how to bring about change and improvement rather than because they used to do one of the jobs that department does.

There are of course people who would be brilliant health ministers who have exposure to the health service (a nurse might be better than a doctor though) and ex teachers who would be good education secretaries. But that is much more because they are intelligent, understanding, empathetic, sensible, reasoned people with the right understanding of how to bring about change and improvement rather than because they used to do one of the jobs that department does.

I think you are under the misconception that I would imagine that everyone who has worked in one of these fields is by default better than anyone else at leading it politically. That would of course be wrong. But, there are people with all the skills you have mentioned and a lot more than a few years out in come comp who have all those attributes you mention PLUS a real empathy for how it works gained from within. If you were to draw a venn diagram of the two constituency there will not be that big crossover but the point is we are not looking for huge swaths of these people.

Besides the current model is not exactly bringing the cream to the top is it. I’ve had the misfortune to know two (conservative) MPs reasonably well personally. Singularly uninspiring tepid and out of touch clowns.

Besides the current model is not exactly bringing the cream to the top is it.

If that’s your criterion, more or less any system would be an improvement – picking at random from prisons and lunatic asylums would be a starter.