Poitical Vacuum

Have we had a political vacuum over the last decade and, if so, what caused this?

I pose the question because we seem to be attracting knaves and chancers into the profession, if you can call it that and, as nature abhors a vacuum, it will fill itself with anything that's available. A vacuum is caused by a general disinterest in good policy that benefits all, rather than just a few, and changes politics to an arena where some go to specifically make money, rather than make equitable laws and govern. 

Politicians used to be MPs for at least a decade, learning the ropes, before they were promoted to be anywhere near the top levers of government, and were rewarded for expertise with a safe seat to retain that expertise, but these days it seems you can be elected an MP and be in the cabinet almost immediately, with hardly any experience of how government works.

I'm not falling into the false narrative that they're all the same, because they're not. There is still a large cohort of MPs who enter Parliament to make a difference, rather than line their pockets or make preparations for making lots of it when they leave Parliament.

The Party System is partly to blame, along with the polarisation of politics of late by ideology lacking evidence. Adherence to a party makes one oblivious of the person one is voting for at the local level - the apocryphal pig with a certain colour of rosette on its lapel who will be voted for simply because of the rosette's colour.

Crises expose the problems with political vacuums; they are filled by populists who are all mouth and no trousers, as we have seen in various countries around the world - it's not just a British phenomenon. The populists wreak havoc in their wake when a crisis requiring real leadership and gravitas occurs.

Populists can even wreak havoc when they're voted out of office, as the electorate will vote for virtually anyone in a splurge of tactical voting to get them out by any means possible, once again leading to incompetents of the other colour replacing them. Anyone but Trump was a cry not so long ago.

Analyse and discuss.