I am reading a book about Britain in the 70s at the moment, and have come across soem stuff about Edward Heath that has made me suspect a bit what many politicans of different stripe are lacking. Namely real-world experiences and opinion-forming events happening to them.

He grew up in a moderatley upwardly mobile family setting in which his father’s business struggled through the Depression.

Heath attended a nazi rally and sat in the aisle seat when Hitler entered ‘nearly brushing my shoulder’. He listened and took in the general atmosphere and returned to Britain certain that conflict was inevitable. He went there to actually find out for himself.

He also went to the Republican (left-wing) front around Barcelona during the Sapnish Civil War to see for real what was going on and what people thought. Whilst he was there, he met Jack Jones (later a major union boss) who was actually fighting as part of the International Brigade.

During the war, Heath was an anti-aircraft gunner in an admittedly quiet sector in the north of England.

Most of our political leaders nowadays seem to be groomed from secondary school, steered through a pre-determined path and pop out at the top and ‘pre-fab’ politician. Even those who have come from business or labour backgrounds will be unlikely to have had such formative experiences as Heath and Jones.

Cameron et al just have not ‘been there’ in lots of the arenas they are now absolutley sure need ‘x’ doing to them or ‘y’ taken away.

Just a thought, but the days of soaking up experience from different extremes (with no agenda other than to find out) seem to be over. If a modern-day minister had been filmed at a nazi rally (for example), there would be absolutely no prospect of them being put forward as a candidate.

Best thing I saw written about Heath was about his yacht racing days (he was till PM whilst doing this);

“Anyone who’s prepared to take their toilet door off to get a bit more speed can’t be all bad”

Cameron et al just have not ‘been there’ in lots of the arenas they are now absolutley sure need ‘x’ doing to them or ‘y’ taken away.

No Cameron has never had any life forming experiences has he 🙄Cameron loses his son

I don’t think you’ll get many people disagreeing with you there danny.

The price you pay for politicians having that sort of intellectual curiosity, though, is that it throws up someone like HER every once in a while. Carrying a copy of Hayek’s The Constitution of Liberty around in her handbag, and brandishing it at the unbelievers. Pretty sure you won’t find Cameron or Milliband doing that, and that’s a good thing.

It used to be traditional for upper class people whose families didn’t trust them to not run the family businesses into rack and ruin to be pushed into politics by way of ‘damage limitation’. IIRC this is sent up un Jeeves and Wooster at one point.

Local examples: one of our local mp’s was a solicitor for 15 years before politics came into his life, one a GP, another was a headteacher. On the other hand, one comes from an officer-class military family but stated politics at 21, and recently he was called out by a veteran for wearing one of his relatives’ RM tie to a function. 😆

25% of MPs are drawn from business or finance backgrounds
14.5% of MPs were political organisers before they entered Parliament
13.8% used to be barristers or solicitors
4% of MPs used to be manual workers

not sure about the other 40-odd percent

I thought the former GP, MP, came across really well on R4 recently re the minimum booze price U Turn. Her arguments were unbeatable because she could back it up with her experience of dealing with families affected by Alcohol abuse.

The number are intersting, but what about the front benches? Ministers and PMs seem to be getting younger so its hardly a surprise that they haven’t had life expereince. They haven’t had time.

Wasn’t Heath in his 50s when he reached power? Blair, Cameron and Clegg were all early 40s.

We seem to prefer youthful leaders. Look at the comments Ming had to face about his age.

How old do you have to be before you can reasonably be considered experienced?

I’m in agreement with the oP..

It would seem that to get the right level of schooling to become a top level politician, people are required to live a very sheltered life and tread a narrow time honoured path.. to only have the ‘right’ sort of experience

I’m never very trusting of the privately educated then uni then white collar job and career ladder bunch anyway..

It all seems a little sterile, funnelled and lacking in imagination.. I get the impression that if you scratch beneath the (admittedly quite substantial) veneer you’ll find a vacuum, or perhaps a four year old child still looking for questions, never mind answers..

25% of MPs are drawn from business or finance backgrounds
14.5% of MPs were political organisers before they entered Parliament
13.8% used to be barristers or solicitors
4% of MPs used to be manual workers

not sure about the other 40-odd percent

Maybe the chancellor put those figures together.

Alot of the issues seem to be caused by a lack of common sence as opposed to ‘life experience’ 😐

uwe-r – Member

I thought the former GP, MP, came across really well on R4 recently re the minimum booze price U Turn. Her arguments were unbeatable because she could back it up with her experience of dealing with families affected by Alcohol abuse.

+1

Plenty of GP’s turned politicians in parliament today, but I guess that your professional background is not what gets you places in govermnent: though plenty of them have gone on to be trustees of health related charities or indeed board members of BUPA et al, I find it curious that of all the health secretaries since Bevan (I got bored looking back any further) not a single one of them had a professional medical background.

The best pre-politics health work experience I could find was that:
Andy Burnham worked for the NHS confederatiom for four months.
Patricia Hewitt was once a Press/PR officer for Age Concern.

Is the same true of defence, education, environment/rural affairs etc?

I think it’s more a lack of evidence based reasoning, an obsession with political dogma (both both sides) combined with a fear of the Daily Mail front page.

I think the main problem with career politicians is sumed up by looking at the labour party now. Under Blair the party was stuffed full of yes men who went through the same process

School > Oxbridge to study History and Politics > press office/thinktank within the westminster bubble > parachuted into safe seat

All were brought in to buy into the Blairite philosophy. And react to focus group findings. And look where its got them. Look at Ed Milliband, the unlikely and still-surprised leader of the party.

I look at him and I see a man who’s never had an original thought in his life. He’s absolutely incapable of abstract thought, and is as utterly devoid of ideas as he is of charisma. And he’s surrounded by more of the same

There is nothing pro-active going on. No policy proposals. Absolutely nothing. They’re not even flouting any ideas. They haven’t got a clue what they’d actually do if, by default, they end up getting elected

Its absolutely tragic for our democracy

I think the main problem with career politicians is sumed up by looking at the labour party now. Under Blair the party was stuffed full of yes men who went through the same process

They’re all the same. BITD, Labour would often draw MPs from trade unions and working backgrounds, the tories would draw people from professional occupations.

This was a good thing.

Binners, I think it’s more specific than that, especially on the front benches.

Eton\Oxford to study PPE (Politics, Philosophy and Economics)\Political party of choice.

Agree absolutely Ransos. The present Tory party is absolutely modelled on what Blair did. The idea of cabinet decisions, taken over discussion is ludicrous. As with Blair, everyone knows that its a close-knit cabal who are actually making the decisions. Ministers and MPs are essentially now just spokesmen and PR staff

Tom – I actually went to both primary and secondary school with Andy Burnham. And believe me, it sure the hell wasn’t Eton!! 😉

Binners you’re privy to cabinet decision making processes are you?

yes

Privy to? He’s the man pulling the strings really 😉

I do think that this is a real problem. Vince Cable is held up as being some sort of untouchable demi-god as he once had a job with Shell. As very few if any of the other senior elected politicians have had “real” jobs, this now stands out. My MP seems to only have skills in Expenses Management.

On the rise of the Nazis, I am broadly supportive of Chamberlain as I think he was a decent man trying his best who has since been tarnished by others with different agendas and heavily armed with hindsight. If I can criticise him/his government though it is that he was blind to the regime he was dealing with – he thought they were essentially decent chaps until far too late. A visit such as Heath’s would surely have rapidly dis-abused him of that notion quite rapidly.

not sure about the other 40-odd percent

Media and PR no doubt 🙂

When Ed Milliband turned up at work when he was Environment Secretary I was actually very impressed with the way he performed and the answers he gave to questions. Granted, they may not have been his ideas and the way he acted was probably trained into him, but he managed it very well.

I met a minister briefly on Tuesday. I heard one of his aides saying he couldn’t be asked any questions as he hadnt been briefed…

geetee1972 – Member

How old do you have to be before you can reasonably be considered experienced?
Just old enough to be completely out of touch with what the younger generation want 😉

Just old enough to be completely out of touch with what the younger generation want

I suspect this bloke was born out of touch…

russell soon to be ex uk boss at csg is taking to politics and i hope he does well ,30 years in a retail/trade sector job will have given him real world experience and having spoken to him quite a few times i’d say he is switched on ,i wonder how far he will get?
for me more people with different back grounds the fresh idea’s,must be better than having a load of blair/cameron clones.
our local future mp is twenty something never had a proper job and is next to useless,sadly locally he’s kind of running the show already.uk youngest town mayor and you can see he’s being groomed to be the local mp,personally 10 years in a proper job he would have much more idea.
kind of proves to me the labour could have a monkey stand and the locals would vote it in….all in all rather sad

Anybody who wants to be a politician when they leave school should be stopped from being one.

I still think we’d be better off picking the cabinet at random, like jury duty.

Living proof that too much fizzy pop will rot your brain.

Been banging on about this for ages, to get into politics you should have to be over 40, had at least three jobs, not have married your childhood sweetheart but slept around a bit, inhaled at least one illegal substance, have been made redundant at least once, been taken home by the police inebriated beyond the point of speech, have at least 3 points on your license, have lived in cheap rented accommodation and not have any affiliations to other external organisations (religion or belief system, masonic order, boy scouts, etc) – that should provide a few well rounded individuals, 😀

do we need politicians to represent us anymore? maybe we would be better at thinking about giving power to the electorate?

Mind you the attitudes of many of the electorate are they trustworthy enough to make decisions to benefit the UK?

what is of interest to the person is not always in the persons interest.

do we need politicians to represent us anymore? maybe we would be better at thinking about giving power to the electorate?

You mean like democratically elected representatives…

Is it just me or is MT actually thinking “fly my pretty fly ” in that pic.