Once upon a time ‘everyone’ agreed that only aristocrats and landowners, of the male and pale persuasion, were fit to be in Parliament. Then we had a very British set of polite revolutions. Firstly, we agreed that middle class men could do the job, and after a struggle middle class women. Then we let a few well-connected working class people in. And every so often, we didn’t get too bothered when a few BaME folk got involved – although not too many.
That’s a fairly roughshod run through of a few centuries of British political history, but we hope you get the point. While our country’s demographics and cultures have changed, our Parliament, local governments, and internal elections processes are still based on ‘one person, one post’.
But let’s be a bit heretical for a minute. Is politics a regular job? Do we believe that only folk who can commit to full-time campaigning and ‘politicking’ are our best representatives? And if yes, is it simply because its the ‘status quo’, and so easier to follow than to change? Well we think not. We think politics should embrace the modern world and explore part-time and flexible working and we are not the first to call for this. Even Tom Brake has written a post for this site advocating job-share for MPs.
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