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Name: Why We Get the Wrong Politicians
Rating: 4.4 (39 reviews)
Author: Isabel Hardman

Isabel Hardman

A quick tour of British politics

4.4 (39 Bewertungen)

24 Min.

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UK Politics

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Why We Get the Wrong Politicians
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What’s in it for me? A quick tour of British politics.

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.

And while there are indeed some politicians who could go toe-to-toe with Frank Underwood from House of Cards, there are far more who are upright, hardworking and keen to serve their country. True, their age, race, gender and wealth might be unrepresentative of the country at large, but it isn’t inherently their fault. The problem lies far deeper: in the structure and culture of Parliament itself.

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 what we can do to fix it.

In these blinks, you’ll find out

how undemocratic the process for choosing politicians is;
why parliamentary culture doesn’t reward good lawmakers; and
how the yes-man damages UK politics.

Becoming an MP candidate and running for election are both undemocratic and expensive.

For political analysts, media commentators and switched-on citizens, attention is only focused on a politician once they enter office – as if they popped into existence the morning after a successful election campaign. But to totally understand the UK’s flawed political system and why its citizens are unsatisfied and exasperated with their leaders, it’s worth examining how politicians are selected as candidates for office in the first place.

In the UK, elected politicians on the national level are called Members of Parliament (MPs), who represent a local area, called a constituency. Every political party nominates an MP candidate for each constituency, and local residents vote for their preferred candidate to represent them in the lower house of Parliament, known as the House of Commons. The party with the most MPs in the House of Commons becomes the governing party.

But the way that each party selects their MP candidates is completely undemocratic.

If a would-be Conservative – that is, a Tory – politician wants to become the Party’s MP candidate for Hemel Hempstead, for example, she must persuade a selection panel comprising the area’s local Conservative Party councilors. But these panels are woefully small, rarely numbering more than 250 people.

These people are often overlooked, but they’re responsible for choosing the names on UK ballot papers. What’s more, they’re usually unrepresentative. In 2013, the Local Government Association found that 67 percent of local councilors were male and 96 percent were ethnically white. The average age of these councilors was 60.

And even if you’re selected, the cost of running for election is prohibitively expensive.

Selected candidates must scale back their careers, dedicating their time to trudging rainy streets, knocking on doors and hosting charity events. To gain support from the community, many feel obligated to donate money to funding projects like renovating the local church or buying the school a new minibus. They rack up huge petrol bills traveling around their constituency and shell out on hotels to attend national party conferences. None of this is subsidized by their party.

One survey, conducted by the website ConservativeHome, asked 37 Tory party candidates how much running for election had set them back. The average came in at an exorbitant £34,392.

Auditioning for a job with such a ludicrous financial burden, a job that you’re not even guaranteed to get, deters many people from standing. Worse, it makes it impossible for talented, less well-off individuals to enter government.

The ones that do make it are maligned – but they’re not as bad as we think they are.

Most MPs are dedicated, well-meaning people working in a difficult job.

You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who actually likes politicians. Most of us either vehemently dislike them or regard them with cold indifference. But we should be more sympathetic – the vast majority are well-meaning and undertaking an extraordinarily hard job.

Their trouble starts as soon as they’re elected. The Palace of Westminster, where Parliament is located, is a sprawling labyrinth of tiny offices, long corridors, conference rooms and bustling restaurants and bars. MPs frequently complain of feeling lost and confused weeks after entering office.

There isn’t enough focus on legislating in an MP’s job.

Not only are most of us ignorant about the hurdles facing new and prospective MPs, we’re also mostly ignorant about what politicians actually do. Most of us think they do two things: vote and lie. And although they do both, they do far more than that.

MPs have two primary responsibilities: making, debating and scrutinizing laws; and representing the interests of their constituency. In addition, some are handed extra roles, like being made a government minister. These high-ranking officials lead government departments, such as the Department for Education.

British legislation is understudied – and it’s due to the country’s poor political structure.

Ask the next Briton you meet to walk you through how bills are created and passed into law in the UK. Chances are you’ll be greeted with a perplexed look and some polite apologies. But that’s not down to this poor Brit being politically illiterate – it’s because the UK lawmaking process is complicated, long-winded and inefficient.

In theory, it works just great. When a bill is first published by the government, it has two readings in the House of Commons. But the first reading is just a formality where a minister announces the bill – only during the second reading do MPs get the chance to debate the law. These debates are mostly centered on the bill’s principles, rather than discussing its intricacies.

Select committees are great for lawmaking but can’t prevent the damage done by out of touch politicians.

Even if the overall structure of Parliament does contribute to lax legislating, there is one mechanism inside Westminster that is definitely a force for good: select committees.

Select committees are composed of MPs from each major party, and thoughtfully arranged based on the departments of state, like the Department for Education, or topics, such as Science and Technology. Select committees have the power to order inquiries, examine a department’s spending and even question high-ranking ministers on particular policies.

Britain’s toxic political culture is partly to blame for our unsatisfying politicians.

We’ve already seen how Britain’s ineffective political structure poisons good lawmaking. But this toxicity inevitably seeps out and infects the political culture too – like a leaky septic tank poisoning the groundwater.

The UK political system doesn’t reward talented legislators, and MPs are just like other human beings – they are ambitious and want to gain as much success and recognition as possible for their skills. And for the most part, the best way of achieving this is by heading a government department as a minister.

Yes-men are the most dangerous and damaging product of Parliament’s political culture.

The eagerness of politicians to climb their party’s ladder has created the most inexcusable part of British political culture: yes-men. With self-serving dreams of entering the executive government, yes-men abandon their duty as legislators. They do this by voting through bills on which they’re completely uninformed or failing to scrutinize legislation, either sucking up to the party hierarchy or not putting in the time and dedication required.

But being strapped for time isn’t solely the fault of constituency work. So many bills are debated and voted upon on any given day in Parliament that, even for the most devoted of legislators, it’s impossible to stay expertly informed and thoughtfully vote on all of them.

We can take specific steps to reform Britain’s political system and ensure we get the right politicians.

So, Her Majesty’s Government is in a royal mess. What can be done? The politically disillusioned will argue that trying to reform Westminster is like redecorating a house with faulty plumbing – better to gut it out and start again. But that’s not entirely true. In fact, there’s plenty reforms that can bring meaningful change.

First, the UK should democratize the MP selection process.

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Worum geht es in Why We Get the Wrong Politicians?

Why We Get the Wrong Politicians (2018) isn’t merely a damning critique of British lawmakers and government officials. Sure, that’s part of it, but Isabel Hardman’s first book goes further. Expounding the mechanics of Parliament, exposing its injustices and inefficiencies and explaining what can be done to fix it, Hardman’s book is as much about Parliament’s structure and culture as the politicians inside it.

Bestes Zitat aus Why We Get the Wrong Politicians

Parliament is an unprofessional place, both in the sense that it is dysfunctional and in that there is no training or membership for MPs.

—Isabel Hardman

Wer Why We Get the Wrong Politicians lesen sollte

Britons seeking valuable information on how their government works
Politics enthusiasts who need some required reading
Politicians who require a reality check

Über den Autor

Isabel Hardman is a political journalist who graduated with a first-class degree in English Literature from the University of Exeter. In 2014, GQ listed her as one of the 100 most connected women in the UK and, in 2015, she was awarded Journalist of the Year by the Political Studies Association.

Today she is assistant editor for The Spectator and writes a weekly column for The Daily Telegraph. Why We Get the Wrong Politicians is Hardman’s first book.

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