Mandy's back! (Brit politics)

[DanaC]

I gave a careers talk at Uni last year, for the Politics Careers group. I and three other panelists sat at the front table talking to thirty or forty fresh-faced 19 year olds. Two of the panelists were political assistants to a local MEP (member of euro parliament) and much of the advice was about getting into that side of it. I was there totalk about local government and getting involved in front line politics.

Many of these kids were looking to politics for a possible career, without actually knowing what they thought politically. I asked at one point how many of them had a clear idea which party was closest to their views/interests. Fewer than ten hands went up.

Not that there's anything wrong with being a 19 year old student and not knowing where you stand politically, or not knowing enough about the parties to make informed decisions, but surely if you're interested in politics enough to consider it a career, you've got some kind of clue where you stand?

This is a problem. Not those individual kids, they're just following the interesting adverts on the student portal inviting them to consider a career in politics...no, what's a problem is the emphasis on career rather than politics. This is rife within mainstream parties. Time was, if you wanted to get anywhere in politics you kind of had to show some aptitude for and experience in some other walk of life. It most likely related strongly to government (law for instance) or commerce if you were a Tory, and law, industry or public sector (with union activity) if you were Labour.

The 'rising stars' in politics now are young, slick graduates who've come in via working for an MP straight from university. I look at politicians like David Milliband and I see little passion or conviction, no experience of life outside the bubble and roots that are merely theoretical. On the Tory's side, Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor, looks like a schoolboy and can't keep the smirk from his face.

I hated the tories in the 80s and 90s because I hated their politics and they were the enemy. The current crop are so busy trying to pretend they're not the old tories their answers are like plaited fog, all their concentration is on presentation and not frightening people away. Meanwhile my party's been led about by the nose, by focus-group obsessed young careerists and a party hierarchy that's become ever more detached from the grassroots membership.

Where are tomorrow's statesmen and stateswomen? Milliband? Osborne? I don't know quite when or how it happened, but somewhere in recent decades, the heart was ripped from mainstream British politics.



[eta] I am probably overstating the case. There were doubtless many graduates going straight into politics before. And many will come in now from other careers. There just seems to be a shift in the balance of who gets ahead within the parliamentary parties.