Boris: What a legend
I love having a proper sofa in a proper living room on which to chill out and watch a proper TV and last night I caught the end of Newsnight. Aside from the worry that it makes me feel old (maybe "mature" would be better) I really enjoyed it.
The article about the Conservative Party Conference was interesting. There is a lot of fuss about the "A-list" and having candidates who are representative of society, yet I worry that it is more political correctness gone mad. I thought a good point was made by Jacob Rees-Mogg about not discriminating against Oxbridge candidates - if as is claimed Oxford and Cambridge do attract some of the brightest minds in the country then this should be an asset, not a hindrance. After all, we are talking about people to govern the country and make important decisions.
One of the "A-list" candidates interviewed talked about the need for candidates to empathise with their consitutents and gave the example that some people just couldn't relate to working class families struggling to make a living and residing in a council house. This may be a fair point, and in theory it is good to make sure that all walks of life are represented. However, if an MP comes from a council house background he would find it just as hard to relate to the likes of Mr Rees-Mogg. So unless you have many MPs for one constituency it's never going to be the case that everyone is well represented in practise, and I think it is much more important that those who govern us are chosen firstly on their ability to do the job, and not on their background.
Meanwhile, I was greatly amused by the need for the press to follow Boris Johnson around, in case he "said something" (the conference being apparently un-newsworthy otherwise). The Newsnight coverage made me laugh, and as my title says: What a legend...
The article about the Conservative Party Conference was interesting. There is a lot of fuss about the "A-list" and having candidates who are representative of society, yet I worry that it is more political correctness gone mad. I thought a good point was made by Jacob Rees-Mogg about not discriminating against Oxbridge candidates - if as is claimed Oxford and Cambridge do attract some of the brightest minds in the country then this should be an asset, not a hindrance. After all, we are talking about people to govern the country and make important decisions.
One of the "A-list" candidates interviewed talked about the need for candidates to empathise with their consitutents and gave the example that some people just couldn't relate to working class families struggling to make a living and residing in a council house. This may be a fair point, and in theory it is good to make sure that all walks of life are represented. However, if an MP comes from a council house background he would find it just as hard to relate to the likes of Mr Rees-Mogg. So unless you have many MPs for one constituency it's never going to be the case that everyone is well represented in practise, and I think it is much more important that those who govern us are chosen firstly on their ability to do the job, and not on their background.
Meanwhile, I was greatly amused by the need for the press to follow Boris Johnson around, in case he "said something" (the conference being apparently un-newsworthy otherwise). The Newsnight coverage made me laugh, and as my title says: What a legend...
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