I learned ALL my mechanical knowledge - the practical side rather than theory - from teaching myself and DIY.

(You could argue that is why I am poor at woodworking!)

I learned far more on the job in my first year than my entire engineering course at university. College just gives us the foundations to build upon - I know many firms do things 'their way' to try and get graduates to un-learn the bad habits they picked up on their courses.

My sister, who is an accountant said as much about her line of work, noting that many firms deliberately avoid taking on graduates in accountancy and often try to go for graduates from maths, science and engineering who obviously have a sound grasp of numbers but who haven't learned bad habits through college.

You also learn far more (and to a better understanding) when either the lecturer or senior colleague is actually good at teaching. I was surprised when I was at college (a well respected one as well) how poor many of the lectureres were at teaching.

Much of the time I may as well not bothered attending lectures and just read from the text books - as that was what many of them did - essentially verbatim. Many of them seemed to be more concerned about their side projects and doing the 'teaching' because they were obliged to as part of their contracts.

That would be a nice way to sum up their work: muggery, thuggery, druggery and a bit of skulduggery. Before the 1960s it would have included b*****y as well.

I have suspected for a while that you were a lawyer, Bromptonaut. The reason? In one of your posts a few weeks ago you used the word “nugatory” and the only instance I have seen that word used is in a High Court judgment. When I read it in that judgment I was fairly confident as to its meaning from the context, but I nevertheless checked with the dictionary.

The judgment became very important in the particular branch of law to which it related and I noticed an increase in use of the word among practitioners, almost mockingly, as if contriving to use the word whenever possible.

I think we need to differentiate between people who are described as 'the government' and who appears to be calling the shots - seemingly BOTH for ministers and for the Opposition:

Too many people just think of 'the government' as ministers/the party in power. In reality, it also means the senior officials 'giving advice' and directing civil servants lower down what to do.

As decision-makers, ministers (or Opposition equivalents) should be able to understand, interpret and, most importantly, ask serching questions of officials, experts etc.

As you say, as hardly any / none of them have any type of technical or scientific background, the don't appear to fully understand what information is being presented to them.

That none of them - Opposition politicians included, don't feel able or are unwilling to ask searching questions of the so-called 'experts' is not just indicative of the move towards 'professional' politicians, but a reduction in the quality of how they do their jobs.

It is their duty to ask search and often awkward questions of officials and experts, and to consider all angles - not just one that is being vociferously argued by one set of 'experts' who know absoluetly diddly about many other aspects of a situation or, as it often appears, to have their own agenda, whether personal or political.

That not one politician/minister from any major party in the UK in a government post (including all the devolved administrations) or Opposition counterparts has called out the obviously bunk data (and now shown to be as such) used to justify the second lockdowns shows they just aren't up to the job.

It's not just them not understanding the technicalities or noticing the errors, it's the lack of a spine to ask questions or call them out and forcing changes as a result is far worse. It means that the offcials are effectively in control. That's BAD - very bad.

'Following the science' is a vary bad way to go - they need to form policies based on a wide range of inputs and opinions from experts in many different fields, accurate on-the-ground information and, most importantly, their own judgement.

I remember talking to former colleagues over the years, who agreed that if our firms were run as governments are (and as Oppositions would like them to be), we'd have gone out of business in no time flat.

But inn the current political climate (across the board), which of those of us who might want to go into politics to 'do some good' from a technical/scientific background would actually say 'ok then'? Practically none. We know that our own office politics is nothing compared to real politics. Honesty and the truth are at the bottom of the pile.

That none of them - Opposition politicians included, don't feel able or are unwilling to ask searching questions of the so-called 'experts' is not just indicative of the move towards 'professional' politicians, but a reduction in the quality of how they do their jobs.

It is their duty to ask search and often awkward questions of officials and experts, and to consider all angles - not just one that is being vociferously argued by one set of 'experts' who know absoluetly diddly about many other aspects of a situation or, as it often appears, to have their own agenda, whether personal or political.

Actually if you bothered to watch the excellent BBC live broadcasts of many Parliamentary committees you would see that your assertion is far from the truth.

MPs of all parties ask searching questions of ministers, senior officials, business people, academics and often (given the wide use now of video links) relevant experts from around the world. They also produce excellent reports with the help of their own officials. Sadly the government rarely heeds their advice.

OK then - please give the numerous examples of them - and BTW I'm not saying there are none or no decent MPs. My estimation is about 10% of those currently in parliament are decent.

Besides, I bet many of the 'searching questions' asked by certain MPs are not ones they themselves came up with, but rather from a plethora of unelected advisors and their minions who've been scouring the interweb and their chums to come up with one 'gotcha' question, full-well knowing they themselves wouldn't have an answer or that it's a leading question due to hindsight.

Not so easy when they don't have lots of time and a significant amount of paid help. It's quite easy to spot when that's the case, because when some minister, official or business person actually knows their stuff (or was well briefed) and gives a good answer, the MP posing the original question is stumped, because they thought that the gotcha was going to be enough, and that their own lack of knowledge on the subject at hand means they can't follow it up with an equally good question.

Happens rather a lot at PMQs or at select committee meetings, as I showed in some discussions with Brompt on the 'smart' motorways thread. Whilst the officials came up with some very poor answers, practically none of the MPs could follow their original questions up to push the officials further to get to the crux of the matter.

I do happen watch many of these broadcasts (in the case above, I watched it in its entirety), and don't appreciate the rude tone in you assuming otherwise just because we disagree on other matters. I thought we'd all agreed to put any petty bickering aside for the sake of the forum.

Besides, I've worked on projects alongside such individuals, including for the Parliamentary Estates Directorate at the HoP and other nearby buildings and have a decent amount of experience dealing with them and (sadly) MPs.

Edited by Engineer Andy on 14/11/2020 at 13:49

The MPs essentially let the officials off the hook by not following throught on their initial questions. Why - because as people without expertise on the subject (and as many of them have little experience in the real world outside of politics) don't have the knowledge to keep going after posing that question, which again, I say is likely to have been fed to them by their assistants.

And yes, IMHO most MPs are 'decent', and by that I mean - not particularly good at what they are supposed to do, not necessarily referring to 'decent people'.

My assertion was, as I said, my own personal judgement based on my experience of what they've said on camera and done (and has factually been reported on), and (see above), what they've been like in person when I've met them or seen a few of them in action personally whilst working at the HoP and related buildings on projects.

I think you're arguing just for its own sake. I just don't see any useful purpose responding to yours any more.