Who should we choose

With the latest expenses scandals hitting the headlines this week with reports that yet another Labour MP is being investigated by the police, surely it is time we had a radical rethink about precisely who should represent us in Parliament. I doubt for a minute that we can find a system which will give us a less corrupt bunch than we have at the moment but surely we could find a system which might inject a bit of competence.

My first and probably biggest gripe is with the lack of real world experience that many of the current crop of political leaders have, with few notable exceptions most of the political top table on both sides is replete with fresh faced professional politicians. Politics is no longer a way of serving your country, it is a career. Schoolchildren openly talk of having a career in politics maybe more with hope than certainty but when I was a child nobody gave it a moment’s thought as a way to make a living when you were fresh from school or university. We all had aspirations to do proper jobs whether it was to go to the pit or join a bank or go to university to study and become a “professional”, we all saw our futures out there in the real world doing a proper job to which our family and friends could relate. We knew we would start pretty close to the bottom but with luck and hard work we knew that the rewards of promotion would follow until we reached the point where our accumulated wisdom and experience would count for something.

Now we are faced with a plethora of ruddy cheeked, identically suited, media trained clones, slavishly loyal to the party which in effect controls their future in their chosen vocation. With few notable exceptions, no longer do MPs represent their constituents in Parliament; instead they represent their parties in the constituency. This country is no longer run from the bottom up as it should be rather it is now run from the top down and is becoming more like an elected dictatorship with each passing administration.

When election time comes round again I would like to be able to choose from a list of candidates who have achieved something in their life. Somebody who knows the cost of milk in Tesco because they have to pay for it and not because it is an item on an expenses claim form. I want my candidates to have CV’s replete with accomplishments and experience not degrees in PPE from Oxbridge.

Accordingly I would like to suggest the following ideas for bring back some sanity.

1. No candidate for paid political office shall be allowed to stand until they have spent a qualifying period in the world of real work, be it on the factory floor or the trading rooms of a merchant bank. Paid employment as a political advisor or similar would not count. The realistic minimum would be ten years.
2. Each candidate should provide a detailed CV, similar to that required when applying for a proper job, to each household immediately each election is called. As candidates are normally selected by their parties well in advance it could easily be fact checked before it is published.
3. Nobody should be allowed to be an elected politician for more than four terms at any level.
4. No duplication of representation, I don’t want my MP sitting on the local council as well; concentrate on the one job.
5. Compulsory retirement at the next election after the sixty fifth birthday.
6. No better pension arrangements than are available to the public at large.
7. No resettlement grants when your time is up over and above what would be your redundancy entitlement if you lost a job in the real world.
8. The right of recall
9. Each politician to publish an annual return of their achievements, voting record, attendance, expenses etc.
10. Each politician to hold an annual public meeting in their constituency within 45 days following publication of the annual report.
11. Upon leaving office, no politician to be allowed to take a job which has not been publicly advertised unless there is an established connection prior to first election such as a family enterprise. There may need to be an option to independently scrutinise the recruitment process if the former MP gets the job which the employer will pay for.
12. The removal of all centrally imposed quotas and lists from the process of candidate selection, this to be an entirely local affair, no parachuting in of the favoured few with constituency parties free to choose who they want to represent them.

We need to get choice, scrutiny and accountability back to the voters who in turn deserve candidates who will put their interests ahead of party and career. WE need MPs who will put something back instead of take out.