Comments on: Justice, ethos, and parliamentary expenses

By: Katherine

Katherine — Thu, 14 May 2009 10:27:21 +0000

So they are diverse, but not in the specific way you referred to in your first comment. You do rather seem to be moving the goalposts Henri. Tell me again what actual evidence you have for your assertion?

Teachers all go through the PGCE training year in the UK. They are thus trained in the same way. This does not make them more empathetic than some random group that you haven’t specified. I suppose they are probably more empathetic as a group than sociopaths, but then most people are.

By: Henri Vieuxtemps

Henri Vieuxtemps — Wed, 13 May 2009 15:40:29 +0000

A group of people can be diverse in the usual sense (race, gender, social class), but nevertheless have a common personal trait or traits – be ambitious, for example, or emotional, or ruthless, or empathetic, or dishonest.

I suppose the teachers as a group are probably more empathetic, no? How do they go through a similar training process, what does it mean?

By: Katherine

Katherine — Wed, 13 May 2009 10:05:57 +0000

Well, Henri, I’m afraid we going to have continue to disagree, because the politicians I have known have been a diverse group of people. I am aware that personal knowledge is necessarily anecdotal, but I don’t see you offering any evidence for your view.

Teachers all go through the same, or similar, training process, but would you claim they are not diverse? Not in the sense that soldiers are different from poets, perhaps. But not the same in the way you initially labelled all politicans.

By: JoB

JoB — Wed, 13 May 2009 06:39:46 +0000

No, they leave because they ‘just can’t stand the hipocrisy of it all anymore’ …

By: harry b

harry b — Tue, 12 May 2009 21:07:57 +0000

I thought the reason people went into politics was so that they could spend less time with their families. The reverse is always why they leave politics.

By: Righteous Bubba

Righteous Bubba — Tue, 12 May 2009 21:05:43 +0000

Engels: spot on.

Yes.

By: Dave Weeden

Dave Weeden — Tue, 12 May 2009 21:03:39 +0000

This may sound really perverse, but politicians are very public figures and are scrutinised by the media (at least the media local to their constituencies). All politicians get interviewed at some time or another – and slap me down if I’m making this up, – a standard interview question (to a tyro MP anyway) is, “Why did you enter politics?” Now I’ve cleared my throat as it were, can anyone think of a politician who said, “For the money”? Does this mean a) politicians lie or b) people go into politics for reasons other than material advancement? Discuss. (OK you already have. Carry on.)

Engels: spot on.

By: engels

engels — Tue, 12 May 2009 19:39:07 +0000

DWP: We’re targeting benefit thieves with a full range of penalties

Benefit thieves – we’re closing in. And when we catch you, you face:

having to pay all the money back and sometimes more than you stole
prosecution
a criminal record
a fine
having your home and possessions taken away
and even a prison sentence.

Once we have completed all our investigations you will be asked to attend a taped interview under caution. And the stigma of benefit fraud is not something you can keep to yourself. There’s no hiding the shame from your family, your friends or your neighbours.

By: Henri Vieuxtemps

Henri Vieuxtemps — Tue, 12 May 2009 18:45:09 +0000

@65: I disagree that it’s prejudicial. They are not a diverse group of people, they all have something in common: they are all politicians. They’ve chosen this particular (highly unusual) career, and they have won in a series of ‘winner takes all’ competitions against other wannabe politicians. That’s a pattern, and, I believe, it’s not unreasonable to associate it with a trait of personality.

Will you agree that people who choose a military career are different from those who become professional poets?

By: Nick Barnes

Nick Barnes — Tue, 12 May 2009 17:17:39 +0000

And Davina McCall.

By: Nick Barnes

Nick Barnes — Tue, 12 May 2009 17:17:22 +0000

Certainly the MPs’ halls of residence ought to be under control of cross-party backbench committees. And there should be live public webcams in the corridors and stairwells. With sound.

By: harry b

harry b — Tue, 12 May 2009 16:25:05 +0000

dsquared—that’s a good idea.

I’m very struck, though, by how unrepresentative Labour cabinets were, even in 1945-51, of the working class. (Attlee, Cripps, and Dalton leap to mind, Bevin and, sort of, Bevan, the notable exceptions). Bevan would be at Oxbridge if he were 20 now. (Bevin probably wouldn’t, and I hope he’d have seen that as the compliment it is).

By: dsquared

dsquared — Tue, 12 May 2009 16:09:36 +0000

or less facetiously than the above – I am not a fan of this theory of the reservation wage of MPs, or of the meritocratic (in the original Michael Young sense) implicit theory of social advancement. Perhaps we could link MPs’ salaries to the actual median achieved earnings of those of their number who exited the House at the previous election? (I choose the median rather than mean to stop the number being pushed about by people who leave the House with serious substance abuse problems at one end, and those who were transparently influence-peddling at the other).

By: dsquared

dsquared — Tue, 12 May 2009 16:05:41 +0000

The Labour Party used to have a massive, seemingly inexhaustible supply of extremely talented, committed and intelligent people who nonetheless (probably correctly) did not regard themselves as definitely able to earn three times an MP’s salary, because they lacked the required university education and middle class mannerisms. They were called “the working class”. Does anyone know what happened to them?

By: harry b

harry b — Tue, 12 May 2009 16:04:15 +0000

I actually disagree about the accommodation block. Having all the out-of-London MPs living in one building is not a good idea. Unless Dennis Skinner is given complete control of the building.
And you didn’t mention the moat, which is obviously essential. I don’t know what I’d do without mine.