Why We Get the Wrong Politicians

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Politicians: We cannot live with and without them. Our much-slandered group of legislators and decision-makers are often seen as corrupt, self-serving sycophants who possess more treachery than talent. We see them as careerists instead of ardent public servants. Also, bankers and estate agents are regularly voted in the least trusted career groups in the UK. But an equally necessary ingredient of a healthy political system is citizens wanting to be politicians. It is not clear to me if anyone who reads either of these works would be filled with enthusiasm for such a choice. Their issues start once they are elected. The Parliament is located in The Palace of Westminster which is an extensive tangle of tiny offices, long corridors, conference rooms’ and a lot of restaurants as well as bars. MPs mostly complain of being lost and confused for weeks after being elected into office.

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Politicians: can’t live with them, can’t live without them. Our much-maligned class of legislators and decision-makers are frequently characterized as corrupt, self-serving sycophants who have far more guile than talent. We think of them as careerists rather than devoted public servants. Along with bankers and estate agents, they are consistently voted in the least trusted professional groups in the UK. the ridiculous cost & time investment of becoming an MP (obviously limiting the pool of those that can & will apply) Allen makes the case for electoral quotas – now policy in Ireland – and encouraging political parties to make diversity a greater priority. He is on weaker ground arguing for the random selection of representatives. A deliberative selection process of representatives is still a crucial element of democracies.

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Auditioning for a job with such a ridiculous financial drain, a job that you’re not even sure whether or not you will get it and this discourages a lot of people from standing. Worse, it makes it impossible for brilliant, poor individuals to go into government. Hardman is kinder to the MPs in her book than this review suggests. To me at least, her account is not partisan – it is about people and policies, about a system rather than about an ideology. She describes personalities which seem at odds with decisions that seem naïve, foolish or malign. Sometimes this is hard to read, from the perspective of living with the consequences of those decisions. She suggests that many MPs are frustrated by a toxic system that rewards loyalty over competence and entrenches cognitive biases. The answers offered here include taking some aspects of US government – such as appointing expert ministers rather than MPs and better separation of the executive and the legislature – making the point that a UK government with a majority in parliament can do what it wants. She suggests better oversight and scrutiny of legislation, suggesting that experts might also hold a government to account after a policy is enacted. She calls for better support for prospective MPs from outside the Westminster bubble, ‘We need to encourage people from all walks of life to realise they have a right to stand for election, so that the commons bursts at the seams with experience from across the board.’ Hardman’s book made for depressing but compelling reading and many of the characters in it are still very much at large in British politics. Understanding the role of patronage in politics and the paradoxical powerlessness of many MPs, removing the rose-tinted view of British democracy can only be a good thing. At the least all adults still have a vote, and a responsibility to use it well. But if we understand the strains on and interests of our political class, we stand a chance of working with them for the good of all.

Why We Get the Wrong Politicians by Isabel Hardman (Book Why We Get the Wrong Politicians by Isabel Hardman (Book

Good systems attract good people, and rotten systems attract rotten people. Humans may have some destructive tendencies when it comes to wielding power, but we can counteract them with the right reforms.Strap in, because we’re about to zoom through some of the British government’s most pernicious – and often neglected – features. From the MP selection process right through to their early resignations, find out why the system is broken and w British politicians deserve recognition for how they have grappled with issues such as overseas aid policy and marriage equality. Surely political choices on resources and health policies have played some role in increasing life expectancy in the UK by 12 years since 1948? For accountability to be most effective, we should exploit randomness and targeted oversight against the powerful figures who can do the most harm.

Review: Why We Get the Wrong Politicians by Isabel Hardman

Most of us are not only ignorant about the obstacles facing new and future MPs but we are also mostly unaware of what politicians truly do. The majority of us think they are involved in two things which are vote and lie. Even though they actually do both of those things, they do way more than that. I knew this, of course, before reading the book. I knew I probably made a greater difference working in a women’s refuge. I hear myself saying every day, “This is a crazy way to try to run a country”, but somehow I still believe change is possible. Why We Get the Wrong Politicians suggests some very practical improvements, especially around candidate selection, though I know they will almost certainly never happen. I fear now, though, that politicians are coming to accept a new normal of abuse and a miserable life that leads many of their best to quit, and still more to stay away. We are still getting the wrong politicians, and the ones we have are in many cases actively making things worse. Hardman is kinder to the MPs in her book than this review suggests. To me at least, her account is not partisan – it is about people and policies, about a system rather than about an ideology. Not as critical as I originally wanted it to be as I have gotten quite cynical about politics in recent years. However, this book has shown the realities of parliament the good, the bad, and the ugly. At times it inspired me to run as an MP before it equally crushed that small idea with the reality of life as an MP.When they repeated the study in Denmark, where the civil service is squeaky clean, the results were inverted. The students who reported their die rolls honestly wanted to join the civil service. One of the UK's stars in political journalism asks why we lost faith in politicians - and how we can fix our system of government Osborne might have been shortsighted, however, he’s just one part of a much bigger, toxic culture that happens in Parliament. Members of the public repeatedly tell pollsters that they’d be interested in becoming an MP (the latest poll, from YouGov in February of this year, puts the proportion at 21%). But on the basis of the sort of people who end up actually becoming MPs, I wonder whether this poll is similar to those showing that one in eight men think they’d probably win a point in a tennis match against Serena Williams, in that it doesn’t bear much relation to what would really happen. In these polls about whether they’d like to stand for parliament, people then make it very clear they’ve noticed the downsides of the job that would put them off: online abuse and the impact on their family tend to be the reasons most cite for not wanting to enter parliament. We can take certain steps to reform Britain’s political system and make sure we get good politicians.