As a prelude to a bit of election-related fun research, I’m compiling a list of the different attributes that we expect to see combined under the bonnet of the perfect MP.

Just for the avoidance of doubt, I don’t expect any candidate to fit firmly into any of these categories – I’m going to be looking to see what different attributes we are expecting from them.

Once I’ve finalised the list, I’m going to do a ‘constant value’ survey on this blog – giving you all a fixed number of ‘tokens’ to spread around the different character-types. It would be interesting to see what voters want from their politicians – and I may repeat the exercise with local councillors at a later date.

Please note: This list / descriptions are rich in prejudice (mine). If you can come up with a better list, counter-proposals, better descriptions, etc, let me know in the comments?

Now, are there any that I’ve missed so far?

• The judge – a learned and experienced civic leader, hearing different arguments from constituents, weighing them and reaching a decision that everyone has to accept most of the time. Wouldn’t expect to take sides and would expect to refer constituents to the Citizens Advice Bureau: “It’s my job to make the laws – show me if they’re not fair and I’ll try to change them – but I’m not your social worker”
• The juror – an everyperson who has to be studiously fair-minded. A juror has  to be free of any personal interest in a case and should step aside if this is not the case. They expect evidence to be presented to them, then they then reach a decision based upon their own informal framework of fairness rather than a rigid and mechanistic application of the law. We don’t have high expectations of them as individuals, but in groups, we are reasonably confident of their ability to be wise and fair
• The people’s politician – sticking up for the silent majority – knows what people really think and will always stand up to the self-serving elites. Less interested in what metropolitan elites think and more in tune with the natural wisdom of the people who write to them. A good ear for popular discontent.
• The monk / nun – someone who is a (perhaps) improbable example of virtue to all of us. Hair-shirt types with a fairly inflexible and easy-to-understand morality. You can depend on them though….
• The entrepreneur - lively, adventurous, risk-taker. Careful – but not that careful. Good with figures and tight on spending. Creative and lateral-thinking, win-more-than-they-lose, expect hefty remuneration and like to be in charge.
• The entertainer – clever, witty, not over-ideological but a good conversationalist – likely to be generally even-handed and able to bring the best out in people. Trusted, mostly….
• Beacon of virtue – a successful high-profile individual who stands up against corruption rather than getting involved in ideological debates. Using their wealth and success in the public interest
• The includer – someone who goes out of their way to make sure that everyone has the chance to have their say – outgoing, open-minded and non-doctrinaire and terribly earnest
• The social worker – takes up cases of the less fortunate people who visit their surgeries. Lots of time spent on casework and letter-writing. Spends more time solving constituents problems than attending to high-flown matters of state up at Westminster.
• ‘Our scoundrel’ – on the logic that ‘if they don’t know how to look after themselves, they won’t be able to look out for us either’. This MP pulls the odd flanker to get a bigger budget for a local project and probably awards a few of the contracts to a few associates. But so what ? We got an a better MRI Scanner for our hospital than the jobsworth who represents the constituency up the road, didn’t we?
• Tub-thumper – not necessarily conventional views, but always worth listening to. Strong views – often controversial and provocative. Good at getting people talking and starting a debate. Fairly fixed in their views and hard to budge when they think they’re right
• Youth Club Manager – works long hours, keeps any eye out for the more vulnerable kids on the estate. Firm, fair and pragmatic. Probably  not a genius but not overly dogmatic either. This MP cares about others so that we don’t have to.
• Senior-serious-smart – a combination of the old-fashioned head teacher / bank manager /mandarin. A good chess /poker player. Knows how things are done and how to organise a department. Makes their own decisions because they know things that you don’t. Know that you don’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.
• The party activist knows that there is no ‘i’ in team and understands the need for consistency. Accepts collective decisions and sticks to them. Used to think that politics is about a clash of big ideas (and still does sometimes) but also knows it’s about striking a balance between principle and electability – after all, if you lose elections, all of your moral posturing is for the birds.
• The gamer – a problem solver. Very creative and lateral thinking. Doesn’t need paying much but a bit of social status would be nice. Takes lots of risks, fails a lot with serious consequences for all. But a good gamer can make a massive impact on a problem in the end by looking at things the way that others wouldn’t
• Think tank director – funny-shaped head and really irritating little square glasses. High level thinker, politically astute and business-savvy. Knows what works and is able to sell ideas. Knows how to create strategic paths to bring make gamechanging policies work.
• Community activist- someone who knows how to get things done at a street level. A bit nimby-ish but very keen on the local environment. Nose-in-everything, won’t-take-no-for-an-answer, personal-hygiene-not-a-priority, writing-a-bloody-letter-to-The Guardian, member of Greenpeace, heart-in-the-right-place-though and we’re glad there are a few like them around…
• Community warden – someone who goes around making sure that bureaucrats do their job. Finding examples of things that should be done but aren’t. This MP makes sure everyone knows their entitlements and responsibilities and a gallery of these can be seen on Glum Councillors.

If you click around the categories and tags (below) you’ll find more articles on this general subject ….. (it’s not a new one here)

The Man in the White Suit - the new Parliamentary uniform?

Do we really want politicians to be public paragons of virtue?

A good deal of what I read tends to work on the assumption that we do. Take this, for example:

“As technology evolves, the same public information laws create novel and in some cases previously unimaginable levels of transparency. In many cases, particularly those related to the conduct of top public officials, this seems to be a clearly good thing. In others, particularly those related to people who are not public figures, it may be more of a mixed blessing or even an outright problem. 

I’m reminded of the “candidates” of ancient Rome—the Latin word candidatus literally means “clothed in white robes,” which would-be officeholders wore to symbolize the purity and fitness for office they claimed to possess. By putting themselves up for public office, they invited their fellow citizens to hold them to higher standards.”

I mentioned this on another forum, and my friend, Chris, commented that the whiteness of the robes were also a status symbol. They said “look at me – I live in a nice part of town and I’ve got servants and slaves”

Either way, this worries me. There is something demagogic about displays of public virtue. It’s also something that comes at quite a high price. Jacqui Smith made herself look ridiculous claiming for a bathplug. If one of her politial rivals were, just for the sake of argument, the son of a Baronet with an estimated net worth of, say, £4m, I doubt if the temptation would be there in the first place. 

Then there is the question of the lifestyle of those who represent us. The French used to give civil servants a uniform and an official residence – they were the outward symbol of the state. I don’t think that we have a mood in the UK at the moment that would like to see the lush symbolic personal circumstances for those who represent us. 

Listening to some of the coverage of the MPs expenses debate, I’m not sure that many commentators would be prepared to pay for much more than a single bed in a dormitory.

Do we really want the kind of people who would thrive on transparency to be running the country? Or even local councils?

Ming: The unacceptable face of British politics? (pic: Click for Flickr attribution).

The Guardian’s Catherine Bennett is right to be worried about the impact that a climate of hypercommentary on personal tics will have on politics:

“With the internet demanding ever-improving performance skills from its principal actors, Westminster can only become less hospitable to people who look more like Menzies Campbell than Ant and Dec. Unless, that is, they can produce an official ugliness pardon from Simon Cowell and his authentic, travelling freakshow.”

But, if this is the case, what kind of elected representitives are we going to be prepared to tolerate in the future?

Over on the Personal Democracy Forum (which proudly declares that ‘technology is changing politics’), we see Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill explaining how Twitter helps her to keep it real:

“That’s really why I do it. I think it keeps me in the discipline of not being afraid to say things that may not be perfect, that may actually offend, that may actually truly reflect what I’m thinking and why.”

Senator McCaskill’s example strikes me as being very close to being a priestly ambition – someone who is constantly begging the civil variation on the question ‘What would Jesus do?’

On another tack, here’s something Neighbourhood blogger Kevin Harris has sent me about how a magistrate has lost his job because he has embraced the level of openness that Senator McCaskill appears to be urging upon us all.

It seems to me that we – the public – have become increasingly unclear about what kind of people that we want to represent us.

Do we want someone with the kind of contrived celebrity grooming that Catherine Bennett saw in Tony Blair? Are we prepared to make occassional exceptions for people who don’t present the full manicured package but who do offer an outstanding talent?

Perhaps the political equivalent this year is Vince Cable? After all, he combines a great facility with lots of clever (but slightly boring) stuff, but he’s no oil painting. Michael Foot was another case in point: Few parliamentarians were as admired – even by their opponents – as Foot was, but his personal appearance and manner really capped a disastrous political performance for Labour in 1983.

Perhaps we want someone who has the qualities we would look for in a good magistrate? Or perhaps a juror? Or do we want someone whose concience is constantly on parade?

We clearly want politicians to be more accountable to us for their actions, their thoughts, their decision-making processes, their daily interactions, their income and expenditure, and even their body language and personal grooming. It’s hard to escape the conclusion that Gordon Brown’s unpopularity is, at least in part, down to a failure to compete in a beauty contest.

I’d like to look at each of these components over the next few weeks and break each one of them down to see what the implications are for politics, democracy and the quality of governance that we can expect in a more interactive age.