On the Today programme, Margot James obviously thought it a killer blow to claim that 40 per cent of Conservative MPs had "business experience", as against only eight per cent of Labour MPs. It was. A killer blow to her own case.
It depends what you mean by either "business" or "experience". But even on the doubtless generous definitions in the mind of Ms James, her own figures leave 60 per cent of Conservative MPs who have lived their entire lives as the beneficiaries of purely inherited wealth. Whereas it leaves 92 per cent of Labour MPs whose adult lives have been spent in the professional delivery of public services.
There can be a case for bringing in figures from business. As there can be a case for bringing in people from all sorts of backgrounds. But, and again this can also be said about many other people, they often bring an awful lot of baggage with them.
For example, both Coalition parties and numerous Coalition figures are up to their eyeballs in cash from companies that stand to benefit from the breaking up and flogging off of our National Health Service, the same companies that now employ the old Blairite monsters who first proposed this piecemeal privatisation. See also under Academies, under private security contractors in place of our Police and our Armed Forces, and so on, and on, and on.
Since time immemorial, rich businessmen have been saying that they could run the country better than politicians, and especially than politicians who have come up through the things with which politics is most directly concerned. They have rarely been any good at it. And the reason for that is not hard to find: you cannot really sack the Police, or the Armed Forces, or the doctors and nurses, or the teachers, en bloc, and you certainly do not know more than them about what they do. Beyond that, although of course including it, you very definitely cannot sack the electorate. It, however, can sack you.
There can be a case for bringing in figures from business. As there can be a case for bringing in people from all sorts of backgrounds. But, and again this can also be said about many other people, they often bring an awful lot of baggage with them.
For example, both Coalition parties and numerous Coalition figures are up to their eyeballs in cash from companies that stand to benefit from the breaking up and flogging off of our National Health Service, the same companies that now employ the old Blairite monsters who first proposed this piecemeal privatisation. See also under Academies, under private security contractors in place of our Police and our Armed Forces, and so on, and on, and on.
Since time immemorial, rich businessmen have been saying that they could run the country better than politicians, and especially than politicians who have come up through the things with which politics is most directly concerned. They have rarely been any good at it. And the reason for that is not hard to find: you cannot really sack the Police, or the Armed Forces, or the doctors and nurses, or the teachers, en bloc, and you certainly do not know more than them about what they do. Beyond that, although of course including it, you very definitely cannot sack the electorate. It, however, can sack you.
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