Skip to main content

Science in Parliament

I have been searching around for details of the degree subjects of Members of Parliament.  Especially science degrees. Here are some resources:

The Social Background of MPs notes that about 75% of MPs have degrees, 25% have degrees from Oxbridge and about 33% went to private schools.

Dr Phillip Lee's Blog, Dr Lee is a conservative Member of Parliament who notes that whilst over half the Cabinet have philosophy, politics, economics and history degrees only 1 has a science degree (this member has now left).

To discover the exact answer I would need to be a registered member of a Westminster Parliamentary Record website.  Fortunately someone has already done this and found that of 617 Members of Parliament 27 have science or technology degrees.

So of the approximately 462 MPs who have degrees 6% have science degrees (If maths, engineering and medicine are included this figure is near 11%). Some 44% of all full time degree enrollments are in science subjects

There is obviously a process of attrition of scientifically trained people (I use the term "scientifically trained" because only half or less of those with science degrees become scientists). Only a seventh as many science trained people get selected to be MPs as non-scientists and those with science degrees are only a seventh as likely as their colleagues to get to Cabinet.  If such discrimination were occurring on the basis of skin colour or sex there would be a national scandal.

Part of the reason for the attrition of the scientifically trained should be obvious to anyone who has ever been involved in public service.  Scientists find it difficult to reject the truth.  This causes friction because it becomes impossible to trade off the false and absurd plans of one politician to buy progress for the false plans of another politician.

POLITICAL THOUGHTS click here to see the whole POLITICAL THOUGHTS magazine!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Practical Idealism by Richard Nicolaus Coudenhove-Kalergi

Coudenhove-Kalergi was a pioneer of European integration. He was the founder and President for 49 years of the Paneuropean Union. His parents were Heinrich von Coudenhove-Kalergi, an Austro-Hungarian diplomat, and Mitsuko Aoyama, the daughter of an oil merchant, antiques-dealer, and huge landowner family in Tokyo. His "Pan-Europa" was published in 1923 and contained a membership form for the Pan-Europa movement. Coudenhove-Kalergi's movement held its first Congress in Vienna in 1926. In 1927 the French Prime Minister, Aristide Briand was elected honorary president.  Personalities attending included: Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann and Sigmund Freud. Figures who later became central to founding the EU, such as Konrad Adenauer became members . His basic idea was that democracy was a transitional stage that leads to rule by a new aristocracy that is largely taken from the Jewish "master race" (Kalergi's terminology). His movement was reviled by Hitler and H

The Report on Racism

The " Report by the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities " has just been published.  The Commissioners were nearly all from BAME backgrounds and have produced a robust and fair Report. The Report identified a class divide in which the cycle of advantage maintains a section of the population in wealth and leaves the large bulk of the population in relative poverty.   The wealthy class is largely white British but the poorer class consists of large numbers of white British and other ethnic groups.  This class divide causes a bias in the crude statistics on disadvantage so that majority, poor white British are labelled as "white supremacists" etc. when it is the small wealthy class that actually creates the disparity that causes this analysis. The most striking finding is that different ethnic groups had very different experiences and outcomes.  Educational outcomes demonstrate this at a glance: Red text added for this article Most ethnic groups had better outcome

The Falklands have always been Argentine - Las Malvinas son Argentinas

"The Falklands have always been Argentine" is taught to every Argentine child as a matter of faith.  What was Argentina during the time when it "always" possessed Las Malvinas?  In this article I will trace the history of Argentina in the context of its physical and political relationship with "Las Malvinas", the Falkland Islands.  The Argentine claim to the Falkland Islands dates from a brief episode in 1831-32 so it is like Canada claiming the USA despite two centuries of separate development. This might sound like ancient history but Argentina has gone to war for this ancient claim so the following article is well worth reading. For a summary of the legal case see: Las Malvinas: The Legal Case Argentina traces its origins to Spanish South America when it was part of the Viceroyalty of the Rio del Plata.  The Falklands lay off the Viceroyalty of Peru, controlled by the Captain General of Chile.  In 1810 the Falklands were far from the geographical b