Davids' theory of political half-life.

[davywavy]

I have a half-formed theory of political half-life, which states that the half-life of a government is about 3 years. When first elected, a government puts all its best talents into place in ministerial roles. From there, natural attrition from scandals, human failings and retirements mean that the quality of people in those roles will decline in a steady fashion thereafter, halving approximately every three years.
This problem is compounded by the lack of new talent which rises whilst a party is in power, as sitting MPs rarely leave voluntarily to make room for new blood. As an incumbent government loses overall seats over time, new talent can only enter an existing party when it is out of power and gaining seats from a low start.

As such, a party which has been in power for 12 years will have only 1/16 of the talent in managerial positions than it did in its first year of office, and the only way to change that is losing an election to clear out old MPs from either seat losses or natural wastage.

Thoughts?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Intentions and results are sadly separated by the gulf of incompetence.

[raggedyman.livejournal.com]

So things are either black or white, and even the slightest hint of grey makes it the deepest of blacks?

Do you have a better solution for how to run things then?

[(Anonymous)]

"Do you have a better solution for how to run things then?"

Yes. Do less. My prime criticism of the current bunch of politicos is they think they have to have the answer to everything. 'Everything' is a pretty broad remit, and would be beyond they capability of, well, anyone.

Like a successful company, a successful state should decide what it is for, and focus on doing that as well as it can (sort of like a mission statement) whist avoiding getting bogged down in stuff beyond that remit.

Right now, the state's reach exceeds it's grasp, so everything it touched turns to poo.