Ed Miliband wins Labour Leadership

CLAPTON

Kohoutek wrote: »

True, but it's also the nature of the Parliamentary system itself.

In the US for example, ministers cannot be members of the legislature, whereas in the UK, minister must be members of the legislature, usually from the same political party as the PM. The result is that in the US, ministers have invariably had careers outside government beforehand, often in the area relevant to their department.

Compare Gordon Brown's minister for energy (Ed Miliband) with Obama's energy secretary (Steven Chu). Prior to Ed Miliband's appointment, his only experience was as a speechwriter. Prior to Steven Chu's appointment, he was a physicist in the private sector, then a professor of physics, winning a Nobel Prize.

Our system puts people that have no technical or management experience (notionally) in charge of enormous complex organisations. Andy Burnham's only work experience outside parliamentary politics is a special adviser and he was put in charge of the NHS.

I very much agree with what you are saying here: maybe in the future we can have a more mature approach to appointments
but with the current mad obsession that anyone earning more than the PM is somehow essentially evil that's not going to happen soon

kabayiri

marklv wrote: »

Rubbish. There are already thousands of unemployed skilled IT people in Britain, whose jobs have been taken by overseas outsourcers. The skills largely exist in abundance, and where they don't the knowledge can be imparted in training courses. The real problem is this obseession with driving down costs - at any cost.

Rubbish. I also mentioned engineering Mark, something which you have no experience in...unless you can prove otherwise.

abaxas

kabayiri wrote: »

Rubbish. I also mentioned engineering Mark, something which you have no experience in...unless you can prove otherwise.

Just ask yourself this question.

At a supermarket there are two packets of cornflakes, one is £1 for 500g other is £4 for 500g. Both taste about the same.


Which do you buy?

CLAPTON

kabayiri wrote: »

Rubbish. I also mentioned engineering Mark, something which you have no experience in...unless you can prove otherwise.

there's no shortgage of either IT or graduate engineers; you only need to look at recruitment sites or the level of salaries in these sectors to see that

PhylPho

Kohoutek wrote: »

True, but it's also the nature of the Parliamentary system itself.

In the US for example, ministers cannot be members of the legislature, whereas in the UK, minister must be members of the legislature, usually from the same political party as the PM.

Superb post. It also serves to highlight so much that's wrong with Parliament today, viz: the blight of the 'special adviser'.

Once upon a time, you earned your ticket to high office by starting off in the lowliest: the MP's surgery. There you dealt with people of every kind and problems of every type. There you learned the hard way that the elected exist to serve the elector.

Nowadays though, an MP with hope of attaining high office for the greater good of the community she / he serves, and wider Society as a whole, had better think again.

High office -- as was repeatedly seen in the last Government, and is also evident in its successor -- is by and large granted to MPs who were given safe seats after landing jobs as lackeys ('Special Advisers') to one or another Minister.

Promotion has nothing at all to do with any commitment to constituency or skills / effectiveness at representation: it was (and the Millibands remain a classic case) and still remains an offensive kind of Victorian patronage, where who-you-know and where-you-come-from has more to do with what-you-are-as-an-MP.

The outcome of this has been evident for years, and so it was no surprise that Gordon Brown's lament last year -- "we realise we need to listen to the people" -- met such deserved hilarity: how the hell can a Special Adviser know what "the people" think if he / she has never met any?

Andy Burnham's only work experience outside parliamentary politics is a special adviser and he was put in charge of the NHS.

Fit more for a role in Music Hall than anywhere else, Burnham remains memorable for being the Health Minister who repeatedly hid from questions about, er, health. The 2009 BBC TV documentary -- about how the alleged "spirit" of the 2012 Olympics can be reconciled with the event's sponsorship by Macdonald's and Coca Cola -- is a television classic, with Burnham capering desperately hither and thither to evade the interviewer.

That such a clown even made it to the Labour leadership short-list says much for modern Labour, modern politics and those oh-so-modern 'special advisers'.

StevieJ

olly300 wrote: »

Ed Milliband isn't going to be a PM so it doesn't matter that he won. Just like William Hague he's a leader who is never going to win an election.

After five years of Con Dem slash and burn even Michael Foot would likely have had a landslide victory unless we invade somewhere like Iceland of course (and win, not guaranteed).

StevieJ

abaxas wrote: »

Just ask yourself this question.

At a supermarket there are two packets of cornflakes, one is £1 for 500g other is £4 for 500g. Both taste about the same.


Which do you buy?

Funny you should say that, in Tesco a jar of Decaf 200g was £5.13, a jar of same make 100g was £2.20. Question, do they do that on purpose and is there is some clever marketing technique at work ? or is it a !!!!-up?

http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/Shopping/FindProducts.aspx?Query=coffee&SortBy=3

Graham_Devon

StevieJ wrote: »

After five years of Con Dem slash and burn even Michael Foot would likely have had a landslide victory unless we invade somewhere like Iceland of course (and win, not guaranteed).

This sounds more like a fairytale kinda bubble rather than reality.

All the reports i have seen on the TV suggest that because of Ed Millibands pro welfare, anti paydown stance, the labour party has stuck themselves on the sidebench for "many years".

Everything that was flung at labour, about not paying down the defecti and being a tax and spend party is now truer than ever.

Rainmaker_uk

Bye Bye Labour!

With the appointment of Red Ed you have consigned yourselves to the sidelines for the forseeable future.

I hope you enjoy it there with your power hungry union paymasters.

marklv

kabayiri wrote: »

Rubbish. I also mentioned engineering Mark, something which you have no experience in...unless you can prove otherwise.

I still don't see this massive shortage..........

This talk that we need more graduates in this or that is utter balderdash. We have more than enough graduates - it's the jobs that are missing. But of course it suits big business to spread the myth, so they can keep salaries down.