[smoyer]

You have to wonder why the Brits keep electing these elites to top positions in the government (it's a little tougher to keep alumnae from being given positions in the corporate world).

Of course, you have to ask the same question about US voters. And in a bit of irony, this topic and another discussion [1] of the government elites in the US vis-a-vis the Lawrence Lessig campaign are in the #2 and #1 spots on the HN front page.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10403507

[gsnedders]

> You have to wonder why the Brits keep electing these elites to top positions in the government (it's a little tougher to keep alumnae from being given positions in the corporate world).

We don't. We elect a (one) Member of Parliament for the constituency we live in. Following the election, the leader of the largest party attempts to form a government (thereby making them Prime Minister), and they then appoint cabinet ministers.

Most elections end up with people voting in favour of a party, regardless of who the party has nominated to stand in the election, and those viewed as "senior" members of the party are typically asked to stand in safe seats (regardless of where the seat is and whether they have any ties there!).

[gsnedders]

…it's probably worthwhile to add to this the fact that (cabinet) ministers can be from either the democratically elected House of Commons, or the House of Lords. There's typically a small number of ministers from the House of Lords.

[mynegation]

But does not that mean that prime minister must also be a member of parliament, so at least people in one district voted for her or him? It is not the same as whole populace of UK votes directly for Pam, but still.

[gsnedders]

Yes, they must have won one constituency.

In theory, the Prime Minister can be in the House of Lords, though since 1902 this hasn't occurred—in principle, the Prime Minister merely has to be capable of commanding confidence of the House of Commons (i.e., must be able to win any motion of confidence, and to be able to ensure supply). It seems highly unlikely for this to occur in future, however.

[arethuza]

I would say that on any given weekend a significant proportion of the male population of the UK, particularly between 16 and 25, are doing stuff that involves large amount of alcohol, breaking things and the occasional stripper.

Not sure why these guys doing it is that bad or different.

[smoyer]

Sorry, that wasn't my point at all. I was focusing on the part of the article that describes the potential of the general populations discontent with the social program management by the elites.

[arethuza]

I seriously doubt that there is that much discontent - perhaps most people are evaluating politicians based on their policies and actions when in power rather than being influenced by whether they are posh or not and what they got up to at university 25 years ago. [Edit: what a horrendously naive thing for me to say :-)]

Perhaps my own concern about modern MPs is they often lack "real world" experience before working in politics - but that's a criticism I could make of both sides of the political spectrum.

[smoyer]

And on both sides of the Atlantic!

[PlzSnow]

Apparently because they're the "elites" or something.

Something something lizards something.

[lumberjack]

I think it has to do with risk for the most part.

Consider a middle aged non-partisan couple who are part of the middle income bracket. They are extremely risk averse. They do not want any drastic changes that could jeopardize their livelihood and their family. They vote for the incumbent except when the incumbent has begun abusing their position of power a bit too much and have been involved in too many blunders. Then they vote for the other solid option.

They know that the elite do not represent their interests but they also do not trust any newcomers to do a better job of keeping things more or less the same.

[davnicwil]

This is spot on, I think.

We should assess the properties of the current political system as emergent, not as some sort of top-down planned thing.

Life in Britain if you've got a decent salary and disposable income, have a stable marriage/family, have a stable job, have a mortgage or outright own a property, and have citizenship is pretty sweet. Meaningful political change for people in this situation might have a theoretical upside, at least in the abstract (you might want a fairer society, less poverty, less unemployment because you're a decent person and care about others) but it has a very personal, practical and massive potential downside.

Change for these people is indeed very risky. I don't have figures, but my impression is that a large slice of the regularly voting population are in more or less this situation. They might want laws or policies in one or two of the areas changed or tweaked, but not enough that they'd risk stability in the other areas. Besides, the main parties' policies are generally so averaged over what their votership want in the aggregate, that their manifesto matching precisely the tweaks you want (which bear in mind somebody else won't want, because it'll impact them negatively) is nigh on impossible, statistically speaking.

So, you end up with a stable political institution where change is disincentivised, and where the status quo has evolved its own culture and structure over decades, centuries even. That culture is that our 'elites', via a wonderful private education, the encouragement of parents, teachers, and other mentors, connections etc, end up in the profession of politics and end up doing quite well in it, because they've been trained and shaped for it pretty much their whole lives. It's the same reason why top software people were once 10 year old kids fiddling with computers and games and hacking in their bedroom. The current political elites probably at least had the concept and ideas of politics and leadership and power in mind at that age, even if they weren't actively being trained towards it at that young age.

Anyway my analysis is obviously very naive and a full one could fill several books, but regardless of the reasons, we shouldn't be surprised to see patterns emerge in a very stable system which resists change in the short term. The pattern in this case being that 'elites' rise to the top of the current system. We also shouldn't be surprised to see people accept this system, even despite its flaws, when it results in a pretty great quality of life for them, personally. Remember that the people worst affected by the things wrong with the political system are also those least likely to, or unable to, vote. This too is an emergent property of the system and is just a mathematical inevitability, however unfair it appears to be. If suddenly the tables flipped and everyone who previously voted stopped, and everyone who never voted started, the system too would flip on its head within the space of one or two election cycles. But that will obviously never happen.

It's true that every system we have was just invented by humans, nothing is written in stone and we don't have to run society the way we do. However it's also true that (assuming actual democracy exists) political systems generally emerge and then stabilise from the aggregate of what most people truly want. The problem with aggregates over populations is that they're incredibly difficult to change and can result in undesirable artefacts, but these are generally artefacts that are just palatable enough that they can just be ignored. Such as elites always being at the top of a government (regardless of party) that provides a stable, good life for most of the people that tend to vote.

[ZeroGravitas]

Well that's a delightful just-so story.

"Remember that the people worst affected by the things wrong with the political system are also those least likely to, or unable to, vote. This too is an emergent property of the system and is just a mathematical inevitability, however unfair it appears to be."

It's not emergent, the elites have fought to prevent democracy for a long, long time. See the Peterloo massacre for example, and the current conservative party is actively trying to disenfranchise voters by making it a hassle to register. This from a government with a "nudge" unit to take advantage of the power of defaults.

[tonyedgecombe]

"That culture is that our 'elites', via a wonderful private education, the encouragement of parents, teachers, and other mentors, connections etc, end up in the profession of politics and end up doing quite well in it"

Which is probably a positive thing, we should want the people running our government to come from the top of the pile even if the reason they are at the top is an unfair leg-up early in life.

[ZeroGravitas]

Between the royals and the unelected hereditary lords in parliament we have a serious problem with subserviency even before you get to elected MPs. It's mindboggling that it's not been sorted out yet.

[walshemj]

I remember one US senator joked that the house of lords was more democratic than the Senate - this was pre reform BTW.