Blair is right – the political gene pool is too shallow. But we shouldn’t be too hard on the SpAds

“I advise any young person who wants to go into politics today: go and spend some time out of politics. Go and work for a community organisation, a business, start your own business; do anything that isn’t politics for at least several years. And then, when you come back into politics, you will find you are so much better able to see the world and how it functions properly.”

That’s what Tony Blair told the Mile End Group yesterday – and do you know what? He’s right. We are currently in a bizarre and deeply unrepresentative situation where the most senior politicians in all both major parties made their names in politics before they were even MPs. Miliband and Balls both worked for Gordon Brown. Cameron and Osborne worked at Tory HQ. Both parties are led by those who have always operated at the apex of politics, who have invariably worked at the very highest levels, whose connections are impeccable and for whom politics has most often been about the chamber, the Treasury or the TV studio, rather than the doorstep.

But perhaps most troubling of all, it means they are all prone to being trapped in the Westminster Village bubble.

The bubble is suffocating. Its preconceived notions of who is “up” and who is “down” often drown out real debate about real issues. It’s incredibly unkind to those who swim against the tide and attempt to warn against “received wisdom”. It divides people into “the sort of person who will do around here” and “the sort of person who doesn’t belong here”. Being around the bubble invariably leads to questionable groupthink and warped priorities that makes you a little more out of touch with the world outside with each passing day.

Yet at the same time, it’s also home to some of the most brilliant, dedicated and hard-working people I’ve ever met – which is why I’m loathe to join in on the sporadic attacks on “SpAds” that this debate often becomes. Yes – a huge number of our political leaders (too many) are from a cohort of people who have worked their entire lives in and around SW1. And yes – for all of the reasons I’ve outlined already – being trapped in that bubble for your whole life can have a damaging effect on your ability to prioritise and have perspective. But it doesn’t always work that way.

Those with a “hinterland” beyond politics and the palace of Westminster are able to bring valuable insight to the political process, and work long hours doing a difficult job which they are passionate about, not because they will personally benefit, but because they care about changing Britain for the better. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, when these (invariably talented) people decide that they themselves want to be MPs (because they’ve seen up close that politics can make a difference) they bring their knowledge, experience and skills to bear, and get elected.

The problem is not that SpAds are becoming MPs, the problem is that all too often it feels like to become an MP you *must* have held such a role first. That you must have been part of the Westminster Bubble Club to even reach the starting line that is parliamentary selection.

That’s what’s damaging – the perception that MPs must be a certain kind of person. I want to see the most talented SpAds continue to become MPs, and bring their passion for changing the lives of people in this country to the chamber. But I also want to see the most talented call centre workers, teachers, social care workers and entrepreneurs become Labour MPs too. At the moment, that’s not happening.

Yet whilst it was once the case that those who were working inside the political village were those who climbed the tree fastest – see Balls, Alexander (Douglas and Danny), Osborne, Cameron, Clegg and Miliband (Ed and David) – the same is no longer exclusively the case on the Labour side. Two of the highest fliers from the 2010 intake (Reeves and Umunna) were working outside party politics, for a bank and a law firm respectively, prior to the 2010 election.

But if being an MP is still overwhelmingly a pursuit of the white collar worker, that’s most pronounced at the top of our parties. The number of senior MPs from working class or manual labour backgrounds  – in any of the parties – can be counted on the fingers of one hand. It’s the lack of those voices – not the surfeit of advisers – that’s the real problem in party politics.

Perhaps one day a major British political party might see fit to elect someone as leader who worked in a supermarket or as a nurse. But at the moment, because they don’t think they belong there and no-one tells them otherwise – people from those backgrounds rarely even get to the starting line. And if they do manage to get into Westminster, few are going to tip them for the top – that’s simply not how the bubble works…