Now this covers ALL Political Party’s…but the winner at Blackpool for Labour had went to Uni, then spent the rest of his time as a researcher for Labour till he rightly won the election at Blackpool.
It could just be me, but I’d like people to have an experience of life outside the suffocating world of politics before becoming an MP.
It’s not an age thing either, a 22 year old in the forces in Afghanistan could have had more life experience than a 40 year old could ever contemplate having.

its a sausage factory where they come out either cumberland, lincolnshire or more recently vegan. what gets me is they,ll tell us all what to do, how its good for us in the long run and all spoken by the same voice at the same pitch. they become experts on everything including knowing more than the 22 year old soldier in afghanistan with a few years service at the back of him after a couple of weeks in the job.

I suspect the leadership of Party’s like to get them in like this as they can be moulded and are more house trained and happy to obey orders, more so than the long service MP’s with a lot more life experience….and are more
likely to question or challenge the Party line.

To paraphrase a quote….

You’re not paid to think,
An obedient MP, is a safe MP.
Now shut up and vote as ordered.

Was a Degree in Politics one of the new age degrees introduced when it was encouraged to go to Uni. ?

When the U.K. Engineering and Industrial bases were lost the starting point/breeding ground for politicians was lost.

How many in a well paid secure job but not financially sound and with a family to support will give it up to be an MP, most of the current cabinet are millionaires, the MPs salary is pocket money for them.

I’ve never known a poor MP in any Party..
Blair’s contempt for engineering and desire to get everyone into Uni studying worthless degrees in media studies etc started the rot and the wholesale downgrading of the industrial base in favouring us all having nice clean screen watching jobs put the turbo into change.
Uni’s should concentrate on Science/ engineering and Medicine…..most students don’t get a job compatible with their degree anyway.

No life experiences = No knowledge IMO

There's only one Dennis Skinner.

You are dead right. It can be the same for some teachers. They spend their formative years within a protective educational bubble right up until they finish university and as soon as they do, they are right back in that kind of environment. Similar people with similar outlooks, similar views.

He had some great quotes and this is one i heard and i must say it brought a lump to my throat.

In a speech directed at then-Ukip MPs Mark Reckless and Douglas Carswell, Skinner told the Commons: “We dragged the National Health Service in 1997 to 2010 from the depths of degradation that the Tories left it in and hoisted it back to the pinnacles of achievement.

“I’ve got a United Nations heart bypass to prove it, and it was done by a Syrian cardiologist, a Malaysian surgeon, a Dutch doctor, a Nigerian registrar, and these two people here [Reckless and Carswell] talk about sending them back from whence they came.

“And if they did that in the hospitals in London, I for one would be dead in six months. That’s the facts about Ukip as well.”

100% correct Snowy, i left school at 16 and went into an apprenticeship, now they encourage kids to stay until they are 18 then progress to uni. Where are the Fitters, Joiners, Welders, Electricians etc going to come from who normally start an apprenticeship at 16 ?
The Thatcher government destroyed the engineering base in the U.K. and the companies who recruited 100s probably 1000s of apprentices ceased to exist. Blair in his wisdom thought like Thatcher we could develop the U.K. into a Financial Institution and Service Industry which resulted in Call Centres springing up. Now with AI it’s very difficult to speak to a human being, it’s difficult to imagine where all the jobs are going to be for all university graduates with their worthless degrees.

I thought the trend in modern politics was to be obsessed by whats happening in Gaza. Didn't that bloke in Leeds immediately say, "This is for the people of Gaza" when he got elected on Thursday? What the feck a local councullor in Leeds thinks he can do about Gaza beats me.

The word ‘apprentice’ has been abused and bastardised by politicians.
Any crap course of training is now referred to as an apprenticeship.
As an apprentice you got a relatively low wage but your financial reward came when you finally served your apprenticeships.
I want to know why politicians and the media look down with disdain and contempt at the tradesmen who keep the country working.
While eulogising the holding of a degree and the new trend for those with a degree looking down on those without as though they’ve created a new caste system……..yet half of them can’t fasten their shoe laces without an instruction sheet.

My trade as an Electrician has been bastardised over the years breaking it down into different levels for a couple of reasons. No company is prepared to take apprentices on and train them up in multiple skills in the Electrical trade like I was. Nowadays they employ people as semi skilled in certain aspects of the Electrical trade but at a reduced rate saving money only paying semi skilled rates of pay, it’s a cost saving exercise.

its all about the british snobery of certain jobs being seen as more worthwhile than others and even now if you have done a pointless university course so many will think more highly of you than if you say worked in a kitchen. every country needs their elite proffesional right down to someone at the bottom of the work chain. without either and all those in the middle the country is fucked. all work should be treated the same and those doing it. more might get a work ethic if that happened. had a mother in law who called me a common bus driver, but the common bus driver provided a better house for her daughter than she and her husband did with their fancy accents and work that had a good name but little money.

because they have been waiting for years for something like that to crop up to show their real feelings. not too long before a muslim workers party is created as i,m sure a lot in the labour party now know the score and have been just used for years.

It is exactly the same with Doctors in the NHS (by the way I am not one ). We now have "Physician Associates" who are allowed to do the job of doctors but have not spent five years studying medicine. They are paid less than a fully qualified Doctor. A cost saving exercise.

We now have Nurse Practitioners in hospitals created because of the shortage of Doctors or to reduce costs they dont do anything like the courses Doctors do, my daughter is a Nurse Prescriber meaning she can write prescriptions with out consulting a Doctor.

‘Physician Associates’ sounds like a Doctor’s mate who gives him a hand at times and got his training by watching 20 consecutive episodes of Casualty.
I remember going on day release on a five year course through at Middlesbrough..the hours were 9.00 till 12……1,00 till 5…and 6,00 till 9.30 that’s a total of 10.5 hours in the lectures….I doubt the average student spends that long in classes in a week.
Plus you had exams in years 2, 4 and 5. Fail any of them and it was all for nothing.
That’s pressure, no re-sits or course work, just how you performed on day..

I always liked conviction politicians who meant what they said even if I disagrees. The Baroness will always be top of my list followed by Skinner and Tony Benn. Throw in Bob Stewart too.

My favourite quote by Tony Been was about getting involved in arguments in politics…’Never get involved in a fight with a chimney sweep’.
The inference being some of the ‘dirt’rubs off onto you.

Whatever happened to the Skill Centres that were scattered around the country?
As an apprentice Plater with Foster Wheelers in the 1970s part of my apprenticeship was to attend the Skill Centre at Billingham for several months, I can honestly say that this was the most informative part of my 4 year apprenticeship as for eight hours a day we were constantly learning the many skills required to be a Plater.

its a bit like PCSO and full police constables. one costs less than the other.

I booked in to see the doctor two weeks ago however they kept on trying to palm me off onto a ‘nurse practitioner’.

“She’s more than capable of looking after you on this issue”. Them.

“ No, I want to see a proper doctor”. Me.

It went on like this for a while before they backed down, but this is the trend everyone so be prepared to fight, just at the point when you don’t feel like a fight.

PCSO’s are policing on the cheap, they have no real powers and my experience of them has been disappointing.
Why not create an entry level officer, with the powers of a police officer and is a probationary pathway to full fledged officer.
The police now are reactive not proactive, they ride about in cars and appear to have little contact with the general public.

years back the police wanted a separate part of them that dealt with traffic offences to take over from traffic wardens and other areas of traffic work. they,d have had the same powers as a normal PC regarding arrests but only dealt with taffic matters. what we ended up with was the PCSO with the power of arrest as a civvy has but with a uniform and high vis for many who could not join the normal police.

The PCSO has no power of arrest…they have less powers than a Park keeper.

I had the misfortune to be in Redcar High Street yesterday and it was interesting to see the advertising on the office of Jacob Young MP has no indication on it he is a Conservative. This seems to follow on from Ben Houchen and Andy Street who minimised their association with the Conservatives in their elections.The Labour/LD and Reform offices all advertise their parties.
So the logic here is that you get voted in on a particular party ticket and then when the brand get tarnished you dump it and try to "look" like an Independent.
IMO the politician should have the courage to leave and join another party or stand as an independent using their own name as the brand.

or have the balls or consionance to vote the way they or the electorate they represent wish and not follow the party line and follow the whips like sheep. might as well just email there vote if not rocking the boat is there only thing they want to avoid.

I find it refreshing they’re doing what the electorate want…and bugger the Party
Ben Houchen has got more stick off some on here over a prolonged period …..yet when our previous Labour MP resigned in shame over sexual allegations that were upheld, some people never raised as much as a whisper.
I judge people by their actions ….not their Party allegiance or ‘sympathy’s’.

there are good and bad politicians both at local and national level and being a floating voter its easier to see this instead of those who say vote labour and everything and everyone in the tory party being bad. all the years with blair in charge he must have don more good or bad than just bringing in the minimum wage or his involvement in iraq which is all you seem to hear about now.

One of the local MPs has been making noise about the future governments being less London centric.
If they want to woo the population they should be doing this as it has now recently being seen that votes in the north etc cannot be relied on but the two major parties just cant help but to pander to London.
Whats happened to Regional Policy and why are all those civil servants there?
Answer on a postcard to...........................

and another MP has defected..............

Only to protect his seat as he would have lost it if he stood as a conservative., got to look after number 1.

Plenty of people saying Natalie Elphicke is a right wing Tory but you're the first to out her as a man Jamie.

Quick, call The Sun - they pay good money for that sort of scoop

Doesnt look like a bloke to me.Need to do the Crocodile Dundee Test.

Why you trolling me, simple mistake, slip of the fingers on the keyboard.

It's true then - you have nothing remotely resembling a sense of humour... Oh wait, that was irony, right?

I didn’t regard your comment as a joke more of trying to take p*** out of me.

Well he’d be a complete fuckwit if he did because Labour would have been nurturing a prospective candidate in the seat for some years and they should get priority.
If Starmer let’s these ship jumpers stay in place as MP’s at the election he’s an arse….’use em and dump em’ would be my advice .

It’s called banter…I thought you’d been contracting….where at, the Royal Ballet….?
Lose the victimhood.

I think she is standing down at the election, thereby leaving the seat open for a new Labour candidate.

then why bother to do it in the first place unless she is seeking publicity to become a celebrity to follow farage into the jungle for more money. really who ever heard of her till all this came about. being the area where the dinghy,s arrive she should have been on every news channel and youtube video about that situation.

I don’t understand how MPs can defect anyway.

If you’ve got two parties, cats and dogs, and you vote dog because you are a dog and you hate cats, if that dog subsequently chooses to turn in to a cat, how can that be right?

It’s misleading and dishonest.

now both party,s are similar as if you could cross a dog with a cat. its just one looks more of a dog than the other.

You elect the candidate, not the Party.

There are certain candidates who do have a huge personal following, like Ben Houchen for example, but sorry I disagree that I believe majority of people vote party over candidate.

Houchen blaming Sunak for the Tory chaos, he got elected on the back of the Tory election victory did he not ?
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-68983071

But he still got re-elected amid the Tory’s crashing in the elections………you still picking at the scab….after all you did your best to get rid of him….looks like the electorate don’t share your obsession.

Exactly!