"In what way, Stu that was Sugarfoot, is a political career 'not a real job'? You try making a success of it and see how much work or effort involved, why don't you?"

A political career is a job that (in an ideal world) requires the individual involved to have had a broad experience in life. This means understanding that political decisions have sometimes significant effects on the lives of individuals who are often powerless to act against those decisions. The problem is that many of todays politicians have not gone through the process of having to find and get a job on merit as they have come up through established routes to a political careers; the obvious case being the Bullingdon boys running the country who are groomed for tory greatness from an early age. They have little or no idea of life in the real world and they cannot empathise with people from a large part of the population. It's worth noting this isn't the same as Thatcher's inability to care about the people and communities who suffered due to her inability to understand causality (undoubtedly a character defect), but the fact that they've never been exposed to that side of life.

More useful would be if they would come to me and try to make a success of being a sole trader in an economic environment that means I get zero tax breaks, no stat pay if I'm ill and have to fight against constantly rising costs and large companies insisting on long invoice settlement times. Not much chance of that is there?