Should MP's have to come from professional backgrounds rather than taking useless degrees such as PP

The day we start discriminating as to who can and can not represent us in parliament will setbus down a slippery road. Besides if you don't like the candidate based soley on their background simply show you ignorance at the ballot box.
 
MPs are meant to represent those who vote for them.
They determine the laws and direction the country should take.

This is then passed to senior civil servants, they are meant to actually make it work.
The top level civil service should be the best oiled machine in the country, it should think faster than a top rate business, and evolve ideas and implement functionality effectively and efficiently.

This doesn't happen. Therefore, pretty much anyone can be eleceted and not much happens bar everyone who has a net contribution in tax terms is slightly worse off. This is the nature of our beast.

It won't sort itself until the overall system is overhauled, and it shouldn't stop with parliment.
 
Career politicians are a problem, school, college, uni, SPAD and then jettisoned in as a electoral candidate.

I think that represent Cameron, Osborne and Miliband.
 
OldCoals said:
Career politicians are a problem, school, college, uni, SPAD and then jettisoned in as a electoral candidate.

I think that represent Cameron, Osborne and Miliband.
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Osborne has for his sins had some menial jobs and also worked as a journalist and Cameron used to work for Carlton television, Milband as far as I'm aware went from Oxford right into the political fold. Ed Balls is another career politician along with David Miliband.
 
NinetyOne said:
A profession relevant to their department, yes. Rather than having to rely on civil servants expertise for the majority of the time.
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How will that work? How is that representative of the people...the expertise is already there in the Civil Service, an MP is there to represent their constituents, not be an Accountant, Scientist or Economist.

You are talking about removing representative democracy and replacing it with a Technocracy.
 
MPs are not elected to a department, they are selected for it by their party, in theory for some purpose (although it's frequently hard to see why they were).
I agree that some level of real world experience would help MPs but generally I don't think it would change a great deal, and putting restrictions on who can run aren't any way to do it
 
Castiel said:
the expertise is already there in the Civil Service
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:D

Expertise and civil service don't really belong in the same sentence.

We nee more political leaders with perky boobs and cute asses. It may not work in the long term but there's no harm in trying. ;)
 
Open primaries would be good. Then we'd be rid of safe seats and maybe a wider ranger of people would enter politics. At present the party machine stranglehold on selection is corrosive to the quality of parliament. But as to direct qualification between ministerial positions and previous experience that would thoroughly undermine representative democracy and may not actually improve matters.
 
Castiel said:
You are talking about removing representative democracy and replacing it with a Technocracy.
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We have a representative democracy do we - could have fooled me. :p

In answer though the MPs need to move the decisions that require expertise to professionals and remove such aspects from political oversight. Broadly policy should be guided by evidence not votes. MPs should decide the direction the professionals (in some cases) how that can be best achieved.
 
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