The video below shows an economist doing a very good job of being, well, an economist (watch from 2'18").
He [why don't you write his name? - ed] does so well at being an economist - flummoxing even the great Paxman - that you forget he's trying to be a politician.
And therein is the crux of Vince Cable.
People love Saint Vince, don't they? He's the man who really knows what's going on in the economy. He's the sage who called the financial crisis before it happened. He's a real economist who has experience in the real world, having been the Chief Economist of Shell, no less.
And these things mean people think he would be ideal as Chancellor.
The thing is, we don't need another economist at the Treasury. The place is already full of them. What we want is someone with the political judgment to be the Chancellor. Indeed, I would argue that, as an economist, Cable brings a narrower perspective on economic issues than that post requires - seeing things through the prism of his own experience rather than taking a broad perspective across several schools of economic thought to come to his political judgment about an issue.
It's not the role of a Chancellor to know the most about economics. It's the role of a Chancellor to listen to and understand the advice they get and to make decisions based on both that advice and the other circumstances and context within which the decision needs to be made.
For the same reasons, I wouldn't want someone who had been a headteacher to be Education Secretary. I wouldn't want someone who had been a doctor to be Health Secretary. And I wouldn't want someone who had been a police officer to be Home Secretary.
So why people are craving for an ex-economist to be Chancellor is something that perplexes me a great deal.
Aha, it's the architecture question!
You could argue that anyone with any kind of background at all is unsuitable to be chancellor. Never mind that St Vince was economist at Shell before he became a politician: it's what he's done as a politician that is important. And what has he done? Effectively critiqued the powers that be? Warned against the dangers of the current orthodoxy as practiced by the treasury? Well, that's exactly what he has done.
If you want to vote for someone economically illiterate running the country, go for it.
people who are technical specialists who become policy wonks aren't disqualified from doing that - they make good wonks as long as they can recognise their biases when they see them. Most people are capable of doing that, in time.
if "economist turned politician" isn't the right background for a chancellor, what is?
I completely disagree. Brown was a great economic mind. He isn't a great politician, but he knew what to do with the economy. I want economic thinkers for Chancellors. I also want teachers for Education Secretaries (the mess the government is making of post-sixteen education is entirely because their minister have no educational expertise and have rejected all expertise offered them) and nurses for Health Secretaries and disabled people in the Office for Disability Issues.
Politicians used to have real jobs before they stood for Parliament. There is a very serious need for that situation to resume.
Thanks both for your comments.
Martin – I think your main points are fair, and am agreed with you about needing to recognise biases. I may have fallen into the trap myself by allowing my bias against the Lib Dems to inform my view of St Vince, for example ;)
I do think, though, that people give too much weight to St Vince’s interventions *because* he has been an economist, and therefore are less likely to judge those interventions as they would, say, Alistair Darling, which I think is a mistake. It’s imbuing St Vince with a level of importance and wisdom that I don’t think his status as an economist in any way allows for.
Naomi – I’m not sure Brown has a great economics mind. I think he had a political vision for what he wanted to do with the economy and knew how to get it there.
I don’t believe teachers make good Education Secretaries or any of the other examples. You only have to look at the role teaching unions play in the political sphere to realise how ineffective they operate politically.
The role of the Civil Service and Special Advisers etc. is to ensure that the relevant expertise available to Ministers to enable them to make decisions. I’m not arguing for them having no experience; I’m just saying that having that direct experience isn’t always helpful.
For both, I think the point I’m making is that, just because St Vince was an economist doesn’t automatically qualify him for the job more than anyone else. You need someone who is economically literate *enough*, but who doesn’t need to be a Nobel prizewinner in the subject.
Jumping on the bandwagon, but also have to disagree with you Rich and agree with the comments. There is a reason why you want your managers to have worked on the "shop floor". The insight that gives them is invaluable, they can listen to all the advice, reports etc about what it is like to work on the "shop floor" but if you have never actually worked there, you just don't know. Career politicians, just don't get it.
Hi Jigna - I think you're right to a point in suggesting shop floor experience is useful, and one well-worn bit of management advice is to spend some time on the shop floor to get that perspective.
What I'm suggesting is that that isn't a prerequisite: i.e. that you have to have that experience. And I've gone further above by suggesting that sometimes that direct experience can create biases that aren't useful in a role you may need to do higher up an organisation.
In my view, you need to know enough about a topic and have enough skill to enable you to know the right questions to ask.
In the case of politicians, while therefore agreeing with yourgeneral point that career politicians aren't a particularly good thing, I don't think direct experience of doing x, y or z is necessarily always useful and - in the case of St Vince - doesn't justify the adoration he gets.
I'd love a teacher to be in charge of education, a teacher has got to be better than a lawyer or a journalist. They have to be... or God help us all.
Surely, broadly speaking, someone who understands the how the system works is better than someone who can listen to different arguments and then make a decision; my GCSE pupils can do that!