That’s the question posed by a request HarperCollins are making of Parliamentary candidates. In the name of putting together a book aimed at encouraging first time voters to vote , the book publishers are asking for year of birth.
Now, for most candidates that’s not exactly a secret and is already in plenty of places. But it does prompt the question: does it matter when an MP or candidate was born?
Is age a useful indicator of experience or how good an MP would be at representing people of different ages?
Over to you…
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10 Comments
I’d say that this probably needs stepping back to the question of ”why one might vote for $candidate”.
To a large extent I’d rather see candidates who have some real world experience, so that when they’re engaged in the rarefied world of Whitehall they have some appreciation of what it’s like to implement some of the cunning schemes that they come up with, either in the public or private sector. So whilst age itself isn’t all that important, it can act as a proxy for at least asking more questions about a candidates background. I’d then be looking for some substance around the CV to understand whether that’s real experience or not.
Of course once those questions start to be asked someone that’s spent a lot of time circulating the Westminster would have a lot less credibility to me than someone with some solid management or operational experience.
I guess where I’m going with that is that there is a lower limit where I’d have difficulty finding a candidate credible.
Of course, a lot depends on the individual but in general I would say , yes, it does matter. There is a lot to be said for somebody who has held down a career, raised (or currently raising) a family and generally lived life prior to entering political office.
If the majority of politicians were to be professionals from their twenties, would not the public be right in feeling alienated from the political classes?
In my twenties I think I would have been too inexperienced to have been an MP: no partner or kids, no regular job or income, living at home with my parents. In my thirties I was too busy trying to build a business and keep a roof over my head. In my forties I had children to look after, and I don’t think it’s fair either to one’s children or one’s partner to be away from home most weeks, or to have to put up with the hours that most MPs have to work. In my fifties my children still needed me to be around, and in my sixties I just don’t think I’ve got the energy and drive that’s necessary to do a job as demanding as being an MP. Bit of a problem then…
I think it doesn’t matter too much in the case of an individual candidate, and there are strong arguments to be made for real world experience first.
But I also think the HoC should be representative of the nation, and that in the ’05 Parliament there was only a handful of MPs under the age of 30 means that the HoC really does not, and cannot, relate to those younger than me who have grown up with mobile phone and the web as being ‘normal’ technologies, and music downloading as being natural.
We need a more representative parliament, and that means having multi-member seats with a broader selection of MPs, including more Jo Swinsons.
MatGB: An old chestnut. The role of Parliament is to represent people not be representative of them. I suspect most MP’s are more aware of new technologies than the general population too. Because each new technology has it’s fans in the house. I’d bet more MPs asa percentage are on Facebook, Twitter, the web, etc. than the general population.
I’m just relieved that this was an honest request from HarperCollins. I personally thought it was a phishing email, asking me for my date of birth!
I do not really see the relevance of age in the discussion. Age is only indicative, and hardly definitive, whether the candidate has the right mix of experience, energy and enthusiasm. Far better to test those things directly than to use age as a yardstick.
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How much money do you want to put on that bet Martin? Amongst our MPs, perhaps, but overall? And then they need to truly be using it themselves, not just ensuring a presence by getting a staffer to do it because Labour/Tory HQ have mandated they do it.
Approximately 50% of the UK population has a Facebook account they use fairly regularly–a lot of MPs now have accounts, but I’m not sure it’s close to 50%. And yes, you’re right, MPs need to represent people. But saying they don’t need to be representative of people goes against a number of clearly stated party policies and ideals does it not? Or are we abandoning support for STV, the CGB and Reflecting Britain now?
When I look at the green benches, regardless of policy, I see very few MPs that I can relate to personally and that will understand my perspective on things. Of those that do, overwhelmingly they’re ours (not exclusively though), and there aren’t enough of them.
I’m a universtiy educated 35 year old male.
My colleagues at work believe “they’re all the same” and boggle at my involvement and desire to change things, they think there’s no chance of it happening at all. Because they don’t see anyone at all they can relate to.
Sure, MPs need to represent us, but when they’re overwhelming drawn from a very small sub section of the population, and overwhelmingly older their ability to do so effectively is substantially diminished. People want MPs to be older, have life experience, yet some of the best Parliamentarians through history across the parties were first elected very young; Foot was 32, Churchill 25, Charles Kennedy 24, etc.
Oh, and there’s a difference between “being aware of” and actually understanding the implications, as can be seen with the furore in the comments of Tim Clement-Jones’ post; he’s definitely aware of the technology involved, but doesn’t seem to have any understanding of what he’s done.
I would be as worried by a House of Commons drawn mainly from one narrow age group as I would be by one drawn mainly from one gender or disproprtionately from one ethnicity.
To be honest while the lack of disabled people, women, and ethnic minorities in the House of Commons worries me, the lack of liberal relative to the proporiton of the electorate with liberal views worries me infintely more.
Women are better represented now in the HoC than ever before. But given a hypothetical choice between the having the 2005 Parliament and the 1906 Parliament (the last one with a Liberal majority) we would surely all pick the latter?
I think this from Nick Clegg today about the Brown ”evidence” to Chilcott really supports the need for politicians to have some credible management experience before being absorbed by the political machine.
http://www.politicshome.com/uk/article/6278/brown_evidence_flies_in_the_face_of_what_soldiers_have_said_clegg.html
I get frustrated enough by how poor the analytical support to Lib Dem MPs is, but trying to present the party leader as a credible counterbalance to the leaders of the other two main parties really isn’t helped by examples of naivety around ”actually achieving stuff”.
Six months from agreement to spend isn’t really enough time to actually get kit delivered in the scales required.