An overload of lawyers in the House of Commons. Oh for an Ernie Bevin!

I came across the letter below in the December 8th edition of The Week.  It comments on the fact that there appears to be an overload of lawyers and so called professional politicians in the House of Commons.

An overload of lawyers.

To The Times

At 15% in the Commons, and more in senior appointments, the legal profession is already over-represented in Parliament compared with other occupations.  Alongside the so-called professional politicians (Oxbridge PPE and not much else), lawyers have dominated cabinet positions disproportionately for far too long.  We need to attract a more diverse pool of talent, and boost the numbers of those who have had to concern themselves with profit and loss, investment decisions and people issues.  Perhaps with the pragmatism that comes from such experience, we could have headed off the shambles that we see in today’s politics.

Sir Christopher Coville, past chairman, Westland Helicopters.

The letter spurred me into doing a little research and I came up with the following facts.  Of the MPs elected in 2017 82% are graduates and 24% attended Oxford or Cambridge.  There were only 6 MPs whose occupations were described as “Manual”, another 6 were “Agricultural/Farmers” and only 4 were from the armed forces.*

Oh for a few patriots like Ernie Bevin!

*https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7483/CBP-7483.pdf