Is the average person up to the job?

[bertgrower]

Is the average person up to the job?

IMHO many governments appear to be a shambles.

Should we recognised the intellectual , experience limitations and time commitment of the average person in the UK and end inefficient method of selection of person with political power in organisation by democratic means. Instead possible candidate for position of pollical power should be selected by soundings among decision making body.

shambles
ˈʃamb(ə)lz/Submit
noun
1.
informal
a state of total disorder.

[Ruadh495]

The quality of politicians does appear to be declining. I don't think it's the voters that are the problem though, it appears to lie with the choice of candidates they are offered.

[mercalia]

yes by defn he is - thats what we mean by an "average person"

[mjr]

Isn't this what already happens in the UK in most cases? The political parties select their candidates for their safe seats and pre-vet the ones for seats where the voters make the decisions, while it's very difficult for new or minority parties to get any candidate elected because all our voting districts are small single-member ones.

[Ben@Forest]

Are our governments really a shambles or more of a shambles than they've been in the past? Are our politicians really worse? Just because commentators like to say so because they want to sell newspapers, or get more online hits (to demonstrate that to advertisers) or simply because they want to be the loudest voice on a forum it doesn't mean it's true.

Between WW2 and 1990 our governments variously oversaw:

The decline in British industry (which had its roots from 1945 onwards but was primarily evident from the late 1960s into the 1970s)
Very poor union/management relations for much of the period.
Implementation of the Beeching Report which though controversial did recommend investment in well-used lines as well as closure of poorly-used lines. Both Labour and Conservative governments did the cost-cutting bits but not the spending bits.
The new British Library, at £511 million, it was three times over budget, started in 1982 it was finished in 1998, five years later than scheduled.
Various abandoned engineering and military projects such as the 1974 Channel Tunnel, the Advanced Passenger Train (70s/80s), cancellation of the Blue Streak missile project (1960), cancellation of the Type 82 destroyer class (1973).... and the list goes on.

[pete75]

Are our governments really a shambles or more of a shambles than they've been in the past? Are our politicians really worse? Just because commentators like to say so because they want to sell newspapers, or get more online hits (to demonstrate that to advertisers) or simply because they want to be the loudest voice on a forum it doesn't mean it's true.

Between WW2 and 1990 our governments variously oversaw:

The decline in British industry (which had its roots from 1945 onwards but was primarily evident from the late 1960s into the 1970s)
Very poor union/management relations for much of the period.
Implementation of the Beeching Report which though controversial did recommend investment in well-used lines as well as closure of poorly-used lines. Both Labour and Conservative governments did the cost-cutting bits but not the spending bits.
The new British Library, at £511 million, it was three times over budget, started in 1982 it was finished in 1998, five years later than scheduled.
Various abandoned engineering and military projects such as the 1974 Channel Tunnel, the Advanced Passenger Train (70s/80s), cancellation of the Blue Streak missile project (1960), cancellation of the Type 82 destroyer class (1973).... and the list goes on.

Plus Anthony Eden and Suez. The Blue Streak and Type 82 cancellations weren't blunders they were the correct decisions under the circumstances.

[thirdcrank]

Our electoral system which is said to produce strong government, encourages short-termism and jolts from one position to another. (I hesitated about saying "extreme.") With a working majority, a UK govt has almost dictatorial powers until they are kicked out and for a while described as "unelectable." After a while, those who replaced them are booted out. There's rarely any scope for longer term planning, which needs consensus.

[Ben@Forest]

Our electoral system which is said to produce strong government, encourages short-termism and jolts from one position to another. (I hesitated about saying "extreme.") With a working majority, a UK govt has almost dictatorial powers until they are kicked out and for a while described as "unelectable." After a while, those who replaced them are booted out. There's rarely any scope for longer term planning, which needs consensus.

True, but here I would say that is our fault. You only have to read the visceral and partisan posts on this forum (which is relatively moderate and moderated) to see that there are people who only see 'another' political party as the enemy who can never be worked with. I thought that the Lib Dems were brave and right to go into coalition with the Conservatives in 2010 but look how many of their voters deserted them in 2015.

I've mentioned before that it is not unusual in Germany, either at the federal or state level, for the CDU (Conservatives) and SPD (Labour) to be in coalition. This is currently the case - but can you imagine the diehards at either end of those political spectra in Britain being happy for their parties to be working together?

The irony is of course that in reality and across a range of committees and issues parliamentarians of all parties work together - but this part of their work is largely ignored by the media and by the spit-flecked rants of the most extreme supporters of any party.

[Tangled Metal]

The cancelation of the Apt was probably a reasonable decision since it was a such a poor travel experience. I don't know if you heard about how it made people feel sick with the motion of the train tilting. My grandparents actually rode on it during the trials. Since my grandfather was a railway man (both grandfathers actually but the other was retired before the trials) they got the invite. A nice day out with drinks and food provided all they had to do was answer a few questions at the end.

The technology was taken on by other nations such as French and Italians, and made to work, but British companies dropped it. The technology of tilting worked but by what I read the APT was not going to be developed into a good, working product. My source was the British Rail internal newspaper. My grandparents got it and read it religiously. I did from time to time. Interesting read if you like trains but I'm not a spotter.

Sorry for the digression.

[bovlomov]

I thought that the Lib Dems were brave and right to go into coalition with the Conservatives in 2010 but look how many of their voters deserted them in 2015.

Much of the criticism directed at the LibDems was to do with tuition fees, and that was a policy that the party had advertised as being a point of principle.

I agree with you about parties working together, but the foundation for any compromise needs to be honesty. Tribalism leads politicians and party supporters, rather too easily and without much consideration, to take clear positions of principle for short term political advantage. And with the slightest change in the wind the political climate changes, and the whole party apparatus shifts its principle to suit the new conditions.

We have the worst of all worlds, in that political language is divisive, partisan and dogmatic, while political action is opportunistic and unprincipled. I'm happy for politicians to compromise, but only under certain conditions:

- They should acknowledge the complexity of arguments from the outset, rather than treating all dissent as heresy (until the pressure builds to such a degree that they embrace the new orthodoxy as the single truth).

- Principles are principles and should not be compromised. That means having very few of them, with those few only arrived at after serious thought.

- Compromise should be acknowledged as such. That promise of an inquiry in return for your support, it really wasn't your victory.

- Compromise should be for the sake of the common good, not personal ambition. If you've campaigned against something all your political life, but now as Minister you are implementing the same - expect to be called a hypocrite.

[drossall]

Even things such as Question Time would be more interesting with those principles in place. It can be dull in the extreme, listening to politicians queueing up to trot out the party line. And when someone speaks, they all disagree before they've worked out what the speaker is saying!

[thirdcrank]

I suspect that in those countries where coalitions are the norm, when parties are preparing their policies and campaigning, they are a bit more aware of the likely necessity to compromise. I think it's also fair to say that our bigger parties are coalitions in all but name, the most obvious recently being the Tories with regard to Europe.

The Lib-Dems hoped to be seen as the party which softened the Tory policies, but were portrayed as the party who propped them up for reasons of opportunism. In 2015 the Tories targeted their former partners in government more ferociously than they did their traditional opponents. Part of the reason was that the typical Lib-Dem seat was more winnable for the Tories than the typical Labour seat.

[Cyril Haearn]

The APT and the Transrapid in Germany did not go into mass production but they had some spinoffs, created work for years, and the Chinese took over the latter. Had they not been tried we would never have known whether they would have worked or not

A certain Isambard Brunel had a great idea, but too late

[bertgrower]

I made my point badly. I suggesting we should do away with all elections in both the selection of goverments and other bodies, because the general population does not have the knowledge and experance to select the most able candidates.

[bovlomov]

I made my point badly. I suggesting we should do away with all elections in both the selection of goverments and other bodies, because the general population does not have the knowledge and experance to select the most able candidates.

It's true that a technocratic government, with experts informing policy for the long term general good, would make wiser decisions than our corrupt version of democracy does. But what is to prevent those technocrats from becoming megalomaniacs?

I reckon that our version of democracy could be greatly improved by some simple tweaks, mostly controls on conflicts of interest, party funding and media ownership.

But if you are right about the educational standards of the general population, it's a pretty damning verdict on our schools. What the hell have they been teaching in all those thousands of hours in the classroom?