Exactly how representative of the UK population is Westminter?
Not very! These figures show that, as expected, politicians are overwhelmingly old and male, and no doubt far wealthier than most of us. Would this effect the legislation that they pass? We think so.
Sources:
- UK population data and wealth are from the Office of National Statistics. Wealth is household wealth divided by average household size.
- Age and gender of the members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords were taken from Wikipedia, so may not be 100% accurate (but minor errors would not change the overall picture much).
- Education data (for the general population and House of Commons) is from the government itself.
- Newspaper articles are where the party donations and cabinet members wealth figures come from.