The People We Elect

We need higher quality candidates, with better guidance and stronger accountability

There’s a lot of talk at the moment about Britain’s national resilience. Can our economy withstand shocks from Donald Trump’s tariffs? Is our critical national infrastructure sufficiently protected against Putin’s cyber attacks? Do we have the right size and type of military to meet our obligations in the event Nato triggers Article 5? These are important questions. But there’s one issue that underpins them all and it’s virtually invisible in that debate: The quality of the people we elect to govern us and the way we hold them to account.

As regular readers will know, public trust in politics has plummeted in recent years. Four in five Britons are now dissatisfied with how the country is being run. From questionable candidates and unprepared representatives to unreliable oversight and a disengaged public, the weaknesses in our political system are undermining its ability to support those wider objectives. How we address these issues will determine whether our democracy can bounce back and whether our country can fulfil it’s future potential. As many of us prepare to vote in this week’s local elections, I want to run through the four key issues behind a healthier politics (local and national): Who runs for office? What skills and experience do they have? Who holds them accountable? And how do we, the public, talk to each other about what our representatives are doing to serve us?

Who Runs? The Candidate Pipeline

Democracy is only as resilient as the candidates who stand for office. Yet the pipeline of who runs for election often seems worryingly narrow – and, as we’ve seen in recent days, poorly vetted. Consider the recent Reform UK fiasco: on 18 April 2024, Reform UK dismissed three local candidates after dubious past social‑media posts surfaced. Those posts included Holocaust denial and calls for violence against migrants. But it gets worse. One individual, who made statements about Hitler, Assad and Putin that were at best extremely unwise, was later given the job of overseeing the vetting of Reform candidates for the upcoming local elections - a glaring demonstration of systemic and moral failure.

Beyond these extreme cases, there is a broader issue of representation. Who gets to run for office - and who actually makes it into Parliament - is often a long way from reflecting the public at large. A study by IPPR found that just 7% of MPs come from working‑class occupations, compared with 34% of working‑age adults. Alarmingly, only around 1% of Conservative MPs entered Parliament from such backgrounds. This “representation gap” means our legislature skews toward professionals and career politicians, with voices of nurses, factory workers and qualified tradespeople largely absent. As Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner remarked, arriving in Westminster was “like going into Hogwarts” – a world dominated by privilege.

Encouragingly, parties are starting to broaden access: measures include bursaries for aspiring candidates of modest means and targeted recruitment drives in underrepresented communities. Yet progress remains slow. Strengthening the candidate pipeline, through widening the talent pool AND carrying out robust vetting, must be the first step to fortifying our democracy’s foundations.

What Skills? Training for Office

Finding good candidates is only half the battle. Once elected, we need to make sure our politicians have the skills and experience to govern effectively. Unlike most careers, there is no formal qualification required to become an MP, no mandatory training on the science/art of scrutinising proposed legislation, of understanding the system-wide implications of a budget, or even of how to manage the high volume of often complex constituent casework they must get through.

Since 2010, the House of Commons has offered a basic induction: a “welcome week” covering Commons procedures, expected behavioural standards and the support services that are available…along with an optional buddy system that pairs new MPs with veterans. However, this programme has been inconsistent, and post‑2015 it was scaled back to on‑demand modules. Moreover, the elections of 2017 and 2019 demonstrated that such a system, with all the planning it requires, is incompatible with snap, or short-notice, elections. We could and should do much better.

This gap has not gone unnoticed. Former Prime Minister Theresa May described better MP induction as “crucial to improving and sustaining democracy.” The Commons Standards Committee has called for expanded training, particularly on ethics and lobbying rules. Outside organisations like the Institute for Government now run support workshops in parliamentary basics. These initiatives recognise that expecting MPs to learn complex governance tasks on the job jeopardises effective decision‑making.

Other professions, such as medicine or engineering, would never deploy untrained newcomers at the sharpest point of the sharp end of their sectors. By contrast, our MPs are expected to tackle issues as mindbogglingly complex as AI regulation, climate‑adaptation funding and bioethics with general knowledge alone. A structured training framework available to all those running for office - and mandatory for those securing it - might bolster the competence of our elected representatives and, by extension, our national resilience.

Who Watches? Ensuring Accountability

Even well‑trained elected officials can falter, and some candidates slip through who should never have been elected. This raises the important question: Who watches those we elect? Robust accountability catches misconduct and maintains public trust, yet recent events reveal how easily oversight can fail.

The above mentioned Reform UK cases are alarming enough, but perhaps the most egregious recent case study was in the United States - former Congressman, George Santos. Elected in November 2022 on the back of a fabricated biography and fraudulent campaign finance claims, Santos remained in office until expelled by the US House in December 2023. He pleaded guilty in July 2024 and last week received an 87‑month prison sentence for wire fraud and identity theft. The inexplicable delay between exposure and accountability demonstrates why there is little public faith in political vetting and enforcement of basic standards of propriety.

Britain’s Recall of MPs Act 2015 provides a model for constituents to remove misbehaving representatives between general elections. The first successful petition under this Act was in my local city, Peterborough, in May 2019, when voters ousted Fiona Onasanya after her brief imprisonment following her conviction for perverting the course of justice. Nearly 28% of her constituents signed the petition, well above the threshold required to kick her out. Another successful recall occurred on 1 August 2023, when Margaret Ferrier was unseated for breaching Covid‑19 regulations. These recalls demonstrate that voters can, and will, hold MPs to account when given the means.

Surrounding this statutory process, there are various layers of oversight that - while far from perfect - can be effective…the standards commissioner, independent inquiries, a free press, vocal public campaigns and the ballot box itself. In 2021, it was elements of this more nebulous system that came together to force the government to abandon its grotesque plan to shield Owen Paterson from suspension for lobbying breaches (a scandal that ultimately led to his resignation in disgrace).

To safeguard our democracy, all these mechanisms must be defended, strengthened and renewed in light of the evolving behaviour of our politicians and those who seek to influence them. When accountability falters, public cynicism and instability flourish…and national resilience is undermined.

Where and How We Talk to Each Other: Reviving Political Engagement

Greater accountability depends on an engaged citizenry…and this raises the final question: Where do we talk about politics, and who gets heard? A resilient democracy needs spaces for informed and reasoned debate among members of the public, yet the environments where this can take place are few and far between these days.

Membership of political parties has collapsed from millions in the 1950s to just 1% of the electorate today, weakening local activism and reducing informal policy discussion. Political parties no longer serve as broad civic forums but often as exclusive clubs, ruthlessly administered by a small clique of technocrats. Meanwhile, much of the public discourse has migrated online, where social‑media algorithms reward outrage over nuance, and misinformation can spread unchecked.

Some innovations offer a flavour of a way forward. Citizens’ assemblies have delivered thoughtful, consensus‑driven recommendations. Community town halls have brought together people with diverse perspectives. And digital platforms designed for structured dialogue, rather than viral soundbites, have shown that it’s possible to foster constructive engagement. When 79% of Britons express dissatisfaction with government performance, it is crucial that we find more ways to channel that frustration into meaningful participation.

So Where Now?

The need - and appetite - for more measured, low-temperature public interaction is clear. The form that should take, less so. I think it’s fair to say it will need to be a mixture of in-person and online. It might involve the political parties re-energising their local party branches. Perhaps better‑funded public forums at council level. And maybe the development of safe, moderated online platforms that prioritise evidence and respect. Whichever direction we take, we MUST start bridging the gap between voters and their representatives if we are to strengthen the trust essential for effective collective action.

I hope that, by the time of the 2029 General Election, we can see substantial progress in all four areas. That is an ambitious but achievable objective. Ultimately, democracy’s strength lies in the calibre of its people - those who stand for election, those who guide them, and those who keep them honest and focussed. By investing in selection, preparation, oversight and engagement now, we lay the groundwork for a Britain that can both weather the current storms AND emerge stronger, ready to deal with even greater challenges that likely lie further down the road.