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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/18/ruth-davidson-britain-prime-minister-political-culture
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| Ruth Davidson is right. Who’d want to be Britain’s prime minister? | Ruth Davidson is right. Who’d want to be Britain’s prime minister? |
| (3 days later) | |
| A fair few political gamblers will be counting their losses after Ruth Davidson’s firm denial that she harbours any wish ever to become prime minister. The Scottish Conservative leader made clear in an interview at the weekend that her personal life, her burgeoning family and her mental health would all suffer were she to become a Tory MP, or enter national politics. Clearly she thinks that no stab at high office would be worth jeopardising the things in her life that matter to her now. | A fair few political gamblers will be counting their losses after Ruth Davidson’s firm denial that she harbours any wish ever to become prime minister. The Scottish Conservative leader made clear in an interview at the weekend that her personal life, her burgeoning family and her mental health would all suffer were she to become a Tory MP, or enter national politics. Clearly she thinks that no stab at high office would be worth jeopardising the things in her life that matter to her now. |
| The result of our culture is a cavalcade of politicians bearing no resemblance to those they claim to represent | The result of our culture is a cavalcade of politicians bearing no resemblance to those they claim to represent |
| The Scottish Tory leader’s frankness has been applauded by campaigners for helping to combat the stigma surrounding mental illness. Self-harm in particular is rarely disclosed or understood in discussions about psychological wellbeing, although Davidson must surely see the tension inherent in seeking to end stigma about mental illness while the party she proudly represents tears down mental health provision. Davidson fears that standing to be party leader would risk her mental health, whereas for hundreds of thousands of people, the Conservatives being in power does precisely that. | The Scottish Tory leader’s frankness has been applauded by campaigners for helping to combat the stigma surrounding mental illness. Self-harm in particular is rarely disclosed or understood in discussions about psychological wellbeing, although Davidson must surely see the tension inherent in seeking to end stigma about mental illness while the party she proudly represents tears down mental health provision. Davidson fears that standing to be party leader would risk her mental health, whereas for hundreds of thousands of people, the Conservatives being in power does precisely that. |
| Yet with a past that both excludes her from leadership while at the same time earns her praise for a style that is “refreshing”, Davidson hints at a problem endemic in British political life. At university, I met dozens of people in their late teens and early 20s who had already then decided they were aiming to become an MP: a few achieved their goal and entered the Commons in recent elections. Riffling through biographies of senior politicians, it’s clear that seeing elected office as a career end in itself is hardly an anomaly: Theresa May spoke of her desire, while still at university, to be the first female prime minister, and was reportedly enraged when Margaret Thatcher beat her to it. The result of our political culture is a cavalcade of identical politicians bearing little or no resemblance to those they claim to represent. | Yet with a past that both excludes her from leadership while at the same time earns her praise for a style that is “refreshing”, Davidson hints at a problem endemic in British political life. At university, I met dozens of people in their late teens and early 20s who had already then decided they were aiming to become an MP: a few achieved their goal and entered the Commons in recent elections. Riffling through biographies of senior politicians, it’s clear that seeing elected office as a career end in itself is hardly an anomaly: Theresa May spoke of her desire, while still at university, to be the first female prime minister, and was reportedly enraged when Margaret Thatcher beat her to it. The result of our political culture is a cavalcade of identical politicians bearing little or no resemblance to those they claim to represent. |
| A recent article by Charles Moore in the Daily Telegraph lamented the fact that for the first time in history, a Conservative cabinet has no Old Etonians, thanks to Boris Johnson’s departure. This lingering deference to the performatively posh, brashly arrogant and those convinced they have been groomed for power is not unusual. The admission by the Northern Ireland secretary, Karen Bradley, that she didn’t understand the politics of the province revealed how so many politicians see the pursuit of power as the main motivation, with deep knowledge viewed as passé. | A recent article by Charles Moore in the Daily Telegraph lamented the fact that for the first time in history, a Conservative cabinet has no Old Etonians, thanks to Boris Johnson’s departure. This lingering deference to the performatively posh, brashly arrogant and those convinced they have been groomed for power is not unusual. The admission by the Northern Ireland secretary, Karen Bradley, that she didn’t understand the politics of the province revealed how so many politicians see the pursuit of power as the main motivation, with deep knowledge viewed as passé. |
| For politics to shift, we need to recruit from beyond the seemingly bottomless Oxbridge pool. We need people with nonprofessional backgrounds, older people and candidates with children and interesting personal histories that inform their politics. | For politics to shift, we need to recruit from beyond the seemingly bottomless Oxbridge pool. We need people with nonprofessional backgrounds, older people and candidates with children and interesting personal histories that inform their politics. |
| But such a change requires a media that doesn’t descend like vultures to pick apart any aspect of personal history that strays from an idealised vision of “the politician”. Across the Atlantic, new candidates on the left, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have had their past picked over for daring to stand against a long-term incumbent. How many young people in the UK could look at the media coverage and the obscene expectations piled on political hopefuls and not conclude, as Davidson appears to have done, that politics is a mug’s game, unless you hail from a rarefied stratum of private school, Oxbridge-educated, upper middle class men who have been coached for power from birth. | But such a change requires a media that doesn’t descend like vultures to pick apart any aspect of personal history that strays from an idealised vision of “the politician”. Across the Atlantic, new candidates on the left, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have had their past picked over for daring to stand against a long-term incumbent. How many young people in the UK could look at the media coverage and the obscene expectations piled on political hopefuls and not conclude, as Davidson appears to have done, that politics is a mug’s game, unless you hail from a rarefied stratum of private school, Oxbridge-educated, upper middle class men who have been coached for power from birth. |
| Rigged selections are partly responsible, and the move by Labour towards open selection may help. But the intense scrutiny of candidates’ lives that has no bearing on suitability for office or leadership is also to blame. If keeping one’s mental health on an even keel and maintaining the privacy of one’s family are deemed incompatible with political representation at the national level, how many are put off from getting involved locally or seeking to stand for council elections? It is surely an indictment of our political culture that being a woman, not straight, or not a graduate of an elite establishment makes you an outlier in Westminster. | Rigged selections are partly responsible, and the move by Labour towards open selection may help. But the intense scrutiny of candidates’ lives that has no bearing on suitability for office or leadership is also to blame. If keeping one’s mental health on an even keel and maintaining the privacy of one’s family are deemed incompatible with political representation at the national level, how many are put off from getting involved locally or seeking to stand for council elections? It is surely an indictment of our political culture that being a woman, not straight, or not a graduate of an elite establishment makes you an outlier in Westminster. |
| The route to political power for the ruling political class has always been straightforward: an education and background that forges a steely arrogance and the wealth and safety net which enables you to fail upwards in perpetuity. It also ensures a social status that means no matter how many times you are (in Johnson’s case), sacked, exposed as a fraud or a liar, or betray your political colleagues, people still ask whether you’ll one day be prime minister. The same people often ask why public trust in politics is so low. | The route to political power for the ruling political class has always been straightforward: an education and background that forges a steely arrogance and the wealth and safety net which enables you to fail upwards in perpetuity. It also ensures a social status that means no matter how many times you are (in Johnson’s case), sacked, exposed as a fraud or a liar, or betray your political colleagues, people still ask whether you’ll one day be prime minister. The same people often ask why public trust in politics is so low. |
| Those who come close to the top political jobs in Britain can seem as though they’re from another planet. But who would be a politician when you can, instead, have a life? | Those who come close to the top political jobs in Britain can seem as though they’re from another planet. But who would be a politician when you can, instead, have a life? |
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