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Brad & Butter's avatar

Questions regarding

1. Could it be that politicians are mere shells of control, and not control itself, akin to crosswalk buttons? Is it more likely that civil servants and press controls the MP? (see also https://graymirror.substack.com/p/3-descriptive-constitution-of-the?s=r and Yes Minister 101)

2. If the power center is decentralized, does that mean that we need a return to autocratic rule, or at the very least a small clique rule ala China, for UK to be more effective? America had Washington, Lincolin, and FDR.

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David Murphy's avatar

You ignore the role of the press with it's extremely intrusive and abusive behaviour. who would want to be a lowly MP or Minister given the behaviour of the press? Any private conversation can be published and taken out of context to encourage a lynch mob mentality. I manage teams of programmers and one fo the first things I do is to ensure an atmosphere where people feel they can speak and make mistakes in a safe atmosphere that won't immediately lynch them for being wrong or out of turn. Ministers are expected to have the answer immediately and accurately or the mob is stirred by the press and other politicians. In every other profession this is not the case - it is understood people have to analyse and investigate, they have to learn and mistakes will be made.

Of course politicians are their own worst enemies - they lead the lynch mobs and use the press to stir them up.

I believe MPs should have double the salary, better expenses and allowances. But there should be far fewer of them - 400 max in the HoC. No amount of salary increase will bring in a senior FTSE director for the simple reason they have to go to the bottom of the political heap and then work themselves up the greasy pole. Double ministerial salaries too.

Another problem is that increasingly the government is a dictatorship with MPs required to tow the line if they want preferment (which they all do). As a case in point I know MPs who were set to vote against the recent IR35 proposals from the government. They were gently reminded that if they wanted to progress their 'careers', then offending the PM and Chancellor was not advisable. They all changed their minds. parliament is designed to hold Ministers to account, but in the febrile partisan atmosphere that prevails and given those in the government parties are disciplined to stay onside, it cannot do this. And in that atmosphere what competent person wants to be an MP?

Increasingly politics has become professionalized over the last 5 decades and is now also very middle-class dominated (this suggests salary is not much of an issue). even as long ago as 1979 I knew a guy at UNi who was going to go into politics with a view to building contacts that would allow him to leave and make wealth outside politics. Many current politicians do this - ex Pms become very wealthy on the talk circuit.

There is a lack of ideology in the Tory party mow - it wants power because it wants power, not for any particular reason. Anyone going into politics usually wants to do some good, but without an ideological framework is it with the effort?

So, I think better salaries would be no bad thing but I don't it will make much difference.

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