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Jamie Pow
elected (Allen 2013). It is also revealing that one of the key arguments
put forward in favour of retaining an appointed House of Lords is to
help retain a degree of professional diversity in the chamber and avoid
yet further opportunities for career politicians to enter parliament (Reid
2012). Rife scepticism of the seeming predominance of the career politician career politician is not lost on former Prime Minister, Tony Blair
(cited in Rentoul 2013):
I advise any young person who wants to go into politics today: …
do anything that isn’t politics for at least several years. And then…
you will find you are so much better able to see the world and how it
functions properly.
The general implication is clear: if politicians do not have experience
in occupations beyond politics itself, they will have a deficient understanding of everyday issues. On the other hand, some scholars argue
that in countries such as Canada and Finland, elected representatives are
not professionalized enough in the ‘game’ of politics, resulting in too
many amateurish MPs being elected (Erickson 1997: 33; Helander 1997:
56). But a distinction can be made, however, between skills required for
effective governance and representation, and the perception of an excessive degree of influence of any one group (Norris 1997: 5).
Research so far, however, has been relatively patchy when it comes to offering a systematic quantitative analysis on the proportion of career politicians over time and at different levels. Cowley examined the profiles of
the three main party leaders in contrast to their predecessors (2012). He
notes that the main party leaders, David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed
Miliband, can all be described as ‘career politicians’. This is an unprecedented development attributable to a “two-track career path,” whereby
professionalized politicians have certain experiences that help accelerate
their promotion (Cowley 2012: 36). However, Cowley’s research does