It was a tough week for the main political parties – just to get their candidates endorsed. each day there has been a new scandal, calls for a resignation and other dubious chracters slipping through some pretty underhadn selectoin tactics. It’s not been pretty.
Throw in the last minute resignation of Keith Vaz last night to sum up a turbulant week. There is a book to be written about Keith and no room in a quick blog!
Probably because of Social Media there is far more evidence available of the things candidates have said and done than any time in the past. It has been a pretty horribles start for a number of candidates, but a few have still managed to weather the storm. A labour candidate in SW Coventry Zarah Sultana has been accused of this awful post:
The Tories have had their troubels too with candidates with truly horrible views on social media.. The whole debacle is best summed up in this Guardian article
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/10/seven-days-disaster-general-election-campaign-trail
But whilst this is all a bit depressing and amusing it does tell of a bigger story about the sort of MPs we get. I have been worried for some time at the narrowing of the base of candidates in recent elections and the quality. The main problem is that we don’t really have a job description
I can’t do justice to the whole book in a 5 minute Blog, but it is worth a read. I have just started helping with some teaching at Cranfield University Business school on the Project Leaderhsip Course for senior civil servants, and what strikes me is just how unsuitable so many Ministers are for their roles. You only have to say Chris Grayling to make the case. But this stems from candidates being chosen for wrong reasons and parties selecting people on their individual ideology – not if they are capable of cerryign out the full range of duties that make up the role.
This is probalby a topic for further discussion and thought after the election. Something has to be done to restore some faith and repsect for Parliament and MPs and thereby increase the quality of candidate.
To be fair in Loughborough we have a very good Labour candidate who I do believe can be a great MP and there are plenty of hard working decent MPs who you don’t hear much abot because they get on with their job quietly and conscientously
View from the Margins 