Britain business held back by politicians who have 'never run anything'

Thrugelmir

StevieJ wrote: »

No thanks

I not commenting on him personally. Just his skillset.

ChiefGrasscutter

This is the problem.

The experienced business people are not really interested in having to "consult" and listen to the opinions of the voters - much less canvas some of the frankly lunatic fringe for their vote.

Not a quote from me but it has been said that "one day the UK will get a really good government by experts in their field - and the population ain't going to like it at all".

Thrugelmir

ChiefGrasscutter wrote: »

This is the problem.

The experienced business people are not really interested in having to "consult" and listen to the opinions of the voters - much less canvas some of the frankly lunatic fringe for their vote.

Not a quote from me but it has been said that "one day the UK will get a really good government by experts in their field - and the population ain't going to like it at all".

I find that people (highly successful ones) do look for new challenges in latter life. As business no longer holds the spell over them that it did. I know of 2 people , one a senior partner at PWC and the other a businessman who received an OBE for his computer work. Both turn to the Church. As wanted to give something back to the wider community.

ChiefGrasscutter

Interesting:

I've personally tended to find those that do other work as you describe post retirement are those who seemingly simply cannot cope with retirement per se. I can only imagine they were workaholics during their life with no other interests/hobbies who are desperate to fill their suddenly empty lives.

The remainder as many have said to me wonder how on earth they found time to work full time - and it seems that spending their time working to help the public/voluntary sector is not one of them - other than objecting to each and every planning application no matter where and whether or not if affects them.

Hence my earlier comments

olly300

ChiefGrasscutter wrote: »

Interesting:

I've personally tended to find those that do other work as you describe post retirement are those who seemingly simply cannot cope with retirement per se. I can only imagine they were workaholics during their life with no other interests/hobbies who are desperate to fill their suddenly empty lives.

The remainder as many have said to me wonder how on earth they found time to work full time - and it seems that spending their time working to help the public/voluntary sector is not one of them - other than objecting to each and every planning application no matter where and whether or not if affects them.

Hence my earlier comments

You seem to expect the retired to sit around and do nothing.

I've done voluntary work arranged by OAPs and know OAPs who do similar stuff. The ones I know get up and do their morning swim/run or whatever then do their voluntary work x days per week. They then spend the rest of the time doing their gardening/helping their family/whatever.

Even the objecting to planning applications - which I know some OAPs do as part of their voluntary work as they are part of campaigning groups - they do in their "working time".

Thrugelmir

ChiefGrasscutter wrote: »

Interesting:

I've personally tended to find those that do other work as you describe post retirement are those who seemingly simply cannot cope with retirement per se.

Both people I mentioned became tired of the rat race. The treadmill working life has become. Neither were at retirement age.

What's the average age of a FTSE 100 board director? They are in these positions because of their accumulated knowledge and experience. Something only time can buy.

olly300

Thrugelmir wrote: »

What's the average age of a FTSE 100 board director? They are in these positions because of their accumulated knowledge and experience. Something only time can buy.

Many are on the board because who they went to school with and who they know.

Directors on one board tend to end up being directors on another board often at the same time.

TheSandman

One of the few who have achieved somethign from outside politics; Adam Afriye - grew up on a council estate.

Afriyie is chairman of Connect Support Services, an IT support company. Afriyie owned two thirds of DeHavilland, a news and information services company, which was sold to publishers Emap in 2005 for £18 million.[3] He was also a regional finalist in the 2003 Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the year awards. He was a Governor of the Museum of London, a trustee of the Museum in Docklands and a director of Policy Exchange, a centre-right policy body.
Afriyie is an owner of Adfero, a search engine optimization business which produces thousands of short articles for corporate clients who require web content that features popular keywords in an attempt to appear at the top of Google's search rankings.[3] The company is also known as Content Plus, NewsReach, DirectNews, Axon Media, and Axxon Media.[3] Adfero turned over £9.4m in 2011 and made a pre-tax profit of £1.3m. Afriyie is the largest shareholder of the firm and he and his fellow directors split dividends of £2.2m in 2010 and 2011 and shared directors' pay of £3.6m over the last five years.[3]



The arguments I've heard against having ex civil servants becoming ministers of their departments is the self interest they could hold or the contempt the sector could hold against them - becoming something of Judas in the eyes of ex-colleagues.

The new minister will no doubt be told by the PM that reforms, reshuffles and in these times redundancies will have to take place in his department. After working for possibly 30+ years in the NHS, education etc to suddenly upsticks, leave and come back to tell everyone the bad news the staff will likely feel nothing but contempt for their new minister - positive embrace for changes being up there with snowballs in hell.

The other outcome is insubordination and given the already ridiculous levels of in-fighting in politics, it wouldn't be a problem any PM would willingly put upon himself.

I do agree with everyone else that 99% of them are completely useless and out of their depth. Spouting little soundbites to anyone that'll listen and would completely suffocate in any intelligent debate on the likes of the looming energy crisis.

Thrugelmir

olly300 wrote: »

Many are on the board because who they went to school with and who they know.

Directors on one board tend to end up being directors on another board often at the same time.

Board rooms aren't the chummy places you might imagine.

olly300

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Board rooms aren't the chummy places you might imagine.

So you are telling me people who are in senior roles don't use their networks to get their jobs? Are you also saying that no-one ever uses the people they went to school with? And are you saying just because you used a network you can't get removed if you screw up?