The IET does has a duty to avoid any form of politically partisan activity. Although our position in advance of the EU referendum was felt by some members to have overstepped, it wasn’t party political as such. My personal opinion is that we should seek to minimise divisiveness within the institution, simply because our membership is an incredibly varied group of people , with a wide variety of skills, capabilities, backgrounds and perspectives, uniting with engineering and technology in common. By the very nature of being a professional body (or learned society) we will draw mainly from those in society with education and professional careers. This has created a landscape in which the governance of Engineering could reasonably be described as “conservative” and its commanding heights as “an establishment”. I would see any debate around this a perfectly legitimate, but not party-political.
I have commented in these forums that I would like our (PEI family) focus to be strongly about our collective service to society, rather than competition between ourselves for relative status. Unfortunately IMHO, we have too often allowed our important role in influencing professional standards, to become conflated with elitism or snobbery. For that reason, I have also argued that we need an overall change of attitude if we wish to engage with those who currently eschew our proposition ,which is de-facto a majority of those who we aspire to represent.
Since the subject of the thread is Jeremy Corbyn personally, I thought that I might briefly explore why he isn’t a Chartered Engineer. I don’t remember ever having met him.
His father David…became a brilliant electrical engineer working for the war effort… His mother was a female scientist, who later became a maths teacher… When the couple met, David Corbyn was an engineering apprentice living at his parents’ home… the Corbyns moved to Wiltshire, where David worked as an electrical engineer for Westinghouse Brake and Signals in Chippenham… In 1956, the family moved to Shropshire…Those surroundings helped nurture in Jeremy and his brothers a creative, inquisitive streak. Edward, the eldest brother, became a test engineer on Concorde, built a forge in the garden and tinkered with cars; Piers, who would become a meteorologist, constructed devices to study the solar system; Andrew, the second brother, became a geologist but later died….; Jeremy was the least scientific of the four, preferring to read.(source Daily Telegraph)
One our most vituperative recent contributor’s to these forums, a veteran IEng who in resigning complained of serious mistreatment both personally and for his category, was I understand for a time mentored by David Corbyn, which may have influenced his arguments.
I also spoke recently with someone who was at Grammar School with Jeremy, although not a friend. Coincidentally, I attended a reasonably nearby Comprehensive (ex Secondary Modern) some years later and the two are now linked in an academy foundation. He remembered Jeremy as a “difficult boy” with his own unpopular (in that school at least) left-wing ideas. Had he been more conventional and developed similar aptitudes to his siblings, then perhaps this thread would involve our leaders partaking in a lusty chorus of; “ Jeremy Corbyn! - He’s one of our own!”
I was pleased recently to receive an invitation to this year’s talk “Inspired by the life and work of Sir Frederick Henry Royce” (an apprentice trained engineer) to be given by a leading Automotive Company’s Executive Director of Product Engineering (also an apprentice trained engineer). I couldn’t remember meeting the speaker, although our paths probably fleetingly crossed a few years ago. Noticing also that the speaker did not feel a need to use post-nominals, I looked a little more into public profiles and newspaper articles. All seemed to be conspicuously lacking in formality or any sense of self-importance. I wondered whether this might attract letters of complaint from Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells and others, that the speaker doesn’t appear to be a Chartered Engineer or wear a tie, but I am unaware of any having been received yet
So deliberately side-stepping party politics and the personalities involved, Engineers and Technicians, both create wealth and serve society in many different ways. We should seek therefore to build common cause with mainstream politicians of all flavours, just like other stakeholders including business, trade associations, trades unions and educators. I see no good reason for us to seek to occupy politically partisan ground, or that of the aforementioned organisations. However we seem from my perspective to perhaps be lagging behind society in some of our attitudes and assumptions, perhaps because of the average age of our activists (similar to Jeremy Corbyn) and the similar social backgrounds that they tend to drawn from?
I find it a little disappointing that both young(ish) Prime Ministerships (Blair & Cameron) were followed by older rather than younger successors. I’m personally finding it difficult to develop the right level of respect for modern politicians, who often seem to have done little else, compared to those of my youth. Perhaps I'm just "rose-tinting" things like; war veteran records, post war development, 50s & 60s technological leadership, social modernisation, civil rights , industrial strife etc. or perhasp it is just the overall optimism of those times from a younger person's perspective ?
The IET does has a duty to avoid any form of politically partisan activity. Although our position in advance of the EU referendum was felt by some members to have overstepped, it wasn’t party political as such. My personal opinion is that we should seek to minimise divisiveness within the institution, simply because our membership is an incredibly varied group of people , with a wide variety of skills, capabilities, backgrounds and perspectives, uniting with engineering and technology in common. By the very nature of being a professional body (or learned society) we will draw mainly from those in society with education and professional careers. This has created a landscape in which the governance of Engineering could reasonably be described as “conservative” and its commanding heights as “an establishment”. I would see any debate around this a perfectly legitimate, but not party-political.
I have commented in these forums that I would like our (PEI family) focus to be strongly about our collective service to society, rather than competition between ourselves for relative status. Unfortunately IMHO, we have too often allowed our important role in influencing professional standards, to become conflated with elitism or snobbery. For that reason, I have also argued that we need an overall change of attitude if we wish to engage with those who currently eschew our proposition ,which is de-facto a majority of those who we aspire to represent.
Since the subject of the thread is Jeremy Corbyn personally, I thought that I might briefly explore why he isn’t a Chartered Engineer. I don’t remember ever having met him.
His father David…became a brilliant electrical engineer working for the war effort… His mother was a female scientist, who later became a maths teacher… When the couple met, David Corbyn was an engineering apprentice living at his parents’ home… the Corbyns moved to Wiltshire, where David worked as an electrical engineer for Westinghouse Brake and Signals in Chippenham… In 1956, the family moved to Shropshire…Those surroundings helped nurture in Jeremy and his brothers a creative, inquisitive streak. Edward, the eldest brother, became a test engineer on Concorde, built a forge in the garden and tinkered with cars; Piers, who would become a meteorologist, constructed devices to study the solar system; Andrew, the second brother, became a geologist but later died….; Jeremy was the least scientific of the four, preferring to read.(source Daily Telegraph)
One our most vituperative recent contributor’s to these forums, a veteran IEng who in resigning complained of serious mistreatment both personally and for his category, was I understand for a time mentored by David Corbyn, which may have influenced his arguments.
I also spoke recently with someone who was at Grammar School with Jeremy, although not a friend. Coincidentally, I attended a reasonably nearby Comprehensive (ex Secondary Modern) some years later and the two are now linked in an academy foundation. He remembered Jeremy as a “difficult boy” with his own unpopular (in that school at least) left-wing ideas. Had he been more conventional and developed similar aptitudes to his siblings, then perhaps this thread would involve our leaders partaking in a lusty chorus of; “ Jeremy Corbyn! - He’s one of our own!”
I was pleased recently to receive an invitation to this year’s talk “Inspired by the life and work of Sir Frederick Henry Royce” (an apprentice trained engineer) to be given by a leading Automotive Company’s Executive Director of Product Engineering (also an apprentice trained engineer). I couldn’t remember meeting the speaker, although our paths probably fleetingly crossed a few years ago. Noticing also that the speaker did not feel a need to use post-nominals, I looked a little more into public profiles and newspaper articles. All seemed to be conspicuously lacking in formality or any sense of self-importance. I wondered whether this might attract letters of complaint from Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells and others, that the speaker doesn’t appear to be a Chartered Engineer or wear a tie, but I am unaware of any having been received yet
So deliberately side-stepping party politics and the personalities involved, Engineers and Technicians, both create wealth and serve society in many different ways. We should seek therefore to build common cause with mainstream politicians of all flavours, just like other stakeholders including business, trade associations, trades unions and educators. I see no good reason for us to seek to occupy politically partisan ground, or that of the aforementioned organisations. However we seem from my perspective to perhaps be lagging behind society in some of our attitudes and assumptions, perhaps because of the average age of our activists (similar to Jeremy Corbyn) and the similar social backgrounds that they tend to drawn from?
I find it a little disappointing that both young(ish) Prime Ministerships (Blair & Cameron) were followed by older rather than younger successors. I’m personally finding it difficult to develop the right level of respect for modern politicians, who often seem to have done little else, compared to those of my youth. Perhaps I'm just "rose-tinting" things like; war veteran records, post war development, 50s & 60s technological leadership, social modernisation, civil rights , industrial strife etc. or perhasp it is just the overall optimism of those times from a younger person's perspective ?
