The Student Room Group

Fastest route to becoming an MP?

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Reply 20
Original post by Friar Chris
Good that you at least have the cognitive capacity to realise you're about to receive all that neg rep you've earnt so far in this thread.


Yes I must have earnt loads for making a couple of jokes and a spelling error huh?
Original post by meow444
Go to Eaton


*Eton my boy, Eton
Reply 22
Elite education followed by 'special advisor' in-job with years of furious bumlicking seems to be the current industry standard.
Probably the fastest way to ruin your political career before it starts is to have facebook and get tagged by your friends while doing something stupid/being drunk.
Thanks guys for all the feedback, I always found the path to becoming a Member of Parliament was always quite ambiguous, unlike the path to say becoming a Lawyer or a Banker
Reply 24
Original post by RevolutionIsNear!
Thanks guys for all the feedback, I always found the path to becoming a Member of Parliament was always quite ambiguous, unlike the path to say becoming a Lawyer or a Banker


well arguably it's not supposed to be a nice stable career for people who've ticked the right boxes from a young age... But maybe that's just me.
Reply 25
There are 2 ways to become a MP: Council or career

You need to be a member of a Party. Elected to Local Government or work for a MP or Party.

Fill out an application form and attend selection day.
(edited 11 years ago)
Reply 26
Work as an MP's assistant and be willing to have sex with the MP whenever he wants it. This is what the girl on the right did with the guy on the left. But she never became an MP because she was suspected of being a Russian spy.....

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(edited 11 years ago)
It's about WHO you know within the main parties.
Original post by Laurah5498
Be heavily involved in a party. That's how my boyfriend is doing it!

He's out there leafleting, runs the county youth division, is chairman on all sorts of party things, knows a lot of people through doing it too. There's even more that he does but I can't remember a lot of it!

He's also a local councillor. It probably helps too!


Even then that might not help him.

The only route of becoming an MP with one of the three main parties in the modern era is to work your way up the Westminster path IE becoming a assistant to an MP, working upto Special Advisor ect and then being placed in a seat for reliability and if the last 10 years are any indicator local councilors will be pushed to the side to ensure the ones who worked up that way will get the safe seats.
Original post by Will Lucky
Even then that might not help him.

The only route of becoming an MP with one of the three main parties in the modern era is to work your way up the Westminster path IE becoming a assistant to an MP, working upto Special Advisor ect and then being placed in a seat for reliability and if the last 10 years are any indicator local councilors will be pushed to the side to ensure the ones who worked up that way will get the safe seats.


Completely agree with you. Every bit helps I suppose. He knows what he's doing apparently so I'm leaving him to it! :smile:
If you want to become an MP relatively young then you will need to do a lot of campaigning as an activist, and go to a top university and make good connections.

Oxbridge/LSE/UCL etc will help but is not totally essential tbh even in the Tory party. If you go to a redbrick and are good enough at making the right connections at party events, doing the right internships etc, then you can do it.

Working in the party central office as a 'policy wonk' or 'special adviser' or working in one of the think tanks associated with your respective party, is a way of getting a chance to accelerate quickly into getting nominated for a seat.

Bear in mind you will have to deal with some resentment, there will be party loyalists who have been sweating blood for the party at local and national campaigns for 15-20 years searching for a break but they just don't fit the mould, and they will be far more experienced than the mid 20s whipper snappers that get fast tracked.

I did know a few super ambitious wannabe MPs at university, most of them have got some jobs on that greasy pole now, working as parliamentary researchers or in think tanks or lobby groups. These types can be quite irritating to be friends with though as you always feel you are being subject to party political canvassing. When I was at uni my facebook feed had a few of these Labour bumlickers that had every facebook status as cringeworthy stuff like "....is so happy that we have Gordon", "...is proud of the extra [insert figure] nurses we have put into the NHS" etc.

I echo the advice on here that if you have political ambitions you have to guard your social networking behaviour like a hawk, some of the Tories at my uni were pretty bad for making non-pc comments that were funny amongst friends on facebook/twitter but were the type of thing that if they were running as a councillor etc would make the front pages of the national press and they'd be forced to stand down for their 'inappropriate' comments etc.


Well, I live right near there, so you can swing by mine and discuss politics.
Original post by meow444
Yes I must have earnt loads for making a couple of jokes and a spelling error huh?


There is an edit function, there needn't have been more than one joke.
Reply 33
Well, for the next general election, the best thing you can do is just run as an independent, blame the tories and lib dems for ruining our economy even more, blame labour for being labour, and then say that your in it for your constituency and that it is time for change.
I recommend reading 'The Political Animal' before setting out to become an MP.

One of the most enlightening books I've read in a while.
Original post by meow444
Eton then. Whatever.

What is up with everyone obsessing over spelling?! Jeeze.


Some people on this forum have nothing better to do than to pick on people's spelling mistakes. Then they draw a conclusion that you're stupid simply because you've spelled a couple of words wrong. Ignore it.
Reply 36
Original post by Jabberwox
Some people on this forum have nothing better to do than to pick on people's spelling mistakes. Then they draw a conclusion that you're stupid simply because you've spelled a couple of words wrong. Ignore it.


:u: Thank you!
Reply 37
Get involved with the political youth faction, canvass ect.. get noticed by an MP via that and then get a job working for an MP.
Reply 38
Drink a child's blood.
are you a councillor yet?

OR better yet become NUS president, then mp

become cllr and then posion the old fart mp, and then run for MP in next election

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