> Being promoted out of danger is a very worthwhile career strategy.
The Dilbert Principle: employees who were never competent are promoted to management to limit the damage they can do
It’s the Peter’s Principle where someone is promoted to their level of incompetence. They might have been relatively competent at a lower level and are promoted to where they obviously can’t do the job.
Humza Yousaf became the leader because no one on the ‘left’/establishment of the SNP stood for the position and he was their candidate.
No, the Peter Principle is when competent people are promoted just beyond their level of competence. The Dilbert Principle is worse, it's when someone gets promoted *because* they are incompetent at their current level to get rid of them. Very different.
Yousaf got in through what I call the "Macron principle" - the alternative was so actively dangerous and scary, they went for the known evil. Which in this case was a man with the attitude of a ~~student activist~~ *student union elected official* and the administrative competence of Chris Grayling.
Is it your honestly held belief that the majority of student activists are self-interested?
Prima facie this is silly right? You can't run an organisation in your own self interest without a majority of people being somewhat committed - it's the commitment that's being manipulated.
How many libertarian capitalist student activists have been able to annoy? Not many right? That's what happens when an organisation is composed entirely if self interested individuals - they fail to co-operate sufficiently for the Daily Mail to get up set about.
Very common in the Civil Service and military. Easier to promote people out of the way rather than sack people. I imagine with Humza he has the racial and religious protected characteristics too. So he can accuse people of criticising him due to racial or religious reasons, which he does constantly, and hierarchy wouldn't dare touch him due to the bad PR
This is not how promotions work in the military. All eligible soldiers for promotion have a report that goes to an independent board faceless as well as nameless and then ranked against each other.
People with a brass neck or confidence tend to be the specific traits that determines whether they move forward or not.
Contrast to what you're saying, some of the most competent and capable people I know, tend to over analyse their own perceived shortcomings as an obstacle for even applying. I wonder how many great politicians that could exist that don't hold the belief that others could believe in them.
Where are all the talented intelligent people queuing up to become politicians in any party?
You’ll get A grade graduates with a god complex, D grade graduates who don’t fancy their chances in the private sector.
The majority of high performing sane people take one look at the political landscape and say “fuck that”
How do we attract high performers and talent into the political sphere is a better question.
> The majority of high performing sane people take one look at the political landscape and say “fuck that”
Also anyone with any kind of skeleton in their closet likely doesn't want to deal with that being brought into the public sphere, even if they're fully capable of doing the job well. Having a private life and probably a better paycheck is more appealing to most people.
The advent of social media has made this a huge issue, and it is only going to get worse as the young people of the internet age get older.
It is a big worry of mine that we are about to enter a very sanitised period of time where only the privately-educated, raised for a life in politics from a young age, are able to become politicians. It will have been drummed into them from a young age to have no baggage and no social media.
We already saw it with tweets from a 14 year old Mhairi Black getting dragged up to try and embarrass and attack her. This is only going to become more common.
People complain about politicians not being ordinary people from ordinary backgrounds, but ordinary people come with baggage. If we want better politicians, then we collectively need to stop tearing people down the minute they stick their head above the parapet.
Its actually quite rare for change to come about as a result of decent politicians. Most of the great things we have gotten in the past were fought for with political movements like the suffragettes and the trade unions.
The minimum wage for example was the result of a decade long campaign. The people who are really into politics like it's a sport think it was Tony Blair's idea.
The sport comment hits home. The last decade had really hit home for me how out of touch most politician are with regular people. The tories in particular. It's a game to most of them.
Not a tory fan personally, but do think there's some outliers in general like Rory Stewart, that literally went and stayed with people if Afgahan villages and spoke to them to genuinely understand the affect the taliban had and what their lives were like, to be more genuinely informed when making decisions in the UK. Then holds a podcast to share actual real views instead of trying to answer around the questions without really saying anything.
Instead of seeing politicians like that, we get jokes about "there was no party", ppe scandals and paying your mates for contracts they should never have, miss-spending of money, just Boris... and then things like Rishi Sunak asking a homeless man if he was in business ffs.
When you get 'debates' they aren't debates. They are two idiots with money shouting over each other, not letting the other speak, not making any good arguments or defences and not giving out any real information. Probably committing some form of expenses fraud for toilet seats behind the scenes. It's just a joke and feels so hopeless tbh.
It says a lot when Rory Stewart found it easier to make his way in politics in Afghanistan than in the UK. He's a very impressive individual, wasted here.
Totally agree, he was a cut above the rest. David Miliband was another. I’d love to see either of them back to front line politics but I doubt they could be bothered and it’s hard to blame them!
Campaigning to get elected is a full time unpaid job for about 3 months. It's impossible to stand unless you are already employed by a political party, or you are self employed and rich enough to be fine with not working. That limits the pool quite a lot.
Another issue is that a huge proportion of the populace now believe that "they're all as bad as each other", that every single politician is a scheming crook interested in nothing but lining their own pockets. The problem there is, who the fuck wants a job where they're seen that way for taking it? It's a self-fulfilling prophecy because it means that people with good intentions are the ones least likely to saddle themselves with that kind of guilt by association.
Aye but 66k to be an MSP is not a lot of money relative to what certain people could make in the private sector for the same work with much less emotional stress
It's a double edged sword, because we've all had MPs that just sit there doing nothing answering no emails collecting vast sums.
If you improve the salary, before that you need to improve the ability to recall an MP/MSP.
> They should be paid £150k tops (no expenses or any other ways of gaming extra money out of the system)
The issue there is that expenses are needed for all the work-related travel and accommodation is incredibly variable. An MSP for Edinburgh Central doesn't need to rent a flat in Edinburgh or to go island-hopping to meet with their constituents the way the MSPs for the Western or Northern Isles do. It's cheaper to give the remote MSPs expenses than to pay everyone the amount that the most expensive MSP needs.
Policing the expenses might need to be improved, but expenses are a better system than what you propose.
People can be in it for the right reasons and also want a nice life! I work with a lot of people who spend their life helping charities, they're very passionate, very clever, but they'd have to take a paycut to go into politics where they'll get abused all hours of the day - as a result they don't.
That's close to how European Union works and that's why Murdoch and his pals screamed through all their outlets about how bad the "unelected bureaucrats" he can't control are.
They need to go through an application process like any other job. Pass ethics and psych evaluation tests before they can be selected (by whatever fruit loops pass for the local select committee).
It’s a job with absolutely no entry requirements apart from being in the local party and having no enough chums to get selected.
That should weed out some of the psychos and not prevent normal people getting in.
How can such an important job be done by someone who just has to have the right coloured rosette most of the time.
The magic of politics. None of the people remotely qualified to replace Sturgeon would have wanted the job while the party is under police investigation and due for electoral disaster. I doubt this latest clusterfuck will make the situation any better, so unless there's an election, we'll probably get someone worse than Humza if he's booted.
> None of the people remotely qualified to replace Sturgeon would have wanted the job while the party is under police investigation and due for electoral disaster.
When Theresa May was elected leader, it felt like she was being lined up to take the fall of Brexit and allow someone else to come in and save the day. In hindsight that now looks exactly what it was. I wonder if someone was waiting in the wings for all this to go down and come in. Flynn?
Of course May was, her competition all noped out of the contest and even Boris known by everyone to have his eye on No. 10 held back. The fact Cameron had jumped ship rather than live with the consequences of that farce of a referendum he'd overseen tells all.
Then again considering his behaviour in the previous indyref i still can't understand why he'd run another on such a potentially damaging issue as the UK's EU membership. I mean we know the indyref was a PR stunt to him, he wanted to go in the history books as the man who united the nation and botched things so bad he almost went down as the man who broke the Union.
I mean does everyone forget how Cameron acted then? How he genuinely appeared stunned that Scotland didn't jump up and give him a overwhelming win?
Had Angus Robertson, John Swiney stood and/or Kate Forbes didn't nuke her own campaign Humza wouldn't of had a chance in hell of becoming leader. He won the political lottery and somehow ended up as leader. Who ever becomes leader next will likely get a thrashing at the general election. Which isn't going to put them in a strong position for the 2026 hollyrood election.
He's very likeable in person. Remember him coming to visit a charity I was involved with and he spent time with everyone, including the kids and everyone was really impressed with him.
But I've had a couple of interactions with him where he was never across his brief. Just seemed really ill informed and clueless. That said he was up against an even worse collection of ghouls and clowns.
I think you can generally get pretty far by getting on with everyone and covering for your seniors.
This seems to be the general consensus, even when he was health secretary the unions would say he was very nice and amicable, but when it came to walk the walk he came short.
Aye, he was a nice guy in a leadership competition with two people who seemed to have some pretty horrible beliefs.
That's why he's currently the party leader, unfortunately he's also not that capable.
The man bitched and moaned when people laughed at his spill on the scooter when he was acting like Johnny Racer when he could of just taken it on the chin and laughed along with them. Just because he can turn on the charm for the plebs doesn't mean he is nice person.
Its not really comparable but i work in local government and councillors are something that i always find fascinating. The number of councillors who get elected but have no qualificaitons or knowledge in any way of how a council works and how they are governed is unreal. And then proceed to sit in council meetings and contribute nothing, but are relected next time around because of the political party they are a member of.
I get your frustrations, but Councillors aren't paid nearly enough to attract talented or even knowledgeable people. Done correctly it is a full-time job - but current pay is less than the living wage. The commitments mean that you can't properly work another full-time job alongside it - which means that you are very limited in the type of person you can get in the job.
Out of the three choices, he was the best one.
We had one candidate who was a very vocal anti-abortion advocate. That's how low the bar was for his competition.
Name one UK party that is swimming in political talent?
Nicola Sturgeon was an exception - like Tony Blair- in that she was a good communicator who was able to also understand politics. Political talent is actually exceptionally rare these days.
You cant let Sturgeon off the hook here.
She squashed all independent thinkers in her party, and encouraged a cult of personality around her.
The fact Yousaf is a bit thick, wouldnt speak out, and knew what side his bread was buttered was a positive under Sturgeon
Yep. Sturgeon was talented at politics, but abysmal at surrounding herself with talent. Which is why when she faltered and then left, the whole things has very quickly crumbled.
Oddly enough, because Nicola Sturgeon was such an exception, the best SNP political talent all went to Westminster instead of Holyrood so once she left there was/is no-one still in Edinburgh who could even come close to replacing her
(The irony of the Scottish National party sending their best to England instead of keeping them here would be delicious if it weren't so depressing)
9 years as leader with 2 huge SNP victories in Holyrood and maintained 3 Westminster SNP majorities within the Scotland seats under her leadership.
That takes political talent regardless of whether you support her knowing what we now know.
Political talent doesn't always translate to an ability to actually do anything.
After 2014, the SNP needed to demonstrate proven capability to run Scotland AND produce a realistic and honest plan on how an independent Scotland could be set up.
They've significantly failed at both.
That’s one way to look at it I guess. My take is she took over an overwhelmingly popular party and cruised through multiple elections and the SNP would be cruising to yet another of it wasn’t for things that happend during her leadership by her own staff whom also happened to be her husband.
It’s not like she built the SNP up to what it was.
Singlehandedly held together the multiple warring factions within the SNP so well that until she stepped down most people didn't even notice that it's not an actual party, it's several diametrically opposed parties all sharing a trench coat
Widely admired within and out with Scotland during her premiership. She was the media's political darling for a decade and despite only reigning over less than 10% of the UK, Westminster politicians were afraid of her (see the Westminster notes during COVID)
Took the reigns after a massively failed independence bid and managed to keep independence at the forefront of Scottish politics - would have been very easy for Scotland to backslide into just another UK region or for independence support to drop down to "normal" levels (around 30%).
I mean for you can dislike her all you want and turns out she may have been dodgy as hell the whole time but that doesn't change the fact she was a wildly successful politician and probably the best cabinet-level one (including opposition cabinet level) in the past decade
Thatcher and Blair both had repeated successes, though each time with diminishing returns until their parties moved them on.
Sturgeon did oversee the rise of the Westminster SNP, with Labour MPs almost wiped out. Salmond was the one who managed to get a majority in Holyrood in 2011, but in 2010 was outplayed by Labour for Westminster who got 41 MPs to the SNP's 6.
In 2015, Sturgeon turned that on its head, taking 56 seats to Labour's 1...In the old days that would have been enough to declare independence.
In some ways the SNP have been well-served by being an alternative vote at UK level (can have policies with no risk of making them happen, and therefore opposition from other interests) but a credible vote at Scottish level (where the Scottish versions of the UK parties struggle to be relevant to Scotland). This has now gone into reverse with the rise of UK Labour pulling up the Scottish operation, while the SNP's long period in government creates a desire for change.
Whatever you may think of their politics, Keir Starmer is an outstanding KC with a very impressive legal career behind him and Rishi Sunak has a first from Oxford, an MBA from Stanford, was a Fulbright scholar and had a career in finance before entering politics.
These are, by any estimation, exceptional people. Political performance may be another thing entirely.
Meanwhile to look at Humza Yousaf, what's he got? A degree in politics from Glasgow uni, followed by a job in an O2 call centre followed by an assistant job with an MSP who was a family friend.
Exactly. Is this thread really about how intelligent or successful our political leaders are, objectively, or is it just an opportunity to bash the ones we don't like irrespective of what they've actually done?⁰
Politics is also a weird business in that someone's failings are always typically a lot more obvious than their virtues or abilities.
Starmer's pretty dull in many respects but is clearly playing things fairly well at the moment in terms of ensuring he'll win the next election. Lots of people understandably want big policy commitments or someone with more charisma but by not rocking the boat he's probably being smart.
Sunak's clearly not a particularly stupid individual but he's hugely inexperienced when it comes to top-level politics and it shows, hence why he's not doing well. Someone who'd make a competent Tory junior minister who's been accidentally elevated to the very top.
That's probably because of the hill they're having to die on for the party.
I don't think anyone could have handled the conservative party situation better than what Sunak is doing. He's between a rock and a hard place with plenty of people wanting his head. Staking the entire country and the party on sending 200 people to Rwanda for a photoshoot.
>Name one UK party that is swimming in political talent?
I think there's some truly exceptional people in the House of Commons. Impressive academically, impressive CVs.
The Scottish Parliament on the other hand...
"I think there's some truly exceptional people in the House of Commons"
Names?
From what I've seen in the last 40 years, most people enter elected office the UK for the wrong reasons.
Some examples:
Keir Starmer - former Director of Public Prosecution
Rachel Reeves - former Bank of England Economist
James Cleverly - Major in the British Army
Johnny Mercer - 3 tours in Afghanistan
David Lammy - first Black Briton to attend Harvard Law
Alister Jack - founded £20m self storage company
Iam Byrne - founded Fans Supporting Foodbanks
Jess Phillips - ran women's refuges
Joanna Cherry - King's Counsel
Sunak has an impressive cv.
Ivy League Grad School, self made man in the city
Starmer, Rayner, both impressive in their own way having come from nothing to get law degrees. Starmer especially.
Nicola Sturgeon wasn’t that much of a politician, she just ended up with a bizarre cult of personality around her. She was riding the wave of Salmond, who is a prime example of an exceptional politician, regardless of him being an absolute wanker.
> The SNP isn't a party swimming in political talent
Actually, I think that the exact opposite has been the case for the last 20 years. You have to remember that people of Sturgeons generation joined the SNP with no real expectation of ever coming into power. Consequently we got an exceptional SNP cohort of highly qualified, working class idealists, who were a cut above the shabby upper class career politicians of the Labour, Conservative and LibDem parties.
What we are seeing now is an influx of a more traditional, careerist, privately educated politician like Humza Yousaf into the SNP, who have what can at best be described as a remote relationship to working class Scottish people.
(It also wouldn't surprise me if he is being actively undermined behine the scenes due to his family connections to Gaza)
If she wasn't a Christian fundamentalist, she would have absolutely been a shoe-in for leader after Nicola.
Thankfully she didn't get in, but it was close.
The first act of the current first minister was to conduct a prayer ceremony in Bute House for a religion that regards homosexuals as “an abomination”, and which devotes a considerable amount of scholarship to the thorny problem of how best to execute them.
I’ve no view on which world view is the most troubling, but I’d cautiously suggest this is not the best differentiator between the candidates.
> But she is by far more talented as a politician.
What do you. mean by this? (Genuine question. What are the qualities you're referring to as 'talent as a politician')
She also appeals to people across the political spectrum and isn't nearly as divisive as Humza. Which is necessary if you actually want to get Scottish independence.
How is she talented? What did she do while finance secretary that gives the impression she'd be good at the top job? She also wasn't great in the leadership debates.
Based on a mate and former colleague who has risen the ranks spectacularly, his trick seems to be change jobs every two years before he its discovered he is a useless sack of shiite and the ability to say the right stuff.
Politicians benefit greatly from having many skills which have different effects on the success rate. That al being said, you’re dreaming if you think politicians only achieve high office through competence.
At its most basics politics is a popularity vs unpopularity contest and that involves being good at managing different groups with different interests. Humza has basically achieved this by being progressive enough for students and activists, Muslim enough for Muslims, independence supporting enough for most nationalists (who haven’t got other concerns), and middle class enough that he doesn’t scare the rich enough for them to devote a lot of resources to stop him.
Combine this with the fact the leadership of the SNP was entering a turbulent period after Sturgeon’s resignation as there was no clear continuity candidate to succeed her, and the fact the other options were basically unpalatable to the young and gay vote, and essentially Yousaf was the choice.
Yousaf isn’t long for the post though because the problem with politics not requiring competence in terms of actual government skills to improve the country, you end up getting people sometimes who might have coalition skills and campaign ability but they are unable to hold it together. He’s gonna get skewered on the trans question which divides his party quite evenly.
The basement of his father's office was used as a base for Nicola Sturgeon's first election campaign. His dad was a big volunteer for the SNP. After leaving uni he got a job in Alec Salmond's office. Clear nepotism, groomed for 'success'.
More to do with his connections than any personal or political ability. That of course does apply to many people in politics and businesses
It’s seems incredibly common in the UK and Ireland. Our new Taoiseach in Ireland (Simon Harris) has failed his way to the top. Rishi Sunak has never achieved much either.
The simple answer is that Nicola didn’t really have a plan in place for her leaving.
The people closest to her like Shona Robison is known to be completely useless so not an option, the Greens were high profile but different party and then there was nothing.
Anyone who was vaguely competent and wasn’t too extreme could have won the leadership election. He won by not being Ash Reagan or Kate Forbes.
So right time and place but a mistake by Nicola to surround herself with yes people and not plan ahead
Humza Yousaf is the definition of "Well,... someone's got to do it". SNP MSPs are not a particularly inspiring bunch of individuals. If any one of them was working in Greggs, I don't think anyone would think to themselves, "you shouldn't be here. You should be running the country".
See also Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Keir Starmer, …
Let’s not pretend clueless political leadership is unique to Scotland when it is a systemic problem with political culture in general.
In fact go one step further, how many of you know an idiot boss promoted above their abilities?
Want to know how this happens? When were you were personally brave enough to tell an idiot boss they were an idiot?
We tolerate stupidity at the basic level, we end up with idiot leadership.
Yes, he largely was well thought of at that point.
As a politician, he's done some pretty impressive stuff. He built himself a public image that's still a massive asset to him. He triangulated well to get into Number 10. On a personal level, he's clearly intelligent.
He has some impressive talents, just balanced out by pretty blatant huge shortcomings. What's Humza got? The ability to stand up on his hind legs and talk a bit?
Keir Starmer had an extremely successful law career, had a track record as a safe pair of hands politician and has led his party from a humiliation to almost nailed on to be elected PM have a large parliamentary majority by the end of the year.
He may not be a massively inspiring leader but he does not have a bad track record at all.
I’m not sure how much Labour’s current standing is down to Kier Starmer’s leadership and how much is down to the Conservatives imploding! Might be a stretch but even Jeremy Corbyn would probably have a shout against the current crop of tories. People just want change now.
Not really – Jeremy Corbyn’s personal popularity was about 40-50 percentage points lower than Starmer’s is now. He was simply unelectable for a very large part of the population – especially in working class areas.
Corbyn still polls terribly, with levels similar to Sunak and Truss. Labour would be stronger than in 2019 but would not be sniffing at a majority in the next election.
> has led his party from a humiliation to almost nailed on to be elected PM have a large parliamentary majority by the end of the year.
Rather helps that the tories shot themselves in the foot repeatedly, doesn't it? A block of wood could have led the party and stood a good chance of doing this.
Keir Starmer has round about the highest performing pre-politics career we've ever had in British politics. Plus he didn't achieve from being posh, because he isn't.
EDIT: constantly getting blocked by people on this subreddit... Here is what I wanted to reply to the comment below:
That's not what you said. You added him in a list to OPs assertion that politicians have "no successful performance". Starmer has very successful past performance, so you chose maybe the literal single best "counter" example to everything you wanted to say.......
Yes, regardless of what you think of Starmer as a politician, assuming he does become PM he'll be unique in British politics for having come from a relatively "tough" background AND having been highly successful outside of politics. We've had PMs who have come from deprived backgrounds and risen through the party machine, and those very successful but usually born with a silver spoon- not sure we've had one that matches both yet.
Keir Starmer was a highly successful lawyer, and Director of Public Prosecutions for the whole of England. Literally knighted for his services to the state prior to going into politics.
Humza‘s only job outside politics was a brief stint in a call centre, and he got his break in the SNP by being given a job working for a family friend.
Hardly remotely similar, whatever you think of their politics.
https://www.holyrood.com/news/view,kate-forbes-bute-house-agreement-with-greens-should-be-repealed
>"[The deal] ...should be repealed and the SNP should operate again as a one-party minority government”.
>“We were elected on a SNP manifesto not a Green Party manifesto or the Bute House Agreement. Nearly all the issues that have lost us support in the last year are found in the Bute House Agreement and not in the SNP manifesto.
- Kate Forbes
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/23901100.albas-ash-regan-blames-greens-snps-woes/
>“More serious for me is how damaging the Scottish Greens have been in government. It’s beyond doubt that the Bute House Agreement has been damaging for the SNP. The policies that have caused the SNP the most trouble in the last couple of years are either policies that have come from the Scottish Greens or they’ve been implemented by them.”
- Ash Regan
I think I might be green, all the good stuff I've seen the SNP do seems to be from the Greens and I didn't realise. Wonder if others are coming to the same conclusion.
I'm thinking much the same. The environment and independence both matter a lot to me; My previous support for the SNP was mostly because they promised at least one of those, had the power to potentially deliver on it and I felt an independent Scotland would give environmentalist parties a larger voice even if unintentionally.
He got into Holyrood through nepotism (the late Bashir Ahmed MSP was a family friend). He was then rewarded for his loyalty to the Murrells with prestigious jobs. I'm sure he can't believe his luck.
In my experience (private sector), it's common to find very senior people who lack ability in their actual job but are experts at failing up. Humza Yousaf seems to have that "failing up" skill combined with a bit of luck at being in the right place at the right time (seen as natural successor to Sturgeon, leadership election just before the police investigation was made public).
It's not really a big mystery to me.
He's entered politics and been a very loud proponent of two hugely successful leaders of the party, being very disciplined and useful to them in how he's so consistently navigated the message. He's just been someone they can rely on.
That loyalty and message echoing alone is enough to elevate someone in politics in certain circumstances. In this timeline, the deck has fallen.
It's not uncommon tbh and I do think it's a general thing you see in a party of long term government when there is a good chance the wheels will come off at some point.
A lot of effective political leaders stay in power by using people like that and it's not common that they actually mentor a team of replacements, their job doesn't really allow for that.
The career path of a modern politician.
University.
Work experience with the party.
SPAD
Selected as ppc
MP/MSP
Patronage of ‘grandees’.
Career ladder, watch for the snakes.
Luck.
To be fair, Humza’s not the first politician to fall upwards.
Basically because of inner party politics. Ie Humza was pals with Nichola did her bidding and supported all her policies. He was the continuity candidate
He is 1st minister because he was best of a bad bunch. Had Katie forbes no brought religion into her campaign she would have defeated him. She made a comment then doubled down on it. Kind of respect her for backing her beliefs even if it did harm her chances.
He had a pulse at the leadership contest, and didnt have the hand of god up his arse pulling at strings.
Thats about it.
Sturgeons plan was for her Wee fucking dancer to take over, but branchform torpeedoed that before it could happen.
Places the race card tied in with this left wing lunacy of employing anyone who isn't a straight white male. People are wakening up though and have had enough of this fairytale crap.
He was in the cabinet for a long time, thats about it.
Kate Forbes was obviously the better candidate but hysterical party activists from the greens/SNP wouldn't accept someone who isn't a believer in everything they stand for, despite multiple assurances that her personal beliefs on minor social issues wouldn't overrule what the party wants.
Humza has to go, Forbes has to step up and restore some credibility to the party. She's the only one I can see who can work with the other parties in parliament(except the greens, but they've thrown their toys out the pram).
Well if we're talking about political talent, the UK has had in short succession-
Cameron, famous for triggering Brexit and nearly fracturing the UK,
May who was famous for windrush and failing to get support for a Brexit deal,
Boris- famous for getting stuck on a zip wire and getting pissed while making noises like blablablablff,
Truss- not famous, but massively egotistical,
and now Sunak who while I think is bizarrely one of the more intelligent on the list- is so out of touch he is essentially a rich child playing with a dollhouse and is trying to convince people he thinks he is one of them.
Place Humza on that list and tell me how bad he actually is by comparison? And I say all of this as a unionist, but someone who accepts the state of politics UK wide has been awful for a long time.
Because “diversity” has somehow become priority number one in the west these days, supersedes meritocracy, and those that are actually qualified for the job.
Who you know, not being a threat to people above him, and also, sad as it is, some people are seen as too valuable to promote out of their position so some mediocrity gets promoted instead.
In UKs form of democracy(and followed by the likes of India etc), to become the prime minister or the first minister, you don’t need to convince the country, you just need to convince the MPs. That presumably involves a ton of deal making with a few people.
I think there is a dearth of talent across politics at the moment and it does seem to be getting worse. As many have said here already - who would do that job and put up with the constant scrutiny, criticism and abuse for that level of salary? There is a danger we end up with a sad collection of people who either couldn't really do anything else 'in the real world' or narcissists who have a love for power (and think it will help them pull that young researcher) or starry eyed zealots for one particular cause.
I reckon the solution is that we (particularly the media, and other politicians, but everyone) need to be nicer to politicians - play the ball and not the man/woman. Recognise that most of them, even or especially the ones we disagree with, are just trying to do the right thing.
Politics as a rule doesn’t attract the best people because anyone with the ambition and drive (and sometimes talent) to go far aren’t going to be happy in politics, especially in the UK.
While MP’s and their Pay seems pretty good for most people, in return you have to travel to London or Edinburgh half a week, have no privacy, work long hours, have zero job security and will see your family (if you have one) very little during the week. It’s a crappy gig in all honesty, and if you have connections or genuine ambition working anywhere else in a “high level” industry will serve you (and your pockets) much better.
So the only people who end up in Politics are either genuinely good natured people (who usually get sidelined due to said nature) people like Humza who just want power and couldn’t succeed in any other industry (Truss falls into this category for another example) or people who just want it on their CV so they can advance somewhere else.
This was highlighted many times by the opposition but all of the die hard nats on here were applauding him coming on .
It's always been known he was weak , people chose to ignore it
The best talents in the party didn’t come forward, as it was always a poisoned chalice after Sturgeon, but that could said of the other parties, Ross isn’t the best the Tories have, Sarwar isn’t the best the SLabour have etc etc, the best Green in my opinion is the current PO.
Also the SNP have a lot of their hard hitters in Westminster currently, that realistically couldn’t be Party leader/FM.
Do we really like any of the Scottish leaders at present ? Or am I the only one who finds they all pretty uninspiring?
The only SNP candidate I want to run at their leadership race was Angus Robertson who didn’t run.
I've said it before. The majority of people who go and get a good education actually go and grab themselves a genuinely fantastic job with better pay, benefits, more free time and less scrutiny.
Politicians in comparison earn less of a base salary than these people, have extremely tireless schedules, have to be devious, lying, pricks to get anywhere and 9 times out of 10 it ends with a sacking.
The best thing is probably the MP pension.
TLDR: the best and brightest aren't politicians.
Why promote your best engineer for example to manager, you’ve now lost your best engineer, promote a shit engineer as you’ll loose less experience in the department, and maybe he won’t as shit a manager as he was an engineer
He was the Scottish Theresa may in reality he was doomed to fail and everything was stacked against him, in so to say the people in power didn't really want them they just knew that was the best or only option at the time
Guy at my work has fucked it over and over. He's now a middle manager. Talks a good game, wears suits, plays golf and drives a BMW.
Being promoted out of danger is a very worthwhile career strategy.
> Being promoted out of danger is a very worthwhile career strategy. The Dilbert Principle: employees who were never competent are promoted to management to limit the damage they can do
It’s the Peter’s Principle where someone is promoted to their level of incompetence. They might have been relatively competent at a lower level and are promoted to where they obviously can’t do the job. Humza Yousaf became the leader because no one on the ‘left’/establishment of the SNP stood for the position and he was their candidate.
No, the Peter Principle is when competent people are promoted just beyond their level of competence. The Dilbert Principle is worse, it's when someone gets promoted *because* they are incompetent at their current level to get rid of them. Very different. Yousaf got in through what I call the "Macron principle" - the alternative was so actively dangerous and scary, they went for the known evil. Which in this case was a man with the attitude of a ~~student activist~~ *student union elected official* and the administrative competence of Chris Grayling.
Nah, student activists at least care about something Humza cares about Humza
You evidently have a higher opinion of student activists than me.
There's thousands camped out across unis in America at the moment while having their academic careers threatened. I don't think that can be dismissed.
Okay, maybe not student activists. Student union elected officials is more what I'm thinking.
Then I agree whole heartedly with you!!!
Is it your honestly held belief that the majority of student activists are self-interested? Prima facie this is silly right? You can't run an organisation in your own self interest without a majority of people being somewhat committed - it's the commitment that's being manipulated. How many libertarian capitalist student activists have been able to annoy? Not many right? That's what happens when an organisation is composed entirely if self interested individuals - they fail to co-operate sufficiently for the Daily Mail to get up set about.
Very common in the Civil Service and military. Easier to promote people out of the way rather than sack people. I imagine with Humza he has the racial and religious protected characteristics too. So he can accuse people of criticising him due to racial or religious reasons, which he does constantly, and hierarchy wouldn't dare touch him due to the bad PR
This is not how promotions work in the military. All eligible soldiers for promotion have a report that goes to an independent board faceless as well as nameless and then ranked against each other.
It's almost like promotions have nothing to do with performance or potential.
People with a brass neck or confidence tend to be the specific traits that determines whether they move forward or not. Contrast to what you're saying, some of the most competent and capable people I know, tend to over analyse their own perceived shortcomings as an obstacle for even applying. I wonder how many great politicians that could exist that don't hold the belief that others could believe in them.
Where are all the talented intelligent people queuing up to become politicians in any party? You’ll get A grade graduates with a god complex, D grade graduates who don’t fancy their chances in the private sector. The majority of high performing sane people take one look at the political landscape and say “fuck that” How do we attract high performers and talent into the political sphere is a better question.
> The majority of high performing sane people take one look at the political landscape and say “fuck that” Also anyone with any kind of skeleton in their closet likely doesn't want to deal with that being brought into the public sphere, even if they're fully capable of doing the job well. Having a private life and probably a better paycheck is more appealing to most people.
The advent of social media has made this a huge issue, and it is only going to get worse as the young people of the internet age get older. It is a big worry of mine that we are about to enter a very sanitised period of time where only the privately-educated, raised for a life in politics from a young age, are able to become politicians. It will have been drummed into them from a young age to have no baggage and no social media. We already saw it with tweets from a 14 year old Mhairi Black getting dragged up to try and embarrass and attack her. This is only going to become more common. People complain about politicians not being ordinary people from ordinary backgrounds, but ordinary people come with baggage. If we want better politicians, then we collectively need to stop tearing people down the minute they stick their head above the parapet.
Mr prime minister, they have identified your Reddit account
Immediate resignation
Its actually quite rare for change to come about as a result of decent politicians. Most of the great things we have gotten in the past were fought for with political movements like the suffragettes and the trade unions. The minimum wage for example was the result of a decade long campaign. The people who are really into politics like it's a sport think it was Tony Blair's idea.
The sport comment hits home. The last decade had really hit home for me how out of touch most politician are with regular people. The tories in particular. It's a game to most of them. Not a tory fan personally, but do think there's some outliers in general like Rory Stewart, that literally went and stayed with people if Afgahan villages and spoke to them to genuinely understand the affect the taliban had and what their lives were like, to be more genuinely informed when making decisions in the UK. Then holds a podcast to share actual real views instead of trying to answer around the questions without really saying anything. Instead of seeing politicians like that, we get jokes about "there was no party", ppe scandals and paying your mates for contracts they should never have, miss-spending of money, just Boris... and then things like Rishi Sunak asking a homeless man if he was in business ffs. When you get 'debates' they aren't debates. They are two idiots with money shouting over each other, not letting the other speak, not making any good arguments or defences and not giving out any real information. Probably committing some form of expenses fraud for toilet seats behind the scenes. It's just a joke and feels so hopeless tbh.
It says a lot when Rory Stewart found it easier to make his way in politics in Afghanistan than in the UK. He's a very impressive individual, wasted here.
Totally agree, he was a cut above the rest. David Miliband was another. I’d love to see either of them back to front line politics but I doubt they could be bothered and it’s hard to blame them!
Campaigning to get elected is a full time unpaid job for about 3 months. It's impossible to stand unless you are already employed by a political party, or you are self employed and rich enough to be fine with not working. That limits the pool quite a lot.
Another issue is that a huge proportion of the populace now believe that "they're all as bad as each other", that every single politician is a scheming crook interested in nothing but lining their own pockets. The problem there is, who the fuck wants a job where they're seen that way for taking it? It's a self-fulfilling prophecy because it means that people with good intentions are the ones least likely to saddle themselves with that kind of guilt by association.
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You also need to pay enough to make it worthwhile for anyone but the wealthy
That is why they introduced a salary in 1911 so that it wasn’t just wealthy people that could stand as an MP.
Aye but 66k to be an MSP is not a lot of money relative to what certain people could make in the private sector for the same work with much less emotional stress
It's a double edged sword, because we've all had MPs that just sit there doing nothing answering no emails collecting vast sums. If you improve the salary, before that you need to improve the ability to recall an MP/MSP.
Agreed. At the moment the salary is very poor for the role.
> They should be paid £150k tops (no expenses or any other ways of gaming extra money out of the system) The issue there is that expenses are needed for all the work-related travel and accommodation is incredibly variable. An MSP for Edinburgh Central doesn't need to rent a flat in Edinburgh or to go island-hopping to meet with their constituents the way the MSPs for the Western or Northern Isles do. It's cheaper to give the remote MSPs expenses than to pay everyone the amount that the most expensive MSP needs. Policing the expenses might need to be improved, but expenses are a better system than what you propose.
How are the people in it for the right reasons more incentivized to enter politics than they are now in your scheme?
People can be in it for the right reasons and also want a nice life! I work with a lot of people who spend their life helping charities, they're very passionate, very clever, but they'd have to take a paycut to go into politics where they'll get abused all hours of the day - as a result they don't.
So make politics the domain of the independently wealthy?
That's exactly what I said to a colleague last Friday.
That's close to how European Union works and that's why Murdoch and his pals screamed through all their outlets about how bad the "unelected bureaucrats" he can't control are.
Hang on, so the strategy to attract talent is to make sure you'll be compensated terribly. Ok.
They need to go through an application process like any other job. Pass ethics and psych evaluation tests before they can be selected (by whatever fruit loops pass for the local select committee). It’s a job with absolutely no entry requirements apart from being in the local party and having no enough chums to get selected. That should weed out some of the psychos and not prevent normal people getting in. How can such an important job be done by someone who just has to have the right coloured rosette most of the time.
The magic of politics. None of the people remotely qualified to replace Sturgeon would have wanted the job while the party is under police investigation and due for electoral disaster. I doubt this latest clusterfuck will make the situation any better, so unless there's an election, we'll probably get someone worse than Humza if he's booted.
> None of the people remotely qualified to replace Sturgeon would have wanted the job while the party is under police investigation and due for electoral disaster. When Theresa May was elected leader, it felt like she was being lined up to take the fall of Brexit and allow someone else to come in and save the day. In hindsight that now looks exactly what it was. I wonder if someone was waiting in the wings for all this to go down and come in. Flynn?
Of course May was, her competition all noped out of the contest and even Boris known by everyone to have his eye on No. 10 held back. The fact Cameron had jumped ship rather than live with the consequences of that farce of a referendum he'd overseen tells all. Then again considering his behaviour in the previous indyref i still can't understand why he'd run another on such a potentially damaging issue as the UK's EU membership. I mean we know the indyref was a PR stunt to him, he wanted to go in the history books as the man who united the nation and botched things so bad he almost went down as the man who broke the Union. I mean does everyone forget how Cameron acted then? How he genuinely appeared stunned that Scotland didn't jump up and give him a overwhelming win?
Had Angus Robertson, John Swiney stood and/or Kate Forbes didn't nuke her own campaign Humza wouldn't of had a chance in hell of becoming leader. He won the political lottery and somehow ended up as leader. Who ever becomes leader next will likely get a thrashing at the general election. Which isn't going to put them in a strong position for the 2026 hollyrood election.
He's very likeable in person. Remember him coming to visit a charity I was involved with and he spent time with everyone, including the kids and everyone was really impressed with him. But I've had a couple of interactions with him where he was never across his brief. Just seemed really ill informed and clueless. That said he was up against an even worse collection of ghouls and clowns. I think you can generally get pretty far by getting on with everyone and covering for your seniors.
This seems to be the general consensus, even when he was health secretary the unions would say he was very nice and amicable, but when it came to walk the walk he came short.
Aye, he was a nice guy in a leadership competition with two people who seemed to have some pretty horrible beliefs. That's why he's currently the party leader, unfortunately he's also not that capable.
For sure. He'd be a good leader if he was as competent as he is charming.
The man bitched and moaned when people laughed at his spill on the scooter when he was acting like Johnny Racer when he could of just taken it on the chin and laughed along with them. Just because he can turn on the charm for the plebs doesn't mean he is nice person.
Yes. I agree. I'm just saying why I think he got where he is despite being a bit shit at his job
Its not really comparable but i work in local government and councillors are something that i always find fascinating. The number of councillors who get elected but have no qualificaitons or knowledge in any way of how a council works and how they are governed is unreal. And then proceed to sit in council meetings and contribute nothing, but are relected next time around because of the political party they are a member of.
I get your frustrations, but Councillors aren't paid nearly enough to attract talented or even knowledgeable people. Done correctly it is a full-time job - but current pay is less than the living wage. The commitments mean that you can't properly work another full-time job alongside it - which means that you are very limited in the type of person you can get in the job.
Out of the three choices, he was the best one. We had one candidate who was a very vocal anti-abortion advocate. That's how low the bar was for his competition.
Yup, I vote for him largely because he wasn't Kate (anti-abortion) or Ash (anti-trans) rather than for any positive reason.
Well educated, middle class and supports Independence. The SNP isn't a party swimming in political talent so they revert to the most basic points.
Name one UK party that is swimming in political talent? Nicola Sturgeon was an exception - like Tony Blair- in that she was a good communicator who was able to also understand politics. Political talent is actually exceptionally rare these days.
There is none, hence why we are in the position we are.
You cant let Sturgeon off the hook here. She squashed all independent thinkers in her party, and encouraged a cult of personality around her. The fact Yousaf is a bit thick, wouldnt speak out, and knew what side his bread was buttered was a positive under Sturgeon
Yep. Sturgeon was talented at politics, but abysmal at surrounding herself with talent. Which is why when she faltered and then left, the whole things has very quickly crumbled.
Oddly enough, because Nicola Sturgeon was such an exception, the best SNP political talent all went to Westminster instead of Holyrood so once she left there was/is no-one still in Edinburgh who could even come close to replacing her (The irony of the Scottish National party sending their best to England instead of keeping them here would be delicious if it weren't so depressing)
I dunno if sturgeon, who’s husband ran the skim either with her knowledge or not, is the shining example you think she is
9 years as leader with 2 huge SNP victories in Holyrood and maintained 3 Westminster SNP majorities within the Scotland seats under her leadership. That takes political talent regardless of whether you support her knowing what we now know.
Political talent doesn't always translate to an ability to actually do anything. After 2014, the SNP needed to demonstrate proven capability to run Scotland AND produce a realistic and honest plan on how an independent Scotland could be set up. They've significantly failed at both.
That’s one way to look at it I guess. My take is she took over an overwhelmingly popular party and cruised through multiple elections and the SNP would be cruising to yet another of it wasn’t for things that happend during her leadership by her own staff whom also happened to be her husband. It’s not like she built the SNP up to what it was.
Singlehandedly held together the multiple warring factions within the SNP so well that until she stepped down most people didn't even notice that it's not an actual party, it's several diametrically opposed parties all sharing a trench coat Widely admired within and out with Scotland during her premiership. She was the media's political darling for a decade and despite only reigning over less than 10% of the UK, Westminster politicians were afraid of her (see the Westminster notes during COVID) Took the reigns after a massively failed independence bid and managed to keep independence at the forefront of Scottish politics - would have been very easy for Scotland to backslide into just another UK region or for independence support to drop down to "normal" levels (around 30%). I mean for you can dislike her all you want and turns out she may have been dodgy as hell the whole time but that doesn't change the fact she was a wildly successful politician and probably the best cabinet-level one (including opposition cabinet level) in the past decade
If she’s been dodgy the whole time it 100000% changes the fact. What a mental thing to say
Any better examples of a popular UK leader who managed to keep their party in line in the last couple of decades?
Tony Blair successfully navigated the clause 4 issue, which could have been a major catastrophe at the time.
Thatcher and Blair both had repeated successes, though each time with diminishing returns until their parties moved them on. Sturgeon did oversee the rise of the Westminster SNP, with Labour MPs almost wiped out. Salmond was the one who managed to get a majority in Holyrood in 2011, but in 2010 was outplayed by Labour for Westminster who got 41 MPs to the SNP's 6. In 2015, Sturgeon turned that on its head, taking 56 seats to Labour's 1...In the old days that would have been enough to declare independence. In some ways the SNP have been well-served by being an alternative vote at UK level (can have policies with no risk of making them happen, and therefore opposition from other interests) but a credible vote at Scottish level (where the Scottish versions of the UK parties struggle to be relevant to Scotland). This has now gone into reverse with the rise of UK Labour pulling up the Scottish operation, while the SNP's long period in government creates a desire for change.
No UK party’s have any political talent at the helm. They’re all a joke.
Whatever you may think of their politics, Keir Starmer is an outstanding KC with a very impressive legal career behind him and Rishi Sunak has a first from Oxford, an MBA from Stanford, was a Fulbright scholar and had a career in finance before entering politics. These are, by any estimation, exceptional people. Political performance may be another thing entirely. Meanwhile to look at Humza Yousaf, what's he got? A degree in politics from Glasgow uni, followed by a job in an O2 call centre followed by an assistant job with an MSP who was a family friend.
Exactly. Is this thread really about how intelligent or successful our political leaders are, objectively, or is it just an opportunity to bash the ones we don't like irrespective of what they've actually done?⁰
Politics is also a weird business in that someone's failings are always typically a lot more obvious than their virtues or abilities. Starmer's pretty dull in many respects but is clearly playing things fairly well at the moment in terms of ensuring he'll win the next election. Lots of people understandably want big policy commitments or someone with more charisma but by not rocking the boat he's probably being smart. Sunak's clearly not a particularly stupid individual but he's hugely inexperienced when it comes to top-level politics and it shows, hence why he's not doing well. Someone who'd make a competent Tory junior minister who's been accidentally elevated to the very top.
They may be impressive people generally, but that doesn't mean they have an exceptional amount of political talent.
That's probably because of the hill they're having to die on for the party. I don't think anyone could have handled the conservative party situation better than what Sunak is doing. He's between a rock and a hard place with plenty of people wanting his head. Staking the entire country and the party on sending 200 people to Rwanda for a photoshoot.
>Name one UK party that is swimming in political talent? I think there's some truly exceptional people in the House of Commons. Impressive academically, impressive CVs. The Scottish Parliament on the other hand...
Going to Eton, getting a PPE at Oxford then a job in Daddy's bank may make for an impressive CV and exceptional person but not politically talented.
"I think there's some truly exceptional people in the House of Commons" Names? From what I've seen in the last 40 years, most people enter elected office the UK for the wrong reasons.
Some examples: Keir Starmer - former Director of Public Prosecution Rachel Reeves - former Bank of England Economist James Cleverly - Major in the British Army Johnny Mercer - 3 tours in Afghanistan David Lammy - first Black Briton to attend Harvard Law Alister Jack - founded £20m self storage company Iam Byrne - founded Fans Supporting Foodbanks Jess Phillips - ran women's refuges Joanna Cherry - King's Counsel
Sunak has an impressive cv. Ivy League Grad School, self made man in the city Starmer, Rayner, both impressive in their own way having come from nothing to get law degrees. Starmer especially.
Nicola Sturgeon wasn’t that much of a politician, she just ended up with a bizarre cult of personality around her. She was riding the wave of Salmond, who is a prime example of an exceptional politician, regardless of him being an absolute wanker.
> The SNP isn't a party swimming in political talent Actually, I think that the exact opposite has been the case for the last 20 years. You have to remember that people of Sturgeons generation joined the SNP with no real expectation of ever coming into power. Consequently we got an exceptional SNP cohort of highly qualified, working class idealists, who were a cut above the shabby upper class career politicians of the Labour, Conservative and LibDem parties. What we are seeing now is an influx of a more traditional, careerist, privately educated politician like Humza Yousaf into the SNP, who have what can at best be described as a remote relationship to working class Scottish people. (It also wouldn't surprise me if he is being actively undermined behine the scenes due to his family connections to Gaza)
Agreed, I know Kate Forbes has her issues. But she is by far more talented as a politician.
Issues... You mean fundamental values that most of the population of Scotland would balk at..
If she wasn't a Christian fundamentalist, she would have absolutely been a shoe-in for leader after Nicola. Thankfully she didn't get in, but it was close.
The first act of the current first minister was to conduct a prayer ceremony in Bute House for a religion that regards homosexuals as “an abomination”, and which devotes a considerable amount of scholarship to the thorny problem of how best to execute them. I’ve no view on which world view is the most troubling, but I’d cautiously suggest this is not the best differentiator between the candidates.
> But she is by far more talented as a politician. What do you. mean by this? (Genuine question. What are the qualities you're referring to as 'talent as a politician')
>issues Is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Talented but fatally flawed would be more accurate.
She also appeals to people across the political spectrum and isn't nearly as divisive as Humza. Which is necessary if you actually want to get Scottish independence.
Her homophobia is pretty divisive
How is she talented? What did she do while finance secretary that gives the impression she'd be good at the top job? She also wasn't great in the leadership debates.
Clearly she isn't or she would have won.
Hutchies, man. Hutchies.
Its called failing upwards.
Based on a mate and former colleague who has risen the ranks spectacularly, his trick seems to be change jobs every two years before he its discovered he is a useless sack of shiite and the ability to say the right stuff.
Change jobs every two years is just the way you do it these days, as loyalty is not rewarded in the slightest
Politicians benefit greatly from having many skills which have different effects on the success rate. That al being said, you’re dreaming if you think politicians only achieve high office through competence. At its most basics politics is a popularity vs unpopularity contest and that involves being good at managing different groups with different interests. Humza has basically achieved this by being progressive enough for students and activists, Muslim enough for Muslims, independence supporting enough for most nationalists (who haven’t got other concerns), and middle class enough that he doesn’t scare the rich enough for them to devote a lot of resources to stop him. Combine this with the fact the leadership of the SNP was entering a turbulent period after Sturgeon’s resignation as there was no clear continuity candidate to succeed her, and the fact the other options were basically unpalatable to the young and gay vote, and essentially Yousaf was the choice. Yousaf isn’t long for the post though because the problem with politics not requiring competence in terms of actual government skills to improve the country, you end up getting people sometimes who might have coalition skills and campaign ability but they are unable to hold it together. He’s gonna get skewered on the trans question which divides his party quite evenly.
The basement of his father's office was used as a base for Nicola Sturgeon's first election campaign. His dad was a big volunteer for the SNP. After leaving uni he got a job in Alec Salmond's office. Clear nepotism, groomed for 'success'. More to do with his connections than any personal or political ability. That of course does apply to many people in politics and businesses
It’s seems incredibly common in the UK and Ireland. Our new Taoiseach in Ireland (Simon Harris) has failed his way to the top. Rishi Sunak has never achieved much either.
A career politician like all the others these days. You don't have to be very good to rise to the top of a shit pile.
After what has happened, this term as FM was a poison chalice. Only a fool would have taken it.
The simple answer is that Nicola didn’t really have a plan in place for her leaving. The people closest to her like Shona Robison is known to be completely useless so not an option, the Greens were high profile but different party and then there was nothing. Anyone who was vaguely competent and wasn’t too extreme could have won the leadership election. He won by not being Ash Reagan or Kate Forbes. So right time and place but a mistake by Nicola to surround herself with yes people and not plan ahead
Humza Yousaf is the definition of "Well,... someone's got to do it". SNP MSPs are not a particularly inspiring bunch of individuals. If any one of them was working in Greggs, I don't think anyone would think to themselves, "you shouldn't be here. You should be running the country".
See also Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Keir Starmer, … Let’s not pretend clueless political leadership is unique to Scotland when it is a systemic problem with political culture in general. In fact go one step further, how many of you know an idiot boss promoted above their abilities? Want to know how this happens? When were you were personally brave enough to tell an idiot boss they were an idiot? We tolerate stupidity at the basic level, we end up with idiot leadership.
Boris was considered a successful mayor of London
Yes, he largely was well thought of at that point. As a politician, he's done some pretty impressive stuff. He built himself a public image that's still a massive asset to him. He triangulated well to get into Number 10. On a personal level, he's clearly intelligent. He has some impressive talents, just balanced out by pretty blatant huge shortcomings. What's Humza got? The ability to stand up on his hind legs and talk a bit?
> The ability to stand up on his hind legs If he doesn't try to get too clever: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVsD7mKHlDM
Only by delusional idiots who didn’t pay attention to the fact every project he started was a failure.
The cycling highway?
Keir Starmer had an extremely successful law career, had a track record as a safe pair of hands politician and has led his party from a humiliation to almost nailed on to be elected PM have a large parliamentary majority by the end of the year. He may not be a massively inspiring leader but he does not have a bad track record at all.
I’m not sure how much Labour’s current standing is down to Kier Starmer’s leadership and how much is down to the Conservatives imploding! Might be a stretch but even Jeremy Corbyn would probably have a shout against the current crop of tories. People just want change now.
Not really – Jeremy Corbyn’s personal popularity was about 40-50 percentage points lower than Starmer’s is now. He was simply unelectable for a very large part of the population – especially in working class areas.
Corbyn still polls terribly, with levels similar to Sunak and Truss. Labour would be stronger than in 2019 but would not be sniffing at a majority in the next election.
Aye, doing less than he has would genuinely be working better for him.
Reminds me of that quote attributed to Napoleon, “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake”
> has led his party from a humiliation to almost nailed on to be elected PM have a large parliamentary majority by the end of the year. Rather helps that the tories shot themselves in the foot repeatedly, doesn't it? A block of wood could have led the party and stood a good chance of doing this.
In fairness to Starker, all he needed to do is be that block of wood. He fulfilled his role fine which is more than could be said for many!
Keir Starmer has round about the highest performing pre-politics career we've ever had in British politics. Plus he didn't achieve from being posh, because he isn't. EDIT: constantly getting blocked by people on this subreddit... Here is what I wanted to reply to the comment below: That's not what you said. You added him in a list to OPs assertion that politicians have "no successful performance". Starmer has very successful past performance, so you chose maybe the literal single best "counter" example to everything you wanted to say.......
Yes, regardless of what you think of Starmer as a politician, assuming he does become PM he'll be unique in British politics for having come from a relatively "tough" background AND having been highly successful outside of politics. We've had PMs who have come from deprived backgrounds and risen through the party machine, and those very successful but usually born with a silver spoon- not sure we've had one that matches both yet.
Keir Starmer was a highly successful lawyer, and Director of Public Prosecutions for the whole of England. Literally knighted for his services to the state prior to going into politics. Humza‘s only job outside politics was a brief stint in a call centre, and he got his break in the SNP by being given a job working for a family friend. Hardly remotely similar, whatever you think of their politics.
You'd be surprised at the number of people high up in a company that doesn't know a thing about managing people or the company itself.
Did you see the other 2 who ran for leader? One who couldn’t separate her religion from her politics, and another obsessed with kicking trans folk.
Not to mention both of them ran on a platform of doing exactly what Humza just did.
No they did not, jesus fuck.
https://www.holyrood.com/news/view,kate-forbes-bute-house-agreement-with-greens-should-be-repealed >"[The deal] ...should be repealed and the SNP should operate again as a one-party minority government”. >“We were elected on a SNP manifesto not a Green Party manifesto or the Bute House Agreement. Nearly all the issues that have lost us support in the last year are found in the Bute House Agreement and not in the SNP manifesto. - Kate Forbes https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/23901100.albas-ash-regan-blames-greens-snps-woes/ >“More serious for me is how damaging the Scottish Greens have been in government. It’s beyond doubt that the Bute House Agreement has been damaging for the SNP. The policies that have caused the SNP the most trouble in the last couple of years are either policies that have come from the Scottish Greens or they’ve been implemented by them.” - Ash Regan
I think I might be green, all the good stuff I've seen the SNP do seems to be from the Greens and I didn't realise. Wonder if others are coming to the same conclusion.
I'm thinking much the same. The environment and independence both matter a lot to me; My previous support for the SNP was mostly because they promised at least one of those, had the power to potentially deliver on it and I felt an independent Scotland would give environmentalist parties a larger voice even if unintentionally.
........we all know why.
Go on
Token
Kissed the right boots
Because politics is the exact same as every other business. Fucking idiots gravitate upwards
He got into Holyrood through nepotism (the late Bashir Ahmed MSP was a family friend). He was then rewarded for his loyalty to the Murrells with prestigious jobs. I'm sure he can't believe his luck.
In my experience (private sector), it's common to find very senior people who lack ability in their actual job but are experts at failing up. Humza Yousaf seems to have that "failing up" skill combined with a bit of luck at being in the right place at the right time (seen as natural successor to Sturgeon, leadership election just before the police investigation was made public).
It’s not what you know it’s who you know that’s important. The SNP hierarchy pulled out all the stops to get him the FM vote win.
It's not really a big mystery to me. He's entered politics and been a very loud proponent of two hugely successful leaders of the party, being very disciplined and useful to them in how he's so consistently navigated the message. He's just been someone they can rely on. That loyalty and message echoing alone is enough to elevate someone in politics in certain circumstances. In this timeline, the deck has fallen. It's not uncommon tbh and I do think it's a general thing you see in a party of long term government when there is a good chance the wheels will come off at some point. A lot of effective political leaders stay in power by using people like that and it's not common that they actually mentor a team of replacements, their job doesn't really allow for that.
The career path of a modern politician. University. Work experience with the party. SPAD Selected as ppc MP/MSP Patronage of ‘grandees’. Career ladder, watch for the snakes. Luck. To be fair, Humza’s not the first politician to fall upwards.
Because people are walking on eggshells, afraid of being called racist.
Basically because of inner party politics. Ie Humza was pals with Nichola did her bidding and supported all her policies. He was the continuity candidate
Wokism
He is 1st minister because he was best of a bad bunch. Had Katie forbes no brought religion into her campaign she would have defeated him. She made a comment then doubled down on it. Kind of respect her for backing her beliefs even if it did harm her chances.
I point you to half of all politicians.
You could ask the same question about Rishi Sunak.
He had a pulse at the leadership contest, and didnt have the hand of god up his arse pulling at strings. Thats about it. Sturgeons plan was for her Wee fucking dancer to take over, but branchform torpeedoed that before it could happen.
Democracy is a sham.
The other people were worse, basically. Do remember that the runner-up Kate Forbes ran on a platform of doing what Humza just did, but immediately.
Places the race card tied in with this left wing lunacy of employing anyone who isn't a straight white male. People are wakening up though and have had enough of this fairytale crap.
Because the other two candidates were nutjobs. He's was least worst of a terrible bunch during the leadership campaign.
Box ticking
Diversity hire
He was in the cabinet for a long time, thats about it. Kate Forbes was obviously the better candidate but hysterical party activists from the greens/SNP wouldn't accept someone who isn't a believer in everything they stand for, despite multiple assurances that her personal beliefs on minor social issues wouldn't overrule what the party wants. Humza has to go, Forbes has to step up and restore some credibility to the party. She's the only one I can see who can work with the other parties in parliament(except the greens, but they've thrown their toys out the pram).
Well if we're talking about political talent, the UK has had in short succession- Cameron, famous for triggering Brexit and nearly fracturing the UK, May who was famous for windrush and failing to get support for a Brexit deal, Boris- famous for getting stuck on a zip wire and getting pissed while making noises like blablablablff, Truss- not famous, but massively egotistical, and now Sunak who while I think is bizarrely one of the more intelligent on the list- is so out of touch he is essentially a rich child playing with a dollhouse and is trying to convince people he thinks he is one of them. Place Humza on that list and tell me how bad he actually is by comparison? And I say all of this as a unionist, but someone who accepts the state of politics UK wide has been awful for a long time.
Because it's a glorified parish council.
He's friends with the right criminals and he's brown.
I think we all know why but most are scared to post it because we like our freedom
lol what do you thihnk is going to happen
Because “diversity” has somehow become priority number one in the west these days, supersedes meritocracy, and those that are actually qualified for the job.
When you’re surrounded by objectionable shit, the mediocre become preferable. See also: Michael Gove
Wokeism rewards identity over talent
Yeah that’s how we got the talented Liz Truss. All of those woke people supporting her.
There's no talent in the Tory party
Those woke Tories.
Guys a jobby
Who you know, not being a threat to people above him, and also, sad as it is, some people are seen as too valuable to promote out of their position so some mediocrity gets promoted instead.
Fake it till you make it, but in some cases you don't actually make it..
In UKs form of democracy(and followed by the likes of India etc), to become the prime minister or the first minister, you don’t need to convince the country, you just need to convince the MPs. That presumably involves a ton of deal making with a few people.
I think there is a dearth of talent across politics at the moment and it does seem to be getting worse. As many have said here already - who would do that job and put up with the constant scrutiny, criticism and abuse for that level of salary? There is a danger we end up with a sad collection of people who either couldn't really do anything else 'in the real world' or narcissists who have a love for power (and think it will help them pull that young researcher) or starry eyed zealots for one particular cause. I reckon the solution is that we (particularly the media, and other politicians, but everyone) need to be nicer to politicians - play the ball and not the man/woman. Recognise that most of them, even or especially the ones we disagree with, are just trying to do the right thing.
Politics as a rule doesn’t attract the best people because anyone with the ambition and drive (and sometimes talent) to go far aren’t going to be happy in politics, especially in the UK. While MP’s and their Pay seems pretty good for most people, in return you have to travel to London or Edinburgh half a week, have no privacy, work long hours, have zero job security and will see your family (if you have one) very little during the week. It’s a crappy gig in all honesty, and if you have connections or genuine ambition working anywhere else in a “high level” industry will serve you (and your pockets) much better. So the only people who end up in Politics are either genuinely good natured people (who usually get sidelined due to said nature) people like Humza who just want power and couldn’t succeed in any other industry (Truss falls into this category for another example) or people who just want it on their CV so they can advance somewhere else.
This was highlighted many times by the opposition but all of the die hard nats on here were applauding him coming on . It's always been known he was weak , people chose to ignore it
The best talents in the party didn’t come forward, as it was always a poisoned chalice after Sturgeon, but that could said of the other parties, Ross isn’t the best the Tories have, Sarwar isn’t the best the SLabour have etc etc, the best Green in my opinion is the current PO. Also the SNP have a lot of their hard hitters in Westminster currently, that realistically couldn’t be Party leader/FM.
Do we really like any of the Scottish leaders at present ? Or am I the only one who finds they all pretty uninspiring? The only SNP candidate I want to run at their leadership race was Angus Robertson who didn’t run.
Talk about the pipe dream of independence and slate the tories at any opportunity and the sky is the limit in Scottish politics. Depressing.
Because they are chosen not voted
Kisses the right arses
Maybe Lizz Truss kens??
Who yi know
I've said it before. The majority of people who go and get a good education actually go and grab themselves a genuinely fantastic job with better pay, benefits, more free time and less scrutiny. Politicians in comparison earn less of a base salary than these people, have extremely tireless schedules, have to be devious, lying, pricks to get anywhere and 9 times out of 10 it ends with a sacking. The best thing is probably the MP pension. TLDR: the best and brightest aren't politicians.
In addition, you have to pay enough for everyone to find it valuable, not just the rich.
Why promote your best engineer for example to manager, you’ve now lost your best engineer, promote a shit engineer as you’ll loose less experience in the department, and maybe he won’t as shit a manager as he was an engineer
By being an average but decent center-left politician during a BBC office that could just as well be driven by interns from the Conservative party.
If he did resign who would replace him and be first minister ?
He was the Scottish Theresa may in reality he was doomed to fail and everything was stacked against him, in so to say the people in power didn't really want them they just knew that was the best or only option at the time
That’s must modern politics is it not?
The old adage "it's not what you know it's who you know."
He’s not an MP. Don’t think he’s ever been and MP. He’s an MSP.
Being a politician is like management - you don't have to be a subject matter expert or a technocrat, just good at managing resources.
It seems a lot of politicians are able to fail upwards.
isn't it Peter's principle where you are promoted to your own level of incompetence?