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For all parliament's faults, it's still largely populated by well educated, intelligent individuals who are skilled orators and debaters. Even some of the most
by cameronh90 4y ago
For all parliament's faults, it's still largely populated by well educated, intelligent individuals who are skilled orators and debaters. Even some of the most awful parliamentarians would easily talk circles around me in any kind of debate.
For anyone not aware, a large number of our politicians come from a background at public schools such as Eton, and read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford. Institutions such as these place great significance on rhetoric and adversarial debate as a method of reaching consensus. Stephen Fry's address to Oxford is worth watching, where he discusses Oscar Wilde's quote about the Oxford manner being the ability to play gracefully with ideas.
One huge downside of this system is that our politicians are widely considered out of touch and unrepresentative. The role of public schools and Oxford PPE degrees in our political system is an area of active debate within society right now.
If you are ever interested in contemporary British politics, the podcast "The Rest Is Politics" is a great place to start.
- T-zex 4y agoDid you mean private schools? Public school education in the UK is quite problematic.
- brd529 4y agoIn England “public schools” are what they call elite privately run schools. Edit: interesting history on why: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_school_(United_Kingdom) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_school_(United_Kingdo... the schools “were "public" in the sense of being open to pupils irrespective of locality, denomination or paternal trade or profession.”
- smcl 4y agoNo "Public Schools" in the UK refers to a very specific subset of fee-paying schools mentioned in the Public Schools Act of 1868 (sometimes informally includes a couple of others). Private Schools are the other fee-paying schools. What a non-Brit might think of as "public" schools are actually called "state" schools in the UK
- frereubu 4y agoThe way I explain it to American friends is that any member of the public, if they have £45,000+ per year to spare, can send their son to Eton. Simple.
- ranko 4y agoOnly if the child in question is male.
- frereubu 4y agoFair point - fixed.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- SilasX 4y agoIs that really true though? Money is the only factor in admission? No entrance exams? No rejections for “families we don’t want to be associated with”? No special admittances for prestigious families that don’t get charged? If not, maybe that explanation isn’t a very helpful one.
- frereubu 4y agoWell, it was a joke, but to take an earnest question seriously, there are entrance exams, but they're not especially hard, particularly if you've been coached beforehand, as many of these kids will be. Theoretically no special cases, and "celebrity" would certainly be frowned on at Eton / Harrow - these are old-money families, not nouveau-riches.
- SilasX 4y agoI edited the comment — “celebrity” might be the wrong word, but I was thinking that they might care more about having a noble’s kid attend than the 45k, and, like you just implied, they’d reject nouveau-riches even if they had the money, especially if the riches came from a source that’s frowned upon. So it’s not a very good joke, as it implies that there aren’t any other filters, despite their intense concern for reputation.
- rich_sasha 4y agoIn UK "public school" means private school, generally old ones with traditions going back to British Empire, or subscribing to a similar ideology. Training the new elites, building character, connections etc. They do tend to be very good schools but raise issues about social mobility, elitism etc (they tend to be expensive).
- yomly 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_school_(United_Kingdom) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_school_(United_Kingdom) Nine prestigious schools were investigated by Clarendon (including Merchant Taylors' School and St. Paul's School) and seven subsequently reformed by the Act: Eton, Shrewsbury, Harrow, Winchester, Rugby, Westminster, and Charterhouse. Confusingly, "Public School" refers to the most elite (and very exclusive) schools in the UK
- andyjohnson0 4y ago> Did you mean private schools? Public school education in the UK is quite problematic. Ita confusing. In the uk, private schools are referred to as "public schools". The last person to know the reason for this died in 1764. Probably. Schools that the actual public go to are called "state schools" because they're funded by the state (and not by daddy's estate).
- zimpenfish 4y agoBack when I was a youngster, I was at a private school (council was paying for me) which was making a big deal about getting admitted to the Headmasters' Conference because that meant they could now refer to themselves as a public school. (Although that school isn't currently in the HC, presumably because it was run by Christian Brothers and one of the teachers has since been imprisoned for inappropriate behaviour with children.)
- pjc50 4y agoen-US "public school" is en-GB "state school".
- squidbeak 4y agoYou mean 'comprehensive'. But I'm curious, in what sense are British comprehensives 'problematic'?
- adamsmith143 4y agoA non-Brit telling Brits what their school system is like. Funny.
- biztos 4y ago> public schools such as Eton I always have to remind myself that an English "public school" is what most people call a private school. Per Wikipedia[0]: > "public" in the sense of being open to pupils irrespective of locality, denomination or paternal trade or profession. I emphatically agree that an emphasis on rhetoric will make smart people smarter. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_school_(United_Kingdom) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_school_(United_Kingdom)
- kergonath 4y agoIt’s the same “public” as in “public houses” (actually privately-owned premises) or “public companies” (publicly traded but still private interests). One more quirk of the English language.
- Macha 4y agoThe public in public houses presumably comes from the fact that they're open to the public to enter. There's obviously the implied need to buy something if you spend a length of time there, but compare to a private house (I.e. a residence) where the public does not by default have permission to enter.
- BerislavLopac 4y agoHistorically, pubs (which is short for "public house") originated as personal residences, whose owners (pub operators are still called "landlords") started creating income by making and selling food and beer to neighbours and strangers.
- rich_sasha 4y agoPublic schools originally were the opposite of private tutoring, and often were genuinely targeting poor children who couldn't afford a tutor. Hence why so many of them have a charity status.
- kergonath 4y agoIt’s the same thing in all cases: the meaning is in general “open to the general public”, often by opposition to what came before or what was the norm at the time (private schools, private salons, and unlisted companies respectively; in all cases you needed to get invited or accepted somehow and entry was restricted). The issue is that language drifted and now “public” generally means “owned by the public” rather than merely “open to the public”.
- AzzieElbab 4y agoI don’t know much about UK politics but why can’t you guys get Kemi Badenoch elected? She is younger and did not go to Oxford. Try something different. Maybe Oxford is overrated:)
- oakesm9 4y agoShe's on the right wing of the ring wing party in the UK, so she's likely not a good candidate for a general election where you need at least some centerist support. This is likely why Labour are doing well with Kier Starmer as he's palitable enough for modorate Tories to vote for.
- SideburnsOfDoom 4y agoit's worse than that, if you want to appeal to "the right wing of the ring wing party in the UK", then being either a woman or a person of colour is a disadvantage with that specific group of voters, more so than with the general UK voting public.
- pjc50 4y agoWhy? She's a Brexiteer running on an "anti-woke" platform, we need more serious people instead.
- brink 4y agoAre you implying woke is serious?
- cjrp 4y agoIf wokeness is the biggest problem a politician sees at the moment (which is the implication if that's the platform they're running on), then no - they are not serious.
- AzzieElbab 4y agoOf cause wokeness is the biggest issue because it causes paralysis of governance. No one can get anything done when non-issues or issues with no solutions are prioritised
- Der_Einzige 4y agoAnd yet Americans still mog, and I mean badly mog, British at actual competitive debate. This is true both in their inferior form of "British Parliamentery debate" as well as the various American styles, such as Lincoln Douglas, Policy, or Public Forum.
- alva 4y agoDefinitely. I mean check out some of the recent winners of the US National Debate Championships. https://youtu.be/fmO-ziHU_D8?t=34 https://youtu.be/fmO-ziHU_D8?t=34
- divtiwari 4y agoLol!!! Made my day:)
- claudiawerner 4y agoYou may be interested in this review of their arguments and the context for their style of debate, which was far more interesting after watching the video: https://www.salon.com/2014/05/13/%E2%80%9Ci_was_hurt%E2%80%9D_how_white_elite_racism_invaded_a_college_debate_championship/ https://www.salon.com/2014/05/13/%E2%80%9Ci_was_hurt%E2%80%9...
- Lio 4y agoI feel very old and very British watching that. I have no clue what they were saying. We truly are two peoples separated by a common language.
- lamontcg 4y agoHere's the American Debate Association's 2019 High School Championships: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqjHz9laqgU&t=368s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqjHz9laqgU&t=368s And debate between the Harvard Democrats and Republicans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYLcpQQCjLE&t=1655s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYLcpQQCjLE&t=1655s I've never seen or heard of a debate like the one in Peter Schiff's youtube channel there, and it is pretty obviously being shared on social media for emotional effect.
- mensetmanusman 4y agoThey still have low class diversity so they had no idea how to combat brexit rhetoric.
- addicted 4y agoAlmost all the major Brexit leaders were upper class publicly educated twits. (Johnson, Rees Mogg, Farage).
- pacaro 4y agoThe issue is the inability of the Remain leaders to speak to the population as a whole, especially those inclined to nativism
- ZeroGravitas 4y agoThey wouldn't need to if the upper class twits weren't allowed to just make stuff up. Part of the current crisis is the intra-party conflict between the "libertarian" faction that wants more immigration to boost the economy and the "nationalist" faction that wants to eliminate it to win easy votes. They got to have their cake and eat it for the last decade (people voted Brexit to both increase and to decrease immigration from India), but this caught up with them.
- addicted 4y agoThe UK government also has an excellent civil servant corps. In reality it’s the civil service, that continues across government, that keeps the UK govt running. The elected officials are limited to providing high level directions. One of the major mistakes made by Kwarteng as chancellor was firing an extremely senior civil servant which spooked not just the civil service but also the markets, because it indicated that elected officials would now be more active in running the business of government. That’s something no one really wants.
- whoooooo123 4y agoNo-one wants elected officials running the government? Then why do we elect them?
- _5uxp 4y agoSo with all information, they must be expert as a how to steal from common man in a more sophisticated way? I mean it just gets more advanced each decade. How they distract via what PM says or do, it is soo good that I admire now.
- w0de0 4y ago> it's still largely populated by well educated, intelligent individuals who are skilled orators and debaters. Real ill luck then to find the one educated fool who is skilled in obfuscatory rhetoric for the latest PM. Reassuring to know that the rest of parliament is filled with educated good intentions.
- brnt 4y ago> skilled orators and debaters. I don't think this is quite the benefit some think it is.
- smegger001 4y agoSocrates would agree with you on that. he thought rhetoric was a bad thing because it could be used to argue against reason and ethical good.
- 2-718-281-828 4y ago> who are skilled orators and debaters. Even some of the most awful parliamentarians would easily talk circles around me in any kind of debate. i'd consider that a bug not a feature
- claudiawerner 4y agoI've read some debates held between MPs in Hansard. I can't speak for any sizable portion, but what I did see on the topics I was interested in is a shockingly low form of discussion abound with fallacies, name-calling, and soliciting the opinions of unqualified individuals to inform the law. Sure, they may run circles around you or me when it comes to debating some aspects of policy. But not around someone who's invested time and energy into a specific topic, which I think ought to be the bar for whether we consider these people 'well educated' and 'intelligent' when they are running the country supposedly on my behalf(!).
- origin_path 4y agoThat varies a lot by party. I watched some debates during COVID to do with lockdowns. One stuck in my mind because it was to do with the accuracy of epidemiological modelling. On the conservative side you have several politicians who had actually been programmers before they went into politics, one who worked with implementing risk models at a betting firm. They had generally read the Ferguson/ICL papers and understood why they were deeply flawed, and could talk at length about the concrete technical problems that had undermined COVID modelling, both statistical and implementation wise. For example, one MP talked about a specific paper and why it was based on circular logic, others about the validation of the underlying assumptions. And of course they asked a lot of pointed questions about how such shoddy 'science' had been allowed to dominate the government, about how the quality of scientific advice could be improved. Concrete things that they'd already thought about a lot. Then the SNP and Labor MPs stood up. It was night and day. They were, primarily, angry that a debate was being held in the first place. Their entire spiel was "How dare the evil Tories criticize amazing SCIENTISTS who are only trying their best". One even cited the conclusions of the specific paper a Tory MP had just ripped to shreds 10 minutes earlier, apparently without realizing he was discussing the same research. None of them had any knowledge of the actual topic whatsoever. Their worldview went no deeper than: academics are brilliant, Tories are evil, why are we even wasting time debating this? This is ultimately the reason the conservatives have such long durations in government. The quality of MP they attract seems to be much higher overall. Yes they have lots of the Oxford PPE types but overall they're less angry, way more polite and analytical, and way more likely to have concrete skills obtained outside of politics. A good example of this problem for the left came up just a few days ago where a supposedly neutral Channel 4 presenter was caught on a hot mike calling Steve Baker a "cunt". Baker - a Tory MP and one of their former programmers - just politely brushed it off, clearly the better man. This sort of thing is routine in Labour circles and it puts voters off. Whilst some may rail against classism, ultimately most people want to see civilized debate between politicians who don't clearly want to kill each other.
- smugma 4y agoThe book “Chums” is about how UK politics is dominated by PPE majors from Oxford (and frequently Eton or similar before). In addition to being out of touch and classist, a main thesis of the book is that Oxonians learn “to write and speak for a living without much knowledge”. This worked well for England for hundreds of years but more recently has led to disaster where actual knowledge and expertise matter eg implications of Brexit, pandemic response, etc. Review: https://amp.theguardian.com/books/2022/may/01/chums-how-a-tiny-caste-of-oxford-tories-took-over-the-uk-by-simon-kuper-review https://amp.theguardian.com/books/2022/may/01/chums-how-a-ti...