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Comment by morbia | Hacker News Reader

Some anecdotal evidence ahead.

I've been interviewing graduates in the UK for many years now from a very broad range of universities, all focused on CS or stem degrees.

In my experience, I've yet to interview an oxbridge graduate who wasn't at least great academically, and this is speaking as someone who went to a lesser university. Clearly whatever standards they have for teaching and entry selection criteria really work.

That said, graduates from other universities are easily on par with oxbridge, just that there were some total morons amongst their peers as well.

In my opinion, the problem is not that the UK fetishes oxbridge candidates, the problem is politics is dominated by arts and ppe graduates which does not offer the problem solving skills stem degrees do. I genuinely think we'd be in a much better place if our leaders weren't trained just in communication, but instead on actually logically thinking through problems and resolving them.

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> I genuinely think we'd be in a much better place if our leaders weren't trained just in communication, but instead on actually logically thinking through problems and resolving them.

The other half of the problem is that the archaic UK parliament needs to change, its not fit for the 21st century.

For example ...

MP's perks and expenses - why do MPs get HEAVILY subsidised food and drink ? why do they get such generous expenses ? why do they get Friday's off ? why do they get so many recess holidays ? why does the whole place shut down for party conference silly season ?

Prime Minister's Questions - Its a disgrace. The clue is in the word "Questions". Instead it's a farcical theatrical display where someone asks a question and then the Prime Minister doesn't answer it and/or the Prime Minister's backbenches ensure the answer gets drowned out in noise.

Planted Questons - All the planted questions from the Prime Minister's back benches. What's all that about ? Do they really think people are that stupid ?

Too many "gentleman's agreements" - For example, what's with the whole "you can 'unknowingly' lie, but you can't accuse others of lying" thing ?

Lack of independent scrutiny - Enquiries and investigations are all based on the "gentleman's agreement" that the Prime Minister can be trusted to be a "good man" and will therefore, of course, launch any necessary investigations into alleged acts of wrong doing. However as we saw with Johnson, well ....

Ministerial Code - The ultimate joke. A code with no teeth. Again, Johnson demonstrated how circles could be run round it.

Archaic "parliamentary protocol" - So many examples here, perhaps one of the most infamous is Christopher Chope MP shouting "object" and blocking progress of the Up-skirting bill. The perogueing of parliament by the Johnson government in relation to Brexit is another.

> why do they get so many recess holidays ?

Because the bulk of the work of an MP is in being at home spending time talking to the bosses (i.e. the constituents) to ensure that the correct message is brought back to the central meeting place (i.e. parliament). After all, you, the constituent, are hiring the representative to carry your message to the central meeting place so you don't have to make the trip yourself. But you still have to make your message known. MPs are most definitely not mind readers who can simply be elected and then never spoken to again. It is a time consuming process to sit down with each and every constituent to hear their voice.

And, well, I guess if an MP really is a mind reader and doing such a great job that his bosses don't feel the need to talk during these recess periods, why not allow a nice vacation? An MP figuring out how to be more efficient than other MPs shouldn't be penalized. The recess will still be necessary for the poorly performing MPs to go home and get tuned in by their bosses.

> MP is in being at home spending time talking to the bosses (i.e. the constituents)

Its awfully cute when people think that's an acceptable answer, it goes awfully well with that other well known phrase "write to your MP about it".

I know sufficient people across the length and breadth of the UK to know that the reality is that MPs (perhaps especially those who fly the Conservative flag) will do their utmost to avoid and fob off their constituents.

If I had a penny for every person who told me they wrote to their MP and either received no reply or received two-pages of pre-prepared boilerplate that didn't answer the question ... I'd be rich.

As for MPs who have extraordinarily well-paid "advisor" jobs on the side, what's your reasoning for that ?

I interned briefly for an MP when I was a student. She got Sunday morning off, and spent the rest of the week in Parliament, in committee, in meetings, on the train (reading papers), in the constituency office, or attending political events. She worked extraordinary hours, which isn't unusual.

If you want to ignore your constituents and not bother (and are in a safe seat) you might do less than half of that. But MPs, as a group, are very hard working. I also think that the way we select MPs, incentivise them, and manage them is awful and that's one of the many reasons why the institution of parliament is fairly crap. Unjustified cynicism about individuals is unlikely to fix that.

I do apologise for the form letters, though. That's almost always staff work, with the MP signing the result after a brief skim. We got a lot of mail and much of it was repetitive or crankish so the replies weren't always artisanal...

Like with any organization, it is not unusual to hire bad employees. Of course, when you do hire a bad employee you don’t write them a friendly letter and call it a day. You hunt them down and talk to them face to face. Maybe you’ll even have to yell and scream until they cry to get your point across. Hopefully you will choose better next time.

It’s never fun being the boss, but given that you’ve accepted the role you can be a good boss and stand up to your workers, even as much as they try hard to avoid you, or accept your failings and let your organization fall apart. Your choice.

> Hopefully you will choose better next time.

Aah yes, another favourite old-chestnut, the old "well, you can vote differently next time".

Trouble is that one falls apart when you are reminded that the UK has FPTP (First Past The Post) and not PR (Proportion Representation).

As a result, most people's votes don't really count for much, and you end up with safe seats and all sorts of other problems.

But it favours the big-two parties and hence, like many other problems with UK politics and parliament, it will (likely) never change.

FPTP is perfectly fine for electing a representative. I might even argue that it is best electoral system for selecting a representative. It is how most organizations choose between a set of employees and it works well enough.

FPTP absolutely fails hard when parties get thrown into the mix. But that is when you should stop to ask yourself why are you hiring party members in the first place? You want to hire someone who is there to represent you, not some other allegiance. The Westminster system really isn't well suited to having parties in the first place, even if it has grown to accept them.

A computer scientist would see all that as technical debt that needs to be resolved to streamline due process. PPE graduates see it as a grandiose theatre which adds gravitas to the process.

I think my point still stands, the whole system could be transformed if some real problem solvers involved. Alas, I don't see it happening any time soon.

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