There's an interesting interview with Health Minister Andy Burnham in The Spectator this week. He won their Minister to Watch award recently. In the interview he waxes lyrical about a new generation of Ministers which the media have dubbed the Primrose Hill set. They appear to consist of Andy Burnham himself, David & Ed Miliband, James Purnell and Liam Byrne. Now, what do all these have in common? Well, so far as I know not a single one of them has got any experience outside politics. They're all political apparatchiks turned career politicians. They are all likely to be key players in a Brown administration. Obviously there are career politicians in all parties, but the preponderance of former Ministerial advisers and Labour Party or Trade Union officials now inhabiting the Labour benches and Ministerial offices is way in advance of anything we have seen before. Wouldn't it be nice to think we had a majority of Ministers who had actually achieved something in life, or at least lived a life outside politics?
Saturday, December 02, 2006
The Primrose Set Need to Get a Life
There's an interesting interview with Health Minister Andy Burnham in The Spectator this week. He won their Minister to Watch award recently. In the interview he waxes lyrical about a new generation of Ministers which the media have dubbed the Primrose Hill set. They appear to consist of Andy Burnham himself, David & Ed Miliband, James Purnell and Liam Byrne. Now, what do all these have in common? Well, so far as I know not a single one of them has got any experience outside politics. They're all political apparatchiks turned career politicians. They are all likely to be key players in a Brown administration. Obviously there are career politicians in all parties, but the preponderance of former Ministerial advisers and Labour Party or Trade Union officials now inhabiting the Labour benches and Ministerial offices is way in advance of anything we have seen before. Wouldn't it be nice to think we had a majority of Ministers who had actually achieved something in life, or at least lived a life outside politics?
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58 comments:
What, like David Cameron, George Osborne, Andrew Lansley, David Willetts...
Philip Hammond, DD and Hunky Dunky are the only Shad Cab memvbers with proper careers before politics (and DD's work at Tate & Lyle was hardly an unmitigated success).
Shame David Cameron does not appear interested in people who have acheived things outside politics, when he let down the CBI this week.
Talking nonsense again Iain. Liam Byrne managed to run a very successful business as well as advise people on politics. You really should try and check a few facts before you allow your bile at being in opposition for the last decade get the better of you.
Liam Byrne had a very successful career with Andersen Consulting before going in to politics. Don't know about the others though.
I wonder whether these guys haven't arrived at the wrong time into politics. A bit like say Stephen Dorrell did for teh Tories- they arrive just as the Labour Party might begin to lose and therefore become a lost generation.
a brown administration or misadminstration? (Although I am not sure if my usage of the word in this context is gramatically correct.)
Glass houses and stones Mr Dale. If they paid people for chutzpah you'd be on top dollar.
Do people not bother to read a post before commenting on it?
"Obviously there are career politicians in all parties"
ie there are many in the Tory Party too. And for the avoidance of doubt, I think there are too many.
And I also said "so far as I know..." on the question of outside experience. If Liam Byrne has a lot then fine, but I thought he had spent most of his career in Downing Street. How long was he with Andersen?
Anyone thinking Andersen Consulting is the real business world needs to be questioned. Think of Patricia Hewit
I agree totally with Iain and I would further like some of their life experiences to have been like mine including military service and state education.
From Callaghan to Major I always felt that the person at the top had an inkling of what my rather ordinary life was like, and how their decisions might affect it. Maggie was a master of this.
What now? Public school boys telling us how education ought to be delivered, former CND members sending young men and women to needless deaths in countries that Bush probably can't find on a map, and an A list.
Yes, you can't help but laugh when some of these types pontificate on life and how to cope with it when their own experience is so limited and artificial.
A fair guide to how much time a politico has spent in real life is their measure of belief in that just because a policy has been committed to paper, then the problem is solved and they can now get on with something else. Generally speaking, it's at this point that things really start to screw up. Wasn't it Gladstone that opined that there were only two types of political answer - the disasterous and the unacceptable?
Things'll be different when I assume my true role as Supreme Ruler of Civilisation (incl. the outer reaches of Shropshire). Oh, yes.
"Shame David Cameron does not appear interested in people who have acheived things outside politics, when he let down the CBI this week"
johnny norfolk, at the moment I think the British squaddie is trying to achieve quite a lot at considerable risk despite what the outside interference of Labour politics.
Ask yourself why the window of opportunity for him to visit the Iraq clashed with the CBI conference.
This has got Labour finger prints all over it. Win Win wouldn't you say?
Who does he snub, the CBI or the soldiers, you can bet that had he chosen to go to the CBI instead they someone in government would have leaked the story that Cameron snubs squaddie's to woo big business.
Does not bode well if Gordon Brown is avoiding a head to head with Cameron even before he gets to No10.
I thought he had spent most of his career in Downing Street.
Why did you think that? Because I don't think he has ever worked there. He was seconded to the Labour Party by Andersons before the 1997 election and after he worked there he set up his own business.
...said the man who was a lobbyist and a political publisher and a chief of staff to a politician, before settling down to life as a political pundit and tv presenter!
Come on Iain!
Anonymous, well I'm not going to let that pass. What you fail to mention is that I have worked for 15 years in the private sector and have set up and run four companies.
I have not said that all politicians should have worked outside politics before they enter Parliament. What I am saying is that the balance is now wrong and there are too many politicians who have never done anything but politics. Wouldn't you agree?
Very disingenuos, Iain.
It would have taken no more than 30 seconds to fnd details of Liam Byrne's pre-politics career.
Meanwhle, the fact you restricted your concerns to Labour MPs (despite knowing full well that many Conservative MPs are in the same boat) shows that your alleigances are now underminng your blog content.
You have a point here. In any field, education, business etc., it's hands-on experience that counts, with a bit of theory thrown in to keep them honest.
Anonymous, can you not read? I highlighted the Primrose Set because of The Spectator article. As I have said above, I think there are far too many people OF ALL PARTIES who have done nothing outside politics, and for the avoidance of doubt, that means the Conservatives too. Satisfied?
Billy - you post, therefore presumably you can read. Could you spare the time to read, say, one concise paragraph on George W Bush?
He has a degree from Harvard and a degree from Yale. That gives him one more degree than Al Gore. You do not get into either of these august establishments just with money.
He was a fighter pilot in the Reserves. Do you have the faintest inkling of how quick witted you have to be to be a fighter pilot?
Mr Bush's father, George Herbert Bush, was the head of the CIA for many years. He was then Vice President of the United States, then President of the United States. I suspect George W could identify an unmarked map of countries in the ME somewhat faster than you could.
Iain,
I am completely with you on this one. At least Cameron, Osborne, Ed Vaizey, Michael Gove and the Notting Hill set all have done proper jobs first - at least for a few years and some more than most.
It is a real worry that there is now a recognised route for a political elite . i.e. researcher, do a bit of token local politics, then into Parliament.
Sure we need people who understand how to make the political machine work but what we really need now is some people with some vision of what the machine should be producing !
I am generally a Cameron fan - but I get the strong impression that the electorate just think he is another politician thats full of p*** and wind. I think this is simply because he has so far not laid out a vision of the Britain he wants to build that people can really empathise with and that inspires.
I think it makes perfect sense to hold specific policy making back until the run up to an election but until he shares a comprehensive vision (that he thens hangs specific policy off of later) people will not connect and if he leaves it too long people will give up on him. The honey moon is long over.
I think this is a crucial differentiator between the Cameron team and the Labour experience / new blood. The Labour people either have been in power so long they are out of touch, or they are new blood who have no experience of real life and haven't experienced the pressure of opposition forcing them to come up with real ideas.
The Cameron team have the sense, breadth and depth to build a vision but they better do it soon and prove they really have got the life experience and scope to do it or all may be lost..
Mayorwatch said: "For all the bashings Ken Livingstone gets he must surely have been the most qualified occupant of any political office when he was elected in 200 ...".
He wasn't elected in the year 200. It just feels that way.
Brown hasn't really got any good people left to appoint. He's only really got, how shall we put it, "Yesterdays kids?"
Politics as a second career is like teaching. If you have been "successful" in another field, why the hell would you want to join a bunch of professional losers? Let's face it - the concept of success is anathema to teachers, and the concept of failure is impossible for politicians to accept.
towcestarian - Because you realise that just making money alone is a fairly hollow existance and because you really want to make a difference.
It's an old cliche I know but it's true.
For some people, once you have proved you can feather your own nest, you want to help others who either can't or haven't the opportunities and you feel it's a much bigger and more worthy challenge to do something for the good of all rather than just yourself.
I agree with you, Ian. When I was in education, a fair criticism often levelled at teachers was that few of us had experience outside the classromm. We'd gone from school to university then back to school, into what was at one time a very "safe" career in terms of job security. All that is changing now but I do think that, in any field where you are going to advise or help others - or if you are going to make decisions that will affect many lives - it is a good thing to have had some broader experience of life.
...and there was I thinking they were all lecturers, lawyers and social workers and all the time they are career spinmeisters.
I have always been of the opinion that candidates should be able to show evidence of at least a little contact with planet reality.
The anonynmous from 4:07pm here - Iain, just teasing!
crossfire tells us that "at least Cameron . . . [had a] . . proper job[s] first. "Proper jobs" are apparently:
Director of Corporate Affairs at Carlton Communications, and
Non-executive director of Urbium PLC, operator of the Tiger Tiger bar chain.
And, oh yes, Osborne "worked" as a "freelance journalist" between university and joining the Conservative Research Department
No wonder crossfire is a "modern" Conservative and fan of Cameron. crossfire wouldn't know what a "proper job" is if it took him out and gave him a Glasgow kiss.
iain..
maybe there are too many career politicians but assuming they are proficient at thei jobs would that still be so bad??
Give labour credit. They are obviously seriously concerned by the rise in popularity of right wing bloggers because they seem to have an awful ot of "attack dogs" instantly responding to the likes of Iain and Guido et al through the comments button.
I'd take it as a compliment if I were you Iain.
Iain, I've said it before about Andy Burnham - the Minister to Watch was meant in the same way that if there are 3 hoodies in a sweet shop, and one is clearly up to no good, then he is 'one to watch'. That way, when he is dishonestly trying to get one over, you can catch him red-handed.
Oh, he will try and deny his guilt with a load of fibs. But you are smarter than that because he is on your 'one to watch' list. Andy is the NO2ID hate figure for his fibs, misleading statements and generally disingenuous approach to the whole ID card 'cattle labelling' project.
If he had lived in Herod's time, he would have been the one daubing the red paint on those houses needing a visit as part of the 'massacre of the innocents' tough on the first born population reduction initiative
-evil evil evil. Watch him. Closely.
Iain
Given that you are just incorrect about Liam Byrne [worked at Andersen, establish an IT company] why don't you just delete his name from the post?
Surely 'Primrose Hill' set ?
Umbongo - You obviously spent too much time in the jungle - you've gone a bit 'tropo' I reckon.
I did say 'some more than most' - and I was agreeing with Iain 's general point.
My point was that at least they have done something outside politics and Gove and Vaizey have carved out very succesful careers before becoming mps.
Wonder what you have against Carlton Communications.
You are correct on one point though - if a job gave you major head injuries I wouldn't recognise it as a proper job.
Do I detect a bit of sad 1970's class war here - don't tell me you are sitting there with your steam driven pc, a pint of mild and your tin bath in your donkey jacket and you are still raging about the pit closures.
Go on lad forget the 'trouble at mill' and move on a bit.
By the way are you going to add anything to the discussion ~?
Spot on Iain. What worries me about candidates - especially in the Conservative party - is not whether they have two or one X chromosones, but rather if they have a wide and varied experience of life.
There seem to be far too many lawyers, city types and general oxbridge people, and political careerists. Not enough doctors, soldiers/sailors/airmen, engineers, IT workers ( or academics in the Tory party ), housewives/husbands.
What sort of A list will resolve that ?
Verity, you said of George W. Bush..
"He has a degree from Harvard and a degree from Yale. That gives him one more degree than Al Gore. You do not get into either of these august establishments just with money."
Verity, you are so right. You need a rich family with lots of influence, too.
Apropos "proper jobs"
Liam Byrne is indeed very bright (First at Manchester, Fulbright Scholarship, Harvard MBA). His “proper jobs” have been consultant with Andersen Consulting, something with NM Rothschild and – the big one – in 2000 founding EGS Group (formerly e-Government Solutions) “the UK’s leading provider of e-commerce exchanges for trading with the public sector”. Now, pardon my cynicism, but a “proper job” does not mean being a junior member of a famous organisation for a few months. So his sole “proper job” was setting up EGS. Consider: is it helpful or not, before setting up a conduit for suppliers to sell their wares to a Labour-run public sector (which is what EGS does) to have advised the Labour Party on general election organisation between 1996-7 and then managed Labour’s national business campaign? I don’t know the answer to that but my guesses are (1) it didn’t do him any harm, and (2) if he’d been a Conservative or a LibDem or just a bright guy with a bright idea, he wouldn’t have got a look-in. All credit to Liam for thinking up the EGS wheeze and making it work but “proper job”? I don’t think so.
crossfire
I've nothing against Carlton - but let's face it "Director of Corporate Affairs" is one up (or should it be down) from Director of Carpets: the definitive non-job.
Concerning Glasgow kisses - this wasn't a threat to you - this was a (rather clumsy, in retrospect) way of emphasising that your knowledge of what constitutes a "proper job" is, shall we say, limited.
Lots of dissent here. Iain must have really touched a nerve.
Anonymous 8:46 - Not at all. They have huge endowments that they use to take very clever students who would never be able to support themselves through those four years. In fact, I think that girl that Gordon Brown threw a hissy fit about who got rejected by Oxford. Her grades were good, but others were much better, but Brown affected to believe it was because she came from a disadvantaged background ... that girl got into one of the Ivy Leagues.
George Bush is a very clever man who is not afraid to surround himself with people who are even more intelligent than himself. That argues great intellectual confidence.
And you can't fly fighter jets and be stupid. Please. Grow up.
'a vision of the Britain he wants to build '.....
The Britain I want was built; it's memory that should be consulted, not visions of some future yet to be built. The awfulness of NuLabour is their destruction of a perfectly viable country, with reasonable values, discussible but reasonable, and a justifiable sense of behaving well to others, on the whole. What we have now hasn't a moral, political or economic leg to stand on; I leave aside cultural values, fairness, freedom to live as one chooses within the 'don't willfully hurt another' category which was also once enjoyed. NuLabour couldn't have said it better than they did: Forward not back (illiterate language destroying vulgarians as well.)
Reconstruction is what is needed, not some nebulous, better future, and that can only be built if we mend the destruction wrought, by Blair and his cronies, on our past achievements.
'Do people not bother to read a post before commenting on it?'
On 'Comment is Free' there is often little to be gained by doing this, as only half the others seem to bother.
They just look at who the writer is, make an assumption about what has been said, and post away according to the prejudices they have about him/her.
They then read the other posts, from which they garner a rough gist of the original article, then post again [waiting 30 minutes !!] with a slightly more knowledgeable post.
Iain, whether you think something like that is starting to happen here, only you can decide.....
p.s. - who is Liam Byrne when he's at home in any case ?
I would like to be the first to congratulate Umbongo (the t**t from the jungle) on his googling skills.
Well done you managed to find some info about this Liam geezer and did lovely bit of copying and pasting - thus saving us all the bother..
Now you can sit back, blow the throth of your seventh pint of mild, mutter 'eeeeh grand' or perhaps 'och grand' to yourself and stick one of your Scargill's loveliest speeches records on the gramaphone...
Perhaps it was my fault for challenging you to add something to the argument - I meant use your brain to come up something interesting or different.. never mind.
Thanks for explaining your 'clumsy' glasgow kiss reference - I really was struggling to understand what you meant.
Hatfield Girl gets my vote for post of the day. She said, most eloquently, what many of us feel. We already had a country. We didn't want someone's "vision" - especially someone who doesn't understand our plot of earth or the values it has developed over hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
We used to have a sense of belonging, a sense of community. Now there's a sense of hostility. From too many immigrants from an alien belief system to a government and a police force that is totally divorced from the population. And a government, that, at the same time, has assumed that it, not the voter, is the master.
Hatfield Girl - I agree with you to a large extent.. very well said.
But.. it's not a good message for the electorate.
I can see the election broadcast now. Cameron with a winning smile saying 'don't worry everyone vote for us and we will take you back to the past'.
Iain's post about Luntz sums it up - Cameron needs to lead and the first thing a leader does is paint a picture of what is going to be acheived then goes on to describe how it's going to be done.
And unless it is painted as 'new' it's not news.
I think he is doing a great job at neutralising the anti health service tarnish and making ridiculously liberal tolerant statements about hoodies etc but he needs to formulate something that people beleive in rather than just be less offensive than labour - not a tough job.
Verity - you didn't do so bad yourself.
Crossfire - Thank you. But Hatfield Girl's post was piercing and eloquent.
Pretty rich to say this kind of thing - though true, and a very good reason to loathe the Labour party - when Cameron is our leader. Saving a stint in that PR firm, he was straight out of Oxford and straight into politics.
So. Your point?
I'm getting confused, people are talking about Anderson as if having a career there, however short, is some sort of sign of success.
We're talking about a company that got itself embroiled in the Enron scandal, changed its name to Accenture for IT, and has managed to fuck up untold Government IT projects over the past ten years.
If I had Accenture on my CV I'd be embarassed about it.
Verity / Hatfield Girl - What both of you said got me 'right there' if you know what I mean.
Perhaps I'm just coming up with flimsy excuses for more spin.
At the end of the day almost all politicians are stuck in the loop playing the big media game.
But a revolution is coming. It started here in the Blogosphere and with 'new media' it's going to become ever more pervasive and ever more capable of creating fundamental change.
In a very short period of time those politicians that don't communicate direct to their electorate (e.g. Webcameron etc) are going to be few and far between and, on their way out..
And when they do communicate direct they are going to have to have far more honesty and depth otherwise no-one will stick around and watch and listen to them and no-one will vote for them.
The big media will cease to own the message and the best, deepest and most honest messages will win in the new media game.
Being as baldy honest as you both were is what it's all about. Thanks for making me feel inspired and positive.
Crossfire said:
"Because you realise that just making money alone is a fairly hollow existance and because you really want to make a difference."
I never said anything about making money. Equating "success" with money is something from inside your head not mine. "Succesful" in my book involves excelling in a competitive environment where failure is not tolerated or rewarded. This concept is probably all a bit too elitist for the brave new Conservative Party.
towcestarian - I think you will find that in the real world people are incentivised and rewarded monetarially - so whilst in your wishful eutopia that might not be the case - it is the reality.
You may be lucky enough to have a job that is rewarding and fulfilling beyond financial incentives but most people arent - so some of them are prepared to give up some of the meaningless fripperies to make a difference. No reason to be cynical.
Just imagine the job ad in your eutopia - 'High flying, success orientated, self-starting high acheiver required for desperately backward organisation. Below average salary offered, NHS 'health-care', no pension - company unicycle provided.' - don't think it would get many applications.
Oooh - hang on though it does sound a bit like an Ad for a job with a political party..
crossfire
So, still pimping for Cameron and still don't know what a "proper job" is - oh dear.
Speaking of George Bush, as a brave anonymous was above, here is a little snippet. At President Calderon's secret, one-minute past midnight inauguration on Friday morning, guess who was there as a witness. President George Bush, Sr.
Interesting.
Umbungle - Here goes...
..Oh I can't be bothered - you probably wouldn't keep up anyway.
Have another chip butty mate and chill..
Crossfire:
Seriously schizophrenic I think.
First you say that: "Because you realise that just making money alone is a fairly hollow existance and because you really want to make a difference."
Then you say: "I think you will find that in the real world people are incentivised and rewarded monetarially - so whilst in your wishful eutopia that might not be the case - it is the reality."
So, in reply to Crossfire Mk II...
Your new urban wonderland inside the M25 might well be inhabited by a load of money-grabbing automata. But, believe it or not people are incentivised by things other than money. Was Seb Coe not "successful" because he earned a pittance as a world record holding athlete? What about Stephen Hawkins? Did he only become "successful" when he became rich writing best sellers?
I agree that a Britain to aspire to exists in the past, but you have to go back quite far to get at it. And Thatcher destroyed that one well before Blair and his cronies got their hands on it; in fact the continuation of her destructive policies is yet another reason they are despicable.
I think this "proper job" stuff is irrelevant. I don't see why being a bag carrier for a few years at some bank or industrial concern should count for much. Margaret Thatcher was a research chemist for abt. 18 months and a tax barrister for 3 or 4 years. Hardly an extensive career outside politics! It didn't stop her being one of the most remarkable leaders of the 20th century. I also don't remember Peel, Gladstone, Palmerston and the rest achieving much "in the outside world" before becoming MPs in their early twenties. Major was a bank manager for 10 years+...did that make him a good PM?
Although a Conservative I also happen to think that Burnham, Byrne, Purnell, Kelly, Cooper and Balls are reasonably able as a group of politicos. I think (I hate to say it) the Primrose Hill set may have the edge, in terms of intellect and competence, on their tory under-40 counterparts but maybe I am missing something?
The reference to Andersen Consulting and Patricia Hewitt is weak. She was seconded into Andersen Consulting. Facts... despite their nuisance are important.
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