Still Rising: The Career Politician in the British House of Commons, the
Cabinet and the Shadow Cabinet
politician in the most senior positions. Of the 33 members of the British
Cabinet, more than one in three has previous experience of professional
politics.
Again, we see noticeable differences between the profiles of each party’s
senior team (see Figure 4). Labour appears to have the greatest variety
in absolute occupational backgrounds in the Shadow Cabinet, while the
Liberal Democrats have the fewest. Those with experience in business
are disproportionately represented in Conservative and Liberal Democrat
positions in the Cabinet compared to the Commons as a whole (approximately one third against one quarter overall). However, what the three
parties share in common is that professionalised politicians dominate the
top tiers of positions. If we include the three ‘instrumental’ occupations
identified by Cairney (2012), then despite its relative diversity, more than
half of the current Shadow Cabinet has a professional background in
politics. Thus, all the three main parties have a significant presence of
career politicians, and this is exacerbated at senior level, most notably in
the Labour Party.
Conclusion
Overall, this piece of quantitative analysis has confirmed the trend towards a professionalisation of politics, with politicians and political organisers increasing as a proportion of the total number of MPs across the
three main parties. This has implications for political parties and political
scientists alike.
Political parties can respond to the continued rise of the career politician
at two levels. Firstly, parties should promote a more occupationally diverse range of candidates. This has been possible along other dimensions,
with Childs (2000: 69) attributing quotas in the Labour Party to boosted
female parliamentary representation in 1997. It would seem extremely
unrealistic to expect that parliamentary seats should be reserved accord-
21