Tagged with Careerism

The political elite in action: who represents Yorkshire in Labour’s shadow cabinet?

shadcabIf you want more reason for dealing with the political elite’s career structure in the Labour party, just look at who represents Yorkshire in Labour’s shadow cabinet. Labour has 32 MPs from Yorkshire (the Tories having gained 10 seats in 2010), just 12% of the 258 won by Labour in 2010, but it has 37% of the MPs in the Shadow Cabinet (10 out of 27). This makes Yorkshire the best represented region of Britain at Labour’s top table.

Yorkshire’s finest includes the only member of the shadow cabinet that earned a living as a manual worker, former plumber Jon Trickett. But of the 10, half went to Oxford and all but 2 to a Russell group university (the 24 which see themselves as the UK’s best). Only two were born (though three grew up) in Yorkshire and no more than two live in Yorkshire now. Seven out of ten were SpAds (or the equivalent in the European parliament), and 2 others had worked full time in politics.

It’s good to have high fliers representing Yorkshire, but how many of them, apart from Jon Trickett, could be said to have had “ordinary jobs”? The answer to that is a bit subjective. My sample of respondents suggests some would say none. Others no more than two or three. Judge for yourselves. Continue reading →

Things Labour needs to do to beat UKIP #1: destroy the political elite’s career structure

Westminster bubbleOne comment on the website of a Clacton local paper this week summarised the attitude of so many:

If it means that the lying, corrupt political elite of this country finally wake up and realise that they must start to serve the people of this country and not themselves then maybe some good will come of this.

People hate politicians of all parties because they see them as self-serving careerists not ordinary people with principles they share, trying to do their best on behalf of their constituents. Politicians are not like them above all because politicians have professionalised politics, and created jobs for people like themselves shedding ideology and principles in the process. Continue reading →

Politics as a career

RosetteThe Labour Party was formed to ensure that the voices of working people were heard in parliament, which hitherto was the preserve of a professional political class. This aspiration is still reflected in Clause 1.2 of the party’s constitution that “its purpose is to organise and maintain in Parliament and in the country a political Labour Party“.

It is interesting that diehard Blairite, Hopi Sen, instead thinks that the Labour Party should exist to provide career opportunities for a new professional class, entirely divorced from the lives of ordinary people: Continue reading →

Careerism – the cancer in the heart of Labour

Career laddersThis morning, the Times (“Hewitt ‘cashes in’ on Bupa job” – £) revealed that Patricia Hewitt, former Labour health secretary and sometime Bennite, has taken a job with Bupa — £52,000 a year to attend ten board meetings. She did much to enlarge the role of the private sector within the NHS and her experience will no doubt help Bupa, who the Times reports “has been struggling to stem a decline in its membership” to make up for that by taking over more NHS activities.

It is easy to provoke outrage from the behaviour of someone whose political career:

  1. started by writing identical letters to both Neil Kinnock and Roy Hattersley during their leadership contest, expressing “the devout hope and profound conviction” that each would lead the party and offering her services as his press secretary, and
  2. finished by being suspended from the parliamentary Labour party after being exposed by Channel 4 in a “cash for influence” sting operation.

However, that is not the most important issue. How do we prevent the selection of candidates who are so clearly lacking a moral compass? How do we select candidates of sound political conviction and morals? Continue reading →