By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982
The Tory leader in Hammersmith and Fulham, Stephen Greenhalgh, has been reported tonight as saying:
"My mates are all in the Shadow Cabinet, waiting to get those boxes, being terribly excited. I went to university with them, they they haven't run a pissup in a brewery. They're going to get a department of state, in one case running the finances of the nation".
Greenhglagh is head of the Conservative Councils Innovation Unit, which he was appointed to by David Cameron and Eric Pickles. He was also voted ConservativeHome Local Hero of the Year 2008 by readers of that site.
The picture Greenhalgh paints of his colleagues is one of a nepotistic, arrogant and frankly incapable group, not ready to lead this country at a time of recession - in spite of their obvious complacency.
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are only in their position because their party has gifted them with a 'safe' seat.
That, I think, is a difficult one to solve. I would prefer that it is made mandatory that candidates are local, that is, to stand for election you have to live in the constituency for, shall we say, at least five years. That would not prevent the "gifted a safe seat" but at least the benefited would have to be local. Parachuted-in candidates IMO are a cause of much of the cynicism over MPs. However, I do acknowledge that Churchill would not have got into parliament if such a rule had applied then. The list of constituencies that he tried and lost, goes to show that "parachuting-in" is not a modern thing.
Another idea would be to mandate that the choice of candidate is kept entirely local. That is, no interference at all by the central party (no A list, no strictures of all-women-lists). This would not entirely prevent "gifting a safe seat" but at least it would mean that the gift would be from a local party, not the central party machine. I am not talking about a specific party here, but all parties.
Sorry must go now- back later.
I think the Tories will win, but not by a landslide vide today's Telegraph, but New Labour doesn't help itself with the continual reminders of sleaze still in Parliament and Lord Sleaze himself back in favour.
Also, the pictures this week, from 2003 of Auntie Tony prancing round with Uncle George revives memories of that practised liar. The film was quite nauseating - Blair is gushing and smiling at Bush as a girl would to a man. I do sometimes wonder about the nature of their "relationship".
I agree the Tories experience and fitness has not been fully questioned - we do know that Michael Gove is a dab hand at expense fiddling, poor old Ken Clarke is about the only person with any great experience and his best days are far behind him.
Whomever wins - Red Tory or Blue Tory the consequences for this country don't look good. One shower isas bad as the other.
Are the conservatives getting a very easy ride?
No one seems to be questioning the party's fitness for office, or level of experience!
1. You are the son of a current 'famous politician' or have a famous political relation (Straw, Benn, Mandelson, must be the odd current Tory on that ticket but there was the famous Churchill Tory tribe for a while)
2. Meet with the right people at Oxbridge
3. Be willing at the age of 19 to give up the will to live, be devoid of any ability to think for your self, be unthinkingly able to say what you are told to say, give your self a frontal lobotomy, have any common sense removed (replacing it with the party can never be wrong on anything nuerone) and cozzy up to as many of your party's MP's as you can while they show you how to fill in expense claims and tell everyone what a great chap / person you are....
4. No point ..... given up the will to live .....
I largely agree with what you wrote.
You are right, far too many politicians' only skill is getting elected. But I fear some lack even that skill, and are only in their position because their party has gifted them with a 'safe' seat. It is very much a case of "who you know, not what you know".
I'm sure there are plenty of experienced candidates that have attempted to enter politics, only to see someone with little or no experience/skill selected, due to their connections.
The selection system of all political parties is weighted against experience and skill, and in favour of nepotism. The same people responsible for this nepotism, are also responsible for appointment of ministers. And whilst I agree that it would be preferable to have an expert appointed to a position, I feel it's unlikely to happen. Let's face it, how many MPs would want to miss out on a Minister's salary.
The first party to appoint candidates based on skills and experience and not nepotism will reap the rewards, not only for their party, but for the country as a whole. Frankly I don't care which party gets there first.
"The problem is why would anyone with any sense want to go into fulltime politics these days?"
I agree 100%
@Richard
"But there are people who do have the skills and experience of running large organisations. Such people, however, are reluctant to stand for election (nasty business that is)."
I agree 100%
I've run large multi national programmes costing many millions and impacting thousands of employees.
You would think that sort of experience would be more of use in political life than 10 years as a research assistant for an MP.
However I, like many other business people won't go near political positions with a barge pole for a great many reasons not least the stupidity of the political process and the public as a whole.
I know some LL posters are happy with the way things are and only long for "normal" people to run for office. My views that a window cleaner, dustman, shop assistant are not skilled enough to run a large department of state are derided, yet in business the notion of not giving large responsibility to someone not intellectually or experienced enough to cope is a no brainer.
In my experience business works far better than politics does, not least because it deals with the harsh realities of life far better than politics. This is in part because it doesn't have an endless stream of ideological purists seeking nirvana for humanity.
What we need to do is to reverse the Blair presidential quango style of Government in favour of a full time parliamentary democracy. Constituents need to understand exactly what MP’s are doing for them.
You imply that all politicians are experienced when they get elected. Indeed, Estelle Morris pointed this out, saying that she didn't have the skills to run a government department. But how many MPs do have that skill?
But there are people who do have the skills and experience of running large organisations. Such people, however, are reluctant to stand for election (nasty business that is). Politicians are exceptionally good at one thing and one thing only: persuading people to vote for them, whatever skills they bring with them comes as a bonus. Imagine that you are someone with experience of running say, a hospital, or a school, or a charity, then you stand for election and get beaten by someone whose only life experience has been as a researcher for an MP? How many experts would want that crushing experience? Not many, hence why not many stand for election.
But there is an alternative. Such experts could be asked to take part in government, provide their skills to the country. This happens in the US government since the US cabinet only contains one elected person - the President (even the Vice President is not elected). Can we have such a system here? Well, in fact we do have such a system, the mechanism is to give those experts a place in the House of Lords, and since that is part of Parliament they can then become ministers.
So, the choice is yours: either accept that ministers are inexperienced (with one skill only - getting elected) and keep rigidly to the principle of only elected people should be in government; or accept that to get experts into government they have to be appointed to the position.
(For what its worth, my opinion is that the House of Lords should be 100% appointed, on fixed terms, but the appointment process should be taken away from political control. The chamber should be made up of people who are chosen on their skills in their area of expertise, not on how popular they are with the public. This way we might actually get some capable people into government.)
Lord Pearson's aims both worry me from a Tory government point of view but also fill me with hope that someone might be able to break the anti-democratic cartel at the centre of British politics.
Perhaps I should hope for 20-30 UKIP MPs (from Tory seats) and 20-30 BNP MPs (from Labour). that would make things very interesting.
When Labour came into power in 1997, almost none of the then Shadow Cabinet, including Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, had any experience of Government. And I think the Labour Party is hardly in a position to accuse other parties of nepotism.
Finally, given how monumentally Labour have screwed up the nation's finances and economy...I think I'll take my chances with the Tories!
"His aim is to cause maximum disruption at the next election. “This is the only language David Cameron understands. I don’t know how many seats we will actually win but the point is how many can we deny the other parties, principally the Tories. I hope we will cost them at least 50 seats — we may be able to force a hung Parliament, which is what I want. The political class says we must have the smack of firm government — well, that’s rubbish. I want UKIP to gum up the present political system completely so the monkeys can’t make any laws which we don’t want."
Ralph, you may well find that these two will now shred each other!
Is it closing time ?
ricki
Sorry to be picky but arnt all Primeminsters inexperianced? None have had the job before( unless re-elected) .
ricki
Mind you, the author may have a point. Look at the mess those two made.
You could have saved 6 words if you'd just said 'politicians'.
Sadly Alex, looks like if the Tories are elected this will be no different to the idiot who has ruined our economy, he didn't have any experience either. Mr Brown was a journalist until he entered parliament. Yes Torys eat babies; nothing to see he but spin hearsay and rhetoric, move on.
Unfortunately this comment applies equally to the current incumbents in government . Ironically it is to their advantage that this nepotistic arrogant bunch have not been in government for twelve years - after all what benefit has twelve years of experience in government been in the fight against recession ?
From an objective point of view what this posting illustrates more than anything else is just how unprepared and incompetent our political class are right across the spectrum . Our country desperately needs leadership, people with solutions, and the ability to realise them, and unfortunately there is no-one amongst our political classes to provide it and that is the overriding tragedy .
A little boy goes to his dad and asks, 'What is Politics?'
Dad says, 'Well son, let me try to explain it this way:
I am the head of the family, so call me The Prime Minister.
Your mother is the administrator of the money, so we call her the Government.
We are here to take care of your needs, so we will call you the People.
The nanny, we will consider her the Working Class.
And your baby brother, we will call him the Future.
Now think about that and see if it makes sense.'
So the little boy goes off to bed thinking about what Dad has said.
Later that night,! he hears his baby brother crying, so he gets up to check on him.
He finds that the baby has severely soiled his nappy.
So the little boy goes to his parent's room and finds his mother asleep.
Not wanting to wake her, he goes to the nanny's room. Finding the door locked, he peeks in the keyhole and sees his father in bed with the nanny.
He gives up and goes back to bed.
The next morning, the little boy says to his father, 'Dad, I think I understand the concept of politics now. '
The father says, 'Good, son, tell me in your own words what you think politics is all about.'
The little boy replies, 'The prime Minister is screwing the Working Class while the Government is sound asleep. The People are being ignored and the Future is in deep sh*t.'