Elitist Britain

[JDL]

People do stand against them but you're missing the point. The current electoral system creates a situation in which party favourites can be placed in ultra-safe seats (often with little or no parliamentary experience behind them). In this way, people like Cameron and Osborne, whilst still at university, could be absolutely secure in the knowledge that they'd get into parliament one day, not on their merits but on their connections.

Of course if the people in those seats stopped to think for a minute instead of blindly voting for the person in the requisite coloured rosette it might shake up some of the complacency of our political elite.

 

[peteblue]

Of course if the people in those seats stopped to think for a minute instead of blindly voting for the person in the requisite coloured rosette it might shake up some of the complacency of our political elite.

Are you suggesting that voters should listen to what their prospective candidates actually stand for and judge them as the best representative for the area rather than the colour of their rosettes, good luck with that one...........

 

[peteblue]

Parachuted into safe seats, thus guaranteeing a successful entry into politics before it's even happened. It's no exaggeration to suggest that the school masters of Eton discuss which of their children will one day be seen in Parliament or that the udergraduates of the Bullingdon Club at Oxford mull over how old they'll be when they get a cabinet post.

Repulsive anachronisms like Michael Gove and buffoons like Boris Johnson and George Osborne know even when they're at university that one day they'll be at the helm of the country.

And we just accept it.

The kinnocks of this world are quite good at it too......perhaps a little balance.....

Edit....Missed your later posts, apologies.........

 

[Blue 1]

Are you suggesting that voters should listen to what their prospective candidates actually stand for and judge them as the best representative for the area rather than the colour of their rosettes, good luck with that one...........

You've got to do a bit of both, really. Your MP might represent your constituency superbly, but if you find their party's policies abhorrent, you're not going to vote for them, are you?

 

[Clint Planet]

This is what I struggle with a bit Clint. On one hand you clearly want a greater degree of choice and accept that the current democracy is really anything but, yet on the other you want to remove the ability for parents to exercise any degree of choice over where/how their children are educated.

As I've said before (over and over and over again!!), if you think this is about choice then you have your priorities horrendously skewed. The most important issue when it comes to private education is not parental choice but equal opps for children. It is the children who deserve a decent chance in life. The libertarian obsession with "choice" (as though it somehow equates to equality or fairness) would be luaghable if it weren't so depressing.

It comes across as though you're ok for people to have no choice so long as it's something you agree with (some kind of egalitarianism), but when the lack of choice leads to something you disagree with (elitism) then you want it squashed.

You do me a disservice. I don't want "lack of choice" to be 'squashed' - I want to rid this country of its preposterously archaic inequality and elitism. The political system isn't just awful because it fails to offer choice (though it is that too, of course) , but also because it perpetuates a situation which allows a load of old-etonians and old-harrovians to wield political power in the 21st centrury as though it is 1831 or something, and in so doing hold back many, many millions of children who, as soon as they pop from the womb are effectively penalised for their own social circumstances. And it is not their fault.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Frustration with standardized testing, low pay and benefits, and little autonomy are pushing teachers to leave the classroom. The findings are based on interviews with successful secondary teachers who quit.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11256-014-0281-x