UK politics is filled with ‘nepo babies’ from Hilary Benn to Andrew Mitchell 🔵 The number of sitting MPs whose parents were MPs before them is extraordinary ✍️ LOS_Fisher for ipaperviews
It is far from a solely Tory phenomenon. Labour MPs Stephen Kinnock and Hilary Benn, as well as DUP MP Ian Paisley Jnr, are the sons of three of the UK’s most significant post-war politicians. Each will have grown up steeped in politics and, one assumes, knowing many of the movers and shakers in Westminster. Even the Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle is the child of a former MP.
Some MPs lie at the centre of a web of family connections. Take John Cryer who chairs the Parliamentary Labour Party. Both his mother and his father were MPs and he is married to fellow Labour MP Ellie Reeves. Ellie’s sister Rachel is, of course, Labour’s shadow chancellor. This isn’t a UK-specific problem – consider the dynastic nature of politics in the US, where families including the Bushes, Kennedys, Clintons and Trumps loom large. Meanwhile in Canada prime minister Justin Trudeau is the son of a former prime minister, and the far right of French politics has been dominated for decades by the Le Pens.
The problem is not confined to frontline politicians, but pervades the Westminster ecosystem. In recent years there has been a series of special advisers and key aides who have been the children of frontbenchers and wealthy party donors. Beyond those working at the highest levels of government and opposition, concerns also abound about MPs employing their relatives and offering jobs or informal work experience to youngsters within their network.
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