There is at least one Mormon in Britain’s new parliament, plus a black-belt karate expert, a female football coach and a man who set a world record for trekking into the Arctic with his mum. And that’s just the Tories.
In Labour’s ranks you will run into a fair share of Oxbridge graduates, a PhD in history and a former prison psychologist (who may come in handy if other MPs feel the pressure). You will be hard pushed to find a plumber or a bus driver when you need one, although two former bricklayers and a miner do feature among Labour’s intake. Nor is Motorway Man, the demographic supposed to swing the election, much in evidence. Only four of the new MPs — two Tories and two Labour — appear to have backgrounds in sales.
Ten years after Tony Blair and new Labour declared that “we’re all middle-class now”, the claim appears to be largely true — at least of the new House of Commons. Bankers, lawyers, career politicos and the ubiquitous “consultants” are to the fore. Across the political divides, the middle class has captured the legislature.
Several other trends can be discerned among the 233 new MPs trying to find their way around the 650-seat Commons.They are slightly younger than in 1997 when 256 new MPs were elected. Some 34% of the new MPs are aged 30-39, compared with 29% in 1997, and 41% are aged 40-49. Most noticeably, they are overwhelmingly male, especially the Conservatives. Overall the Commons will have 139 female MPs, 21% of the total, with 48 Tories, 78 Labour and seven Liberal Democrats.
Of the 233 new arrivals, 72 are women — just one more than in 1997 — including 36 Tories, 31 Labour and one Lib Dem.
Apart from being a man, to become an MP these days it also helps to have been educated at an independent school and Oxbridge. Although the proportion of independently schooled MPs has fallen since 1979 (when more than 70% of Tories came from private schools), that trend has reversed slightly in the past two elections.
According to an analysis by the Sutton Trust, an educational charity, 35% of MPs in the new parliament went to independent schools, even though such schools educate just 7% of all pupils. More than half of Tory MPs attended independent schools and 20 out of the party’s 306 MPs come from one institution — Eton.
Roughly 40% of Conservative MPs, 30% of Liberal Democrats and 20% of Labour MPs are Oxbridge graduates.
Sir Peter Lampl, chairman of the Sutton Trust, said: “These results show clearly that the educational profile of our representatives in the 2010 parliament does not reflect society at large.”
What the backgrounds of many new MPs do reflect is the ascendancy of the City and associated professions over the past decade. Compared with 1997, the proportion of new MPs coming from “financial services” has doubled to 10% and those from “consultancy” has tripled to 12%, according to an analysis by the Madano Partnership, a communications consultancy. In addition, MPs with backgrounds in business and law account for 27% of the intake, compared with 23% in 1997.
Exemplars of the breed include the Tories Harriet Baldwin, the MP for West Worcestershire, Richard Graham, MP for Gloucester, and Andrea Leadsom, MP for South Northamptonshire.
Baldwin went to Oxford, studied for an MBA in Canada and spent 20 years as an investment manager at JP Morgan. Graham also went to Oxford and is a former diplomat and merchant banker with Baring Asset Management. Leadsom went to Warwick University before working in finance and investment, including Barclays and Invesco Perpetual, for two decades.
Labour has its bankers, too, including Rachel Reeves, an Oxford graduate who worked for the Bank of England and Halifax Bank of Scotland.
Since reform of the financial sector is likely to be one of the most contentious issues for the coalition, the votes of such MPs could prove crucial.
Nor should you necessarily look to new MPs from ethnic minorities for diversity. Sam Gyimah, a prominent black Tory MP, went to Oxford and until 2003 worked for Goldman Sachs, the so-called vampire squid bank.
Another former businessman and banker is David Rutley, the new Tory MP for Macclesfield and a Mormon. Although he admits his religion influences his views, he believes what matters most is his mammon experience. “My job is to represent the people of Macclesfield,” he said. “What I found on the doorstep is that people were crying out for [an MP] with real world experience. I’ve got experience in business at Asda, Pepsico and Barclays at a senior level.”
The arrival of more former executives as MPs is welcome, he says: “I’m impressed by the number of people who have had jobs in the real world.”
For elemental experience it’s hard to beat Dan Byles, the new Tory MP for North Warwickshire. After Leeds University, he joined the army and served in Kosovo and Bosnia. In 1997 he and his mother, then 53, rowed across the Atlantic in 101 days. In 2007 they, and a third team-mate, skied 350 miles from Canada to the Magnetic North Pole. It took 20 days and Byles’s mother became the oldest woman to reach the North Pole on foot.
Also influential in the Commons will be numerous former lawyers, many of whom used to feed off City fees. Among them is Dominic Raab, the new Tory MP for Esher and Walton, who studied at Oxford and Cambridge before becoming a lawyer with Linklaters working on, among other things, “project finance”. Do not chop logic with him: he has represented Britain at karate.
For all their hard-nosed business experience, many new Tories are seen to be “socially liberal” and “pro localism” in a way that chimes with Lib Dem views; and many may want to give the coalition a chance to work rather than risk another election.
Nevertheless, Jonathan Isaby, co-editor of the ConservativeHome website, warns that MPs of all affiliations will be deeply concerned about plans for political reform.
“The big issue is that the coalition agreement states that they want to fight the next election on fewer constituencies,” said Isaby. “It was in the Tory manifesto and Nick Clegg has said he believes in that.
“If they go ahead with it, all the constituencies will have to be redrawn — which means there won’t be enough to go round. MPs are clearly going to be having their own personal future and interests in their minds.
“In terms of getting re-selected or selected for new constituencies, they are going to have a particular eye on what their local associations are thinking about what they are up to.”
In other words, MPs may give more thought to their own survival than to that of the coalition. “They may end up being more independent-minded than the whips’ office would like,” said Isaby. This is all the more likely because far more new MPs than before come from backgrounds that are primarily political: at least 20%, as against 13% in 1997.
Many are former councillors, union workers or advisers to MPs. John Glen, the new Tory MP for Salisbury, studied at Oxford and Cambridge before going to work as a parliamentary researcher. He has spent much of his working life as an adviser to William Hague, working in Conservative Cental Office and on the board of the Centre for Policy Studies, the Thatcherite think tank.
Tracy Crouch, Tory MP for Chatham and Aylesford, has worked for various MPs including Damian Green and David Davis — although she also found time to play football and is now a qualified coach.
At least five of the new Labour MPs are members of Unite, the union organising strikes at British Airways.
Family ties are also in evidence. Valerie Vaz, Labour MP for Walsall South, is the sister of Keith Vaz, the long-standing Labour MP for Leicester East. Shabana Mahmood, the new Labour MP for Birmingham Ladywood, is the daughter of the chairman of Birmingham Labour party.
Jack Dromey, the new Labour MP for Birmingham Erdington, is the husband of Harriet Harman, Labour’s deputy leader. Dromey takes over his constituency from Sion Simon, the former Labour MP. But Simon will not be completely out of the loop: his girlfriend Luciana Berger is the new Labour MP for Liverpool Wavertree.
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