So all three party leaders are now 40-something, male, Oxbridge graduates. Apart from the cut of their suits (and Ed’s likely to get a better tailor now) in demographic terms there’s not a lot to choose between them.
It’s not unusual for the three major party leaders to share a background at the Varsity: there were all-Oxbridge combinations of Eden, Macmillan, Hume or Heath / Gaitskell or Wilson / Grimond or Thorpe throughout much of the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s (perhaps it’s the ’80s, ’90s and ’00s that are the anomalous period with their crop of leaders who either didn’t go to university – Major and IDS – or were educated in Celtic lands – Steel, Smith, Kennedy, Campbell and Brown in Scotland, with Kinnock a Welsh ringer.)
What’s more distinctive is their age. As well as being a symptom of our society’s general preference for youth over experience, this is surely an aspect of the professionalisation of politics: if you want to make it you’ve got to apply yourself to the greasy pole early. Despite their relative youth, these three are all very experienced in the bag-carrying, think-tankery and lobbying of contemporary party politics.
However, what hasn’t been remarked upon – as far as I’m aware – is that all three party leaders, for the first time since at least the First World War, are all Londoners. All three are creatures of the contemporary metropolis…
All three have fathers whose careers were pursued mostly in London. All three were educated in London or its immediate neighbourhood (Cameron’s Eton, just like his Oxford, being an immediate neighbour of the clubs of St James, the embassy districts of West London and the counting houses of the City in every respect except the narrowly geographic). All have spent more time in London than anywhere else and have their homes in the capital.
What can we put this Londoncentricity down to? I guess the professionalisation of politics can be blamed again. If you’re going to be a professional politician on the national stage you need to be where the action is.
But I think, more profoundly, it’s a reflection of how London has become so overwhelmingly dominant in recent decades, culturally and commercially as well as politically. The rise of the service economy has benefitted the home of our media, advertising and financial sectors just as the decline of agriculture and heavy industry has been to the detriment of those places which they supported. Then, politically, there’s been the parallel neutering of local government.
London now houses a uniquely dense web of powerful connections. It’s difficult to imagine how any young politician could make it to the top without being in regular contact.
And it’s difficult to see London’s dominance diminishing. Despite the downturn, service industries with a strong bias towards the capital will continue to be the mainstay of the British economy. Devolution will help keep the Celtic talent at home. It’s difficult to see local government stirring itself to once again become the midwife of national politicians. Finally, the London property market presents a barrier to entry for aspiring provincial newcomers. Absent a large dollop of capital, the purchase of a pleasant, centrally-located family home requires an income greater than that an honest politician can command.
It’s something of a paradox that as regional and Celtic accents have proliferated across the airwaves, so the places that gave birth to them have become marginalised. It’s a bit pathetic really: a tip the metropolitans can afford to give to the provincials to help keep them happy (see also the abject tokenism of the BBC’s move of a couple of its departments to Salford – an emblematic and very entertaining farce that just keeps playing).
Whilst one wouldn’t want London to become poorer in any way, this does seem a sad state of affairs. It’s one more factor contributing to our national politics – and perhaps our nation’s cultural life too – becoming homogenised and boring.
Wander through the villages on the Kentucky side of the Appalachians and of some note will be the similarity of features among the natives, hmm one wonders, could it be….,now born again labour has the child at the helm the circle is closed, the similarities are remarkable, what goes on among the inner M25ers these days one wonders.
The aristocracy, whilst bonking their cousins or closer, at least had the excuse that it was the best way to retain the silver.
Hard to disagree with your analysis, Gaw.
What was interesting was the incredible fuss the BBC presenters made about being asked to move (with all expenses paid and a regular travel allowance) to the wilds of…Manchester. Surprised they’re not taking the Beeb to Brussels on a human rights violation.
For how many decades have people been forced to leave their families and pals to move to London because their employers demanded it, without the generous ‘settling in’ allowances? (‘Found myself in a Strange Town…’.)
How apt. I’ve just been discussing leader image with my Politics lower sixth. Snapshot judgements from youth, I know, however –
Ed – ‘creepy’, ‘dork’, ‘needs his tonsils sorting’
Nick – ‘creep’, ‘who?’
Dave – ‘good bloke’, ‘is he married?’
Malty, I suspect there’s some silver retention going on here in some shape or form…
Brit, I have some sympathy as it makes no sense whatsoever from a professional journalistic perspective. Getting guests on that breakfast sofa’s going to be tricky for a start.
Stephen, as most people don’t pay any attention to politics most of the time those snapshots are probably already the decisive judgements for the next election.
All I know is that they are all younger than me and thats not good. I haven’t decided what I want to do when I grow up yet and they are party leaders?
And the POTUS is too. Damned Americans at least used to know how to wait until they were senile.
A better example of what you talk about was last weeks research into the percentage of gay people in the UK.
And where do they gather, and does that give them an amplified voice of their numbers out of all proportion to reality? I think so.
Networks are everything, its not what you know its who you know in action, I suspect the flipside to this is the creation of the underclass.
When your boys leave home remember to send them off with a Rolodex. I have 5 and when I am out of the house they go in a safe.
@ Malty ”I suspect there’s some silver retention going on here…”
Would this explain the saucer-sized Ediband stare?
Sorry, I meant @Gaw.
Banished: It’s actually impossible now to imagine a septuagenarian becoming PM, and yet so many have been. There’s nothing left to aim for now…
Sean: As you of all people should know it’s because London’s the home of musical theatre.
Re the Rolodex, by the time my boys leave home they may have some quaint antique status but nothing else. And anyone breaking into your safe is going to be disappointed, aren’t they?
Ian: Dunno. But I do think the stare is more Mr Bean than Big, Bad Wolf, contrary to what the papers are suggesting.
Over at TofE we’ve come to the conclusion that Ed has a voice like a hearing-impaired man with a cold coming on and a mouthful of prawns.
Here’s a fine how do you do, apparently the bros Milliband were at the same junior school as Boris, in Camden of course, truly the children of the village of the dimmed.
Shell on?
Malty, there’s just the one degree of separation between all three of them and there probably would have been even if they hadn’t gone into politics.