dsr-burnley
Well-known member
- Aug 15, 2014
- 2,564
The difficulty being that you are putting severe restrictions on who we are allowed to vote for. I reckon the only way to get better MPs is to vote for them, and to not vote for the duff ones. What you're suggesting tends towards a meritocracy and away from a democracy. But it must be ultimately up to the people, not the party bosses, to choose who gets in.Was just chatting about this last week. If we really want to improve the quality of how this country is run we need to get the best people to run it - not average journalists. So I’d put in rules - minimum age (you need wisdom), had to have done a proper job (not worked in politics your whole life (so no Oxbridge PPE graduate, working in think tank for 4-5years , then given safe seat), paid properly (level that runs at minimum large departments (so £100k+) and no external interests / jobs. I know so many people who would do this job but as just being (as an example) a principal chartered engineer pays £65-80K why would you want the hassle of being an MP for a little extra.
If we get people with real skills and qualifications - business people (small medium and large), engineers, economists, doctors, chemists, etc we’d be in a better position. Imagine department of transport led by a Civil Engineer, department of health by a Doctor, Department of Education by a Teacher etc etc.
I read that once all new MPs are elected there party (both Labour and Tories) takes them away for a weeks high intensity assessment to see who is future ministerial candidates - more than half are assessed as not good enough. So that means we have <150 people with potential to run the country. That’s why we see business leaders being given “Lordships” (Lords Drayson and Sugar being examples) so they can be bought in to cover for poor quality elected MPs
The big problem is that you're voting for two things with one vote. Your single vote goes (a) towards who is elected as your MP, and (b) towards which is the largest party. If you oppose the Tory government but also oppose the Labour individual in your seat, or vice versa, then you're torn; and at present, party allegiance tends to win except in the most egregious bad MPs.