16
Jamie Pow
by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), data is now particularized
according to backgrounds in public relations, and as union officials. If
these are included as occupational backgrounds that are instrumental to
politics (as classified by Cairney 2012: 214), then an additional 7.2%
of MPs from the three main parties may be considered professionalized
politicians, bringing the total to 27.9%. At just 7% short of the overall
number of main-party MPs from the traditional professions, this figure is
worrying in its dominance in relation to other backgrounds.
However, candidature before entering Parliament must be considered
as a level of analysis to consider a broader picture of supply (Norris
& Lovenduski 1995: 2). Crucially, candidates with professional backgrounds in politics appear to be more successful in relation to other types
of candidate. Table 2 enables us to distinguish between success rates
of different occupational backgrounds; in other words, the percentage
of candidates from a particular occupation winning election to Parliament. These calculations reveal that despite a surprisingly negative trend
from 1997 to 2005, the politician/political organiser occupation still has
a consistently higher success ratio than most other backgrounds. Nearly