It’s hard to keep pace with the news of the number of MPs who are leaving the Commons at the next election owing to the expenses scandal. This is only likely to rise, as deselections start and even safe seats start coming available. We are going to be in a situation where even the unlikeliest of prospects become possible wins for the Lib Dems, so how do we capitalise on this?
Firstly, we have to recognise that contests for those seats shall not be for the faint of heart. Big hitters with safe seats such as Hazel Blears and Alan Duncan will either decide to walk away or at the very least see their majorities slashed. In addition, we are now looking at an election that becomes all the more probable to be this autumn rather than next spring, particularly now the papers have backed an election as soon as possible.
Secondly, where once a proven record was desirable, it is now an achilles heel. Politicians as a whole, on a local and a national level have been tarred by this scandal, whether deservedly or not. A councillor now doesn’t have an “outstanding record of service” to justify themselves with – they have to justify why the taxpayer should have paid for them for the past few years. Dedication to a community no longer covers that.
Thirdly, this needs to be combined with the credit crunch. All public servants and services must justify why they should be funded, as the public are no longer willing to pay money towards funding a system that they think benefits most those working within it.
As much as it may seem like asking for failure, the candidates we should be putting forward for these expenses-made marginals aren’t Liberal big hitters, experienced councillors or those who’ve grown up inside the Westminster circle. They are the complete unknowns, the promising youngsters – in short, those with no background to shred, but competence in abundance.
If someone composed a list of our top 25 under-25s, all would put more hunger into a campaign and inject more life into a local party than anyone but the most talented older candidate. And even if they should fail, there would still be a bulwark of the next generation of Lib Dem MPs with experience of hard fought campaigns – something which is priceless.
Now, the opposition parties would typically portray these candidates as naive novices, but as we can portray them as dedicated and clean from sleaze, those parties would be fighting a losing battle. Fighting the expense fiddlers with those with experience may be logical, but it leaves us wide open to be portrayed as just as bad as everyone else. Taking the radical step and placing our trust in youth will provide us with success not just in the future, but the present also.
* Rich Wilson is a Liberal Democrat member in Sale.
39 Comments
Richard Wilson – “I don’t believe it”.
I was with you right up until you mentioned under 25s. That’s an absurd idea. Rightly or wrongly, the public are likely to view anyone under 25 who is trying to become an mp as a slightly weird, uppity child, and will take offense at the party who presented him as a candidate.
I have to say, I find your assertion that under 25’s would top anyone but the most talented older candidate, just by virtue of their youth pretty offensive!
We need a diversity of candidates, from a wide variety of backgrounds – that would include both under and over 25’s!!
First of all – your suggestion that I am less trustworthy simply for being in my 30s is deeply offensive. Pissing off most of the voters is probably not a good idea.
Dealing with greedy politicians by replacing them with “hungry” ones is rather ridiculous, too.
Implementing arbitary, prejudiced rules that just so happens to work in your own favour is a tad undemocratic.
In terms of raw politics, it would be rather easy to paint anyone under the age of 25 trying to become an MP as a greedy career politician only interested in exploiting the recent scandal in order to get what would be a very handsomely paid job at that age.
Indeed, starting their political career by exploiting bureaucratic rules to get a job they have no track record to demonstrate their suitability for would in many eyes make them a sleazy candidate, already just as bad as those who at least waited until they were elected before exploiting the system!
In short, rather a naive suggestion on how to use a bureaucracy to further your own interests. Are you sure you should be a liberal democrat?
Some odd logic on display here as regards age (I certainly didn’t have “competence in abundance” when I was 21) but perhaps we should choose to draw the wider point: that non-political types will have an advantage over career politicians come the next election.
This sounds fair enough to me. (Though ironically, if taken to its logical conclusion, it would most likely mean less under-25s rather than more, as under-25s standing for parliament are overwhelmingly likely to be career politicians.)
May I ask what you’d do to bring in new candidates, Jonathan?
I think the first thing to establish is that I, like you, would not expect many, if any to win. However, what it will do is give them experience that they can’t get elsewhere and they’d have a campaign where they’d no doubt get a swing towards them which in confidence terms is amazing. It’s about recognising that we need to offer something different and in seats where there’ll be people like Martin Bell and Esther Rantzen running, the normal PPC is going to be overlooked by the media and by the electorate, hence allowing the young guns of the party to contest those seats will set us apart from the crowd.
“In terms of raw politics, it would be rather easy to paint anyone under the age of 25 trying to become an MP as a greedy career politician only interested in exploiting the recent scandal in order to get what would be a very handsomely paid job at that age.”
Do you honestly expect a newspaper to run with that? Do you expect that claim to be taken seriously when alleged by a bent Tory/Labour MP? It won’t be at all. Therein lies the genius – who on earth would start mudslinging in this environment? No-one. So as long as these younger candidates don’t have obvious character flaws, they are near untarnishable.
Is this Dick Wilson who was briefly a Labour member of Manchester City Council and even more briefly a LD member?
And various other things in the past.
Tony Greaves
That’s been mentioned before, and no. Didn’t even live near Manchester when that Richard Wilson was around.
I’ll tell you something. Not only would I not vote for a candidate who was 25 years old, I wouldn’t even vote for a candidate who had previously stood for parliament at 25 years old.
Get ’em in as early as possible!
Career politicians are exactly what we need more of, and we should also probably make sure at least half of them are lawyers.
“Do you expect that claim to be taken seriously when alleged by a bent Tory/Labour MP? It won’t be at all.”
Wishful thinking there, I’m afraid. The press will always take mudslinging against us seriously, however ridiculous. Doing anything partly on the basis that the press will approve of it is a fool’s errand.
1. A general election at any date is not guaranteed. And aren’t autumn elections invariably bad for the incumbent party, not that we have had such elections in the UK for 35 years. But the scowling skies of September and October fail to put voters in a good mood. Perhaps somebody has local government election stats.
2. If you, as a local councillor, have not been legitimately accused of expenses abuse by your local press or opposition, you have nothing to worry about becoming a PPC. If members of your local party have abused the system, you need to separate yourself (assuming that you are innocent) and campaign defiantly.
3. The economy, and how we are going to live nationally on less money, are the primary story for the next election. When you campaign for maintaining the local hospital, the smart voters are not asking “why”, but “how”.
4. Clean skin candidates can come from any demographic. You only need clean skins when the local party is corrupt or destitute.
A silly illiberal article. Unless you can statistically prove that under 25’s are les likely to be corrupt or have cleaner CV’s how on earth do you justify the restriction on liberty? the liberty of individuals to stand and individuals to select ?
As has also been said anone under 25 “hungry” to be an MP is unlkely to not be a career politican.
Finally just because seats have a sleaze tainted MP doesn’t mean they won’t already hve a LD PPC. Are you goin to fire existing candidates b the ame executive fiat that you’ll use to imose these new rules?
Iainm – You say that you “wouldn’t vote for a candidate who had previously stood for parliament at 25 years old.”
Our own former leader Charles Kennedy was first elected as MP for Ross, Cromarty and Skye at the tender age of 23. I assume, therefore, that for consistency that you never cast a Liberal Democrat vote between 1999 and 2007 whilst he was our leader?
The fact is that the MP for a constituency should be the person most capable of doing the job, regardless of whether that person is 18 or 80. To do as you suggest and judge someone other than on their merits is absurd, prejudiced nonsense.
“A councillor now doesn’t have an “outstanding record of service” to justify themselves with – they have to justify why the taxpayer should have paid for them for the past few years. Dedication to a community no longer covers that.”
What evidence is there for this statement (which certainly doesn’t correspond with my current analysis of public opinion)
Speaking as a LD member under the age of 25, despite very strongly agreeing with party policies, being able to fight a corner in a debate and having enough enthusiasm (i hope!) for a political career, I’d never even consider running for council, let alone parliament.
Experience counts for a lot, and it only comes with age unfortunately. Many young activists are students and not full taxpayers. I wouldn’t trust someone to represent me on tax issues if they didn’t pay it themselves.
True, the old boys club needs to go, and fast, but candidates shouldn’t be selected because they are young. Why not give long standing campaigners a go? Or non-executive councillors?
We have 18 and 19 year old PPCs standing in the next election, who have proven to be completely out of their depth – Naive, blasé, uninformed and towing the Labour line to the extreme. Not sensible for us.
Life is too transient at the age of 20-25 to be an MP. Council, maybe. Campaigning definately. Representation – very difficult.
Still, any way of getting involved in the party at the tender age of 20 without resorting to ‘youth politics’ would be very helpful!
Chris:
Noting wrong with my logic. I’ve never lived in Ross, Cromarty or Skye, so voting for or against Kennedy was never an issue for me, but I can assure you that I would have voted against him if I had. As it happens I didn’t vote at all in the last GE partly because Kennedy was leader (though mostly because I thought our local pcc was a total waste of space).
At 25 years old you know absolutely nothing about life. Nothing. And if you’ve managed to become a pcc by the age of 25 then, I’m dreadfully sorry, but a) there is something not quite right with you, and b) you cannot be anything other than a wannabe career politician.
You are absolutely right that the choice should always be ‘who is the best person for the job’, that’s exactly my point: there is no set of circumstances where a 25 year old could be the best person for the job.
Iainm: you seem to be confusing life experience with age. Yes they are related but not in the same way for everyone. I’ve met plenty of great candidates in their teens and twenties and some awful ones who were much older. Of course it also applies vice versa. I think it’s also fair to say that the people of East Dunbartonshire disagreed with you when they elected a 25 year old at the last election. She’s gone on to do pretty well.
What’s all this slating of career politicians. What do you mean? People who want to make a career out of improving things and using politics as a medium. If so I’m putting my hands up as guilty in that category. It’s doesn’t make me exempt from the vagaries of the real world though. Again I know plenty of people who have done it as mum’s, carers, whilst working outside the party etc. Our parliament would benefit from a broader range of experiences. But that isn’t at the expense of young peoples ones.
You don’t have to be young to have a fresh perspective either.
Ali:
I’m not confusing anything. Of course age and life experience are two different things, but they’re hardly unrelated. I won’t vote for anyone who hasn’t had some sort of a life and/or career outside of and detached from politics at some point in his life, and it’s just not mathematically possible for a 25 year old to have done that. There is no way I’m voting for someone who decided to go into politics before he or she was even out of full-time education.
I’ll tell you what’s wrong with career politicians in just two words: motive and perspective.
Iain: I think we agree more than you think. I’m not disputing age and life experience are unrelated. I am disputing that they are the same for everyone. Your arbitrary level of 25 is what I take umbridge with. Surely it is up to the individual, you could always meet them and ask. Not everyone takes the same path through the education/work system.
What was my motive when I stood (and tbh will be when I do again) simply to make life fairer for people, especially in the area I was in. I don’t see anything to apologise for there, I’m kind of proud I give a damn about making things better – its how I’m made.
I’m not saying a house full of people under 25 is ideal. But I’m rather sad that you won’t even consider the idea of voting for a young person. Thank god employers aren’t allowed to discriminate like that any more – and instead assess on how well you could do the job.
Ali
(who for the avoidance of doubt, is over 25, female – you keep saying him, so I’m being generous and presuming you think I’m a guy rather than only men stand;-) – and not related to Julia)
My life experience clearly hasn’t taught me not to use double negatives (natch). take the un off the first unrelated. *doh*
Re: youngsters “knowing nothing of life”. I’m 24, & I like to view myself as on a lifelong process of learning, which is more than can be said for a lot of people I know. I’m sure we can think of old-timers, many of whom are currently in parliament, whose age hasn’t imparted them any wisdom!
I do agree, though, would-be politicians should have lives & careers outside politics, which in practice means most of them will be older. I’d like to see more working-class MPs to complement the businessmen & professionals we have, though in practical terms this may be somewhat hard to achieve.
Just knocking one off- would reward further analysis of this subject.
For the avoidance of doubt- I work on the shop floor in a very low-paid job, & the experience of balancing a budget is very useful & would possibly (though, possibly not, as many people from poor backgrounds forget their origins as soon as possible when they start earning as much as MPs) have led us to avoid such utter shayte as the tax credits fiasco, which every working-class person I know & all those who work in administering the benefits or working with claimants objects to violently.
I also have not the slightest wish to be elected to any form of office.
Surely intellect matters in terms of who one elects? At least I hope it would… There are plenty of 25 year olds much brighter and better informed than many 40 year olds (I am somewhere in between those ages!)
Ali:
I’m not really using 25 as an arbitrary cut-off point, I just quoted that particular age because that was the one mentioned in the article itself. In reality I see it as more of a sliding scale; I’ll judge a young candidate by exactly the same criteria as an older one, but the younger you are the harder it’s going to be for you to convince me that you have enough life experience and maturity for the job, and round about mind-20s is the point on the scale where I, personally, would go from being hard to convince to being practically impossible to convince.
(btw, I use “him” to refer to any hypothetical entity of indeterminate gender. That might be a bit old-fashioned, but it’s not my fault that English still hasn’t found a gender-neutral way to talk about people that isn’t even more jarring than using the masculine everywhere. Using “they” with a singular makes my eyes itch, and using “he/ she” repeatedly or alternating between them is just plain ugly.)
I think that I, like anyone under 25 reading these comments, would contest that those under 25 have no life experience. Many can have plenty of “life experience” which I don’t believe is something you get by having a full time job or going to university. I’d also like to think that people would be above not voting for a candidate based upon age. Excluding there being a distinct possibility of death, I can’t see why it would be a factor at all. There are PPCs under 25 who have been selected (Henry Vann in Bedfordshire for one) and I very much doubt he’d have been chosen were he incompetent.
In addition, criticising under-25 candidates on the basis that they probably would want to be career politicians is ridiculous. The same can be levelled at most candidates put forward whatever their age. As I’ve maintained, if the candidates are good enough, they’ll bring a new vitality to any campaign and should they choose to stand again, they’d have experience few other people have and would be better candidates for it.
I was a councillor at 25 and a PPC at 34 (having been asked to stand at age 29). So I’m not exactly anti young candidates.
But the best anti-sleaze candidate among our local membership (in terms of gaining success) would be an ex-councillor, age 72.
Because it’s personal merit which counts, not age.
“As I’ve maintained, if the candidates are good enough, they’ll bring a new vitality to any campaign …”
I think this is where the logical fallacy is. You are taking it as read here that younger candidates will “bring a new vitality” that an older candidate cannot. I don’t see what you’re basing this on. I was positively supine when I was 21. Henry Vann is a good example of someone who isn’t, and good for him. And at all ages you’ll get exactly the same range of vitality, so what’s the point of limiting candidature on age? Any such limitation will always, always prevent you from reaching all the best candidates, and that includes on measures of vitality. This is what liberalism and diversity is all about.
I also don’t understand where you’re coming from re: career politicians. You seem now to be explicitly defending them. I certainly agree there’s nothing wrong with being a career politician. But your original thesis, if I read it right, was that the electorate will be looking for the atypical, the non-career politician, to vote for next time. I thought this was a perfectly good point.
“…they’d have experience few other people have and would be better candidates for it.”
But that doesn’t just apply to young people, does it?
Given that MPs also employ a number of staff, they can effectively seen as being responsible for other people as well.
A certain degree of managerial experience, or at least responsibility in the workplace is surely needed to ‘be your own boss’ and also be a boss to your staff.
I doubt very much that many under 25s have the adequate experience at leadership, time and budget management and communication. Of course there will be exceptions but as a general rule I think this is true.
We must be very careful not to promote somebody because of one particular factor that’s unconnected to their ability to do the job well. I’m wary of age-restricted selection in the same way i’m wary of ethnicity-related or gender-related selection – attitude and capability and experience as far more important.
If someone’s good enough for the job and they’re 18, fine. But their youth should not be a factor. If we select people because they’re young, we run the risk of Call me Dave style ‘A Lists’…and we know what happened to them.
I agree with crewegwyn. I was a candidate and elected as a councillor in my twenties. I was also a member of FE and FCC at that young age and held down a demandidng professional job. I susbscibe to the football maxim that if you’re good enough, you’re old enough.
But I am a far more credible candidate now than I was then, because I have proved my potential and gained experience. I also have a record to show that I work hard and am not in it for the expenses.
Funnily enough, having started up as half a career politician, I’ve ended up as the local mum, involved in local organisations – the political anti-politics candidate.
Sara sums it up better than I could – It’s not going to decide careers, but it is going to change people. I doubt anyone who has been a young candidate could say the experience wouldn’t help them.
Alix – RE: career politicians – I think it’s fair to say that a lot, if not the majority, of candidates put forward now are career politicians. By putting forward young candidates and having a well-run campaign, we can easily avoid that being levelled against us.
With regards to my “vitality” comment, I think it’s fair to say that younger candidates tend to be more energetic, physically and mentally. Also, younger candidates tend to appear more in touch with the electorate thatn older candidates on image alone – that’s certainly not meant as a slight against older candidates, but younger faces look more in touch than older faces – an unfortunate fact of life.
Incidentally, how would one go about compiling a list of “top” under 25s? I’d be interested in what criteria would be used 🙂
I’m sorry Richard but with that last comment you have jumped the shark.
Richard: one can argue (and I don’t agree with it) that youth can give a certain freshness to the face and make that argument easier to sell. But in touch no. Vince for his many many qualities is regarded both inside and outside the party as really being in touch. And well I hope he won;t be offended If I point out he doesn;t look under 25. 🙂
iainm: As you say everyone is different – would someone who was 18 and able to solve your grammatical conundrum get by your strict code?! 😉
“I think it’s fair to say that younger candidates tend to be more energetic, physically and mentally.”
That is precisely what I am questioning. It is not at all fair to say that. It doesn’t stand up to any scrutiny whatsoever. Viz contrasting examples of me at 21 and Henry Vann at 21, as I said. Personally, I’ve got masses more energy and ideas and originality now, at 30, than I did at 21. Everybody has their own curve, and that magic period when you “hit your stride” physically, mentally and psychologically can happen at any age, within reason (i.e. making allowances for decrepitude!)
I’m sorry to bang on about this somewhat, but I just can’t believe this is a controversial thing to point out?
Hopefully (ward selections permitting)my Mum will be a council candidate next year
at the age of 66. I am 42 and she runs me ragged.
Many women, especially from working-class backgrounds only have the time and confidence for politics in later life when their children have grown up.
The idea that “youth only” shortlists will revolutionise the way poltics is done is very similar to the way in which women only shortlists were going to change the way Parliament operated and end its macho culture.
Remind me how well that worked out again?
How well is this under 25 preference going to play with the majority of the electorate over 50.
I think an experienced and honest candidate with a career behind her/him would play better.
Careers in caring, engineering, medicine, education preferred to management, HR, Law, customer service: thats MY bit of prejudice showing !
Ianm: “I’ll tell you something. Not only would I not vote for a candidate who was 25 years old, I wouldn’t even vote for a candidate who had previously stood for parliament at 25 years old.”
Don’t you think that’s a little overly dogmatic?! Not even if they were REALLY good?