How would a young person make the important contacts, which later will turn into personal support in their career? It is the smoozing that gets people into power, not a sharp political mind. Sadly, it has always been the case of who you know, not what you know, that is important. and it always will be.

In fact, almost none of the corrupt, scum-sucking MPs caught up in the expenses scandal are from London: the whole scandal is about non-London MPs using the second homes allowance to buy all sorts of stuff. The only London MP I have heard of using the allowance is Dawn Butler, who should be sent to jail as far as I am concerned: she lives in Stratford, a few stops ON THE SAME TUBE LINE as Westminster, and yet thinks she can claim back a house in Kilburn, also on the same line. WTF?

But yeah, I’m trying to stick up for Londoners – we are the most progressive, tolerant, multicultural and diverse part of the British population.

Gordon isn’t exactly in touch or credible with the ordinary voter, is he?

No – because he answers to Mandleson.

He grew up to be Prime Minister.

Gordon isn’t exactly in touch or credible with the ordinary voter, is he?

“The reason for this is that Labour really does believe in a political class. It thinks that having lots of full-time politicians paid lots by the state is good for them and good for the rest of us. It thinks that if they are paid by the state they will not be corrupt, and that, government being a self-evident good, it is better to have more of it.”

and “When he attacks what he calls the “gentlemen’s club”, Mr Brown is assailing the few vestiges of independence that remain. Gentlemen, after all, do not pay for their clubs with public money.”

In full at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/mps-expenses-rebuilding-politic/5370236/MPs-expenses-Now-is-the-time-to-obliterate-the-professional-political-class.html

Fortunately, we have the independently wealthy, such as Charles Moore, to step into the gap when MPs are no longer paid a salary or when councillors cease to receive expenses.

I am particularly troubled by the suggestion that the creation of a political class is a deliberate construct. Public compensation for legitimate expenses in local government has created mission creep, leading to a few occupational councillors, but we all know the reality. Councillors and JPs receive an attendance allowance that pays for somebody else to cut the garden lawn while they do their second job.

Political parties, charities, NGOs benefit from public money and that money creates jobs for researchers and lobbyists. But of the thousands of people who work for those bodies, how many see it as a route to professional politics and how many are simply working for a cause in which they believe? I strongly believe that we need parliamentary candidates who have held “real jobs”, but we also need to stand up for public compensation for public service.

Or open primaries, meaning that someone wishing to become a parliamentary candidate would be well advised to gather as much support as possible in one constituency, rather than hanging around the Westminster village hoping to attract a powerful patron.

Parliament, among many other problems, is clearly unrepresentative of wider society. As Don points out, we certainly have too many lawyers. But Sadiq Khan is one of only four Muslim MPs and David Lammy one of only five black MPs. Would we exclude them purely because of their profession?

That’s the catch: You could have a compulsory 40% of female candidates for all parties at a general election – but if you ended up with a Tory government with, say 30-40% of their MPs being female, it’d be the fact that they’re Tories that would most concern me most.

The only answer to it is mass membership. But ask yourself this: if you were a Party leader, which would you prefer – a Party with half a million members or one with fifty thousand members and half a million standing orders (of the same value as a membership)? Which one would be more likely to be criticial, even hyper-critical of your performance?

It also occurs to me that a lot of the more publicly appealing MPs from all parties, often the ones described as “gutsy”, “maverick”, “very normal”, “straight-talking” or similar are also the ones who are seen as the biggest pains in the arse by their colleagues because they can’t use those subtler skills.

The trouble is, I don’t know how you escape from the necessity for that skillset in any system of government that isn’t all-out warrior kingship. Government discourse has evolved that way for a reason. Influencing and negotiating skills have such a huge Darwinian advantage where actual weapons aren’t permitted.

And the fact that there’s a “type of person who becomes an MP” at all, added to the fact that it usually means “middle class professional living in London” is a big part of the disconnect between the public and the political classes at the moment.

Parliament, among many other problems, is clearly unrepresentative of wider society. As Don points out, we certainly have too many lawyers. But Sadiq Khan is one of only four Muslim MPs and David Lammy one of only five black MPs. Would we exclude them purely because of their profession?

So how do we make Parliament more representative? More people from non-Westminster Village or professional occupations as well as more women and people from ethnic minorities should be encouraged to come forward. But there may also be a problem with the selection process. David Miliband and Ed Balls plus all the current PPCs went through a selection process at a Constituency Labour Party. Why did they succeed? Is there perhaps too much demand from CLPs for those with Westminster Village credentials? As Nick Anstead and I argued in “The Change We Need,” open primaries – where everyone in the local community and not just Labour party members make the choice – are one potential remedy to both these problems.

To quote Have I Got News For You? a few weeks back, all they need is an estate agent to complete their twat collection.

Raayan -

“You’re putting unreasonable expectations on people here. If you go about telling people they aren’t fit to be MPs because they’re from London (maybe when you think of London you think of Islington but there are huge parts of the capital that do not fit your stereotype), where does it end? And have you tried looking for work outside the capital? As a young person myself, I can tell you, it’s bloody hard.”

I think you’re missing the point there. It’s not that MPs from London are necessarily unfit to be an MP (they may have other qualities & we certainly need some MPs who are from London in Parliament), but we would benefit from having more MPs who aren’t from London. And anyway, I’m less bothered about people’s right to be an MP, and their careers, than I am about getting MPs who actually understand most people’s lives and act accordingly.

London is very different, and it is genuinely useful experience to understand what life is like outside of London before becoming an MP. (The reverse doesn’t apply, because someone who has never been to London before becoming an MP will quickly get to know it!)

This isn’t an anti-London point (I moved from Liverpool to West London last year), it’s about having a broader range of experience.

I agree with the suggestion to step away from electoral and party politics, but reject the idea that travelling the world serves any purpose. As Don writes, potential candidates need to have held a job — a real job in the UK that demands skills other than the ability to speak or write eloquently. A hypothetical Tesco manager will be three or four levels down the hierarchy from the Tesco board, thus providing a better education in management and organisation than any Business Studies degree.

When I read the discussions that take place amongst the ‘political class’ on the subject of something like humanitarian interventions and international legality I am shocked at the basic ignorance. The overwhelming majority of the people who voted to take Britain to war in Iraq really do not seem to have grasped why this was illegal and what its consequences might be. That is my specialist subject. I am sure that there are plenty of other people here who feel similarly on other issues.

My guess on the reason why the current scandal has caused such an outrage is that lots of people are thinking ‘who are these clowns? they can’t manage the economy, or run the country and yet they are fiddling their expenses, what are they good for?’

And that is the problem with the professional politicians. They have never had a proper job because it has taken them all their lives to get where they are and so their real world knowledge and experience is very limited. Yes an MP earns more than a postman, but you could make the same amount of money as a lawyer, doctor, head teacher, television producer, director of a medium-sized charity, senior civil servant, etc. and those are alternative career options for the type of person that becomes an MP.

I don’t have any strong views about whether MPs should be paid more or less. I agree with representative democracy and that means that someone has to do the representing. It is probably more important to ensure that the people who do the actual governing (ie the civil servants) are competent and allowed to get on with their jobs without too mush interference. Simon Jenkins was good on this today

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/21/gurkhas-government-lumley-gordon-brown

Most MPs currently sitting in the House of Commons have had careers before entering parliament. Yes, those careers might be narrow in scope: lawyer, banker, businessmen. So what kind of careers do we want our MPs to have had before getting into politics? Are we going to be so prescriptive as to tell young people what to do with their lives?

We should be encouraging young people to get involved in politics. Why can’t a 30 year old represent a constituency of all ages and backgrounds? Where is the cut-off point? Should we introduce some kind of age limit?

You’re putting unreasonable expectations on people here. If you go about telling people they aren’t fit to be MPs because they’re from London (maybe when you think of London you think of Islington but there are huge parts of the capital that do not fit your stereotype), where does it end? And have you tried looking for work outside the capital? As a young person myself, I can tell you, it’s bloody hard.