THEY are wheeling and they are dealing. Across Scotland right now a thousand or so councillors, old and new, are building coalitions, making compromises and setting priorities.

Some of us like to think of local government as something straightforward, something “less” than the big business of governing a nation, even a devolved one. It is anything but.

There is some serious three-dimensional chess being played in town and county halls up and down the country. And that is just to get some control. What they do with any power is even more complicated.

The politics and politicking of local government – and their consequences – are pretty real. But is the job?

This is a question that gets asked – or rather an allegation that is levelled – every time we have an election.

Scotland, like much of the rest of the democratic world, now has a class of people who come in to elected office having only ever properly worked in politics.

I am not sure anybody has ever quite exactly defined what counts as a career political professional. That does not stop some voters, especially those who might be best described as “very online”, from treating them with contempt.

You know the kind of chat I am talking about: politicians do not have a “real job”; they have no “real world” experience but they are a “real pain” in the bahookie.

People with such views tend to overvalue the insights – or sometimes tedious groupthink – they get from their own work experience.

But this, for me, is Twitter-grade anti-politics. There is – I am sure – a decent conversation to be had about who we elect and why; what backgrounds they come from; what skills and perspectives and qualities they bring; their gender, their age, their sexuality, their ethnicity, their class.

But is there are an argument for excluding people from politics whose life’s work is in, well, politics? Nah. Sometimes professional experience counts.

Take all those new councillors. Many will already be in their trade, typically working for campaign groups, or parties or think tanks or as assistants to MPs or MSPs.

Are these real jobs? Yes. Doing constituency legwork for a parliamentarian or finessing policy or researching a problem is not some trivial pastime.

These endeavours can bring proper insight. They certainly provide no worse a school for serving as an elected member than, say, repairing potholes or selling trainers for more than you bought them for.

But, hang on, it’s unlikely that a roadie or a sports shoe entrepreneur comes in to politics without honing some suitable skills, such as trade union activism or business lobbying. So is the difference between the “never-had-a-real-job” political professional – few of whom have never had to pull a pint or wait a table – and the rest of our elected members really that big?

I don’t think so. But Kezia Dugdale knows better than me. The former Scottish Labour leader has been pigeon-holed as a career politician, including, on the pages of this very newspaper, by, erm, me. Now off the front line, Ms Dugdale admits the description fits her “quite well”.

I asked her why. “I went to uni, got a job as a welfare adviser while I was politically active in my 20s and then went to work in politics before becoming a politician,” she explained.

Ms Dugdale did “countless jobs” outside her chosen trade, including scrubbing floors and frying donuts. She also worked the doorsteps.

“When I worked in politics as a researcher, I canvassed three times a week for four years. I met thousands of people, learning what made my community tick, what needed to change and how, who the community leaders were, who blocked progress. Nobody hands you this stuff.

“The job of being a politician has evolved immeasurably over the past 40 years. They undertake way more casework than they used to and their offices operate like mini citizens advice bureaus.

“What matters in that context is that you have politicians who have good communication skills, who can empathise and put people at ease, who can absorb lots of complex information quickly and work out what's important. They need to be able to step back and see a problem in the round and quickly contemplate solutions and next steps. That's just what they need to be to be effective in their communities, before you get to what it takes to be a good parliamentarian or a good campaigner.

“If you have aspirations for the front bench or further you also have to be good on telly and radio. The skill sets are enormous and I don't accept that you'll get that from just one "proper" job or vocation.”

She is right. Ms Dugdale is not arguing everybody in a parliament – or a council – should be like her. “People are more than one thing,” she added. “If I, or people like me, are to be labelled ‘career politicians’ – give us our other labels too. I was a young gay female politician, there are not many of us!”

We reporters tend to focus on elected members, we are shallow that way. But for Ms Dugdale we all need to care about the entire “bubble that supports civic and political life in Scotland”, the country’s machinery of power and influence.

She means everything from business and trade unions to charities and think tanks and the civil service. Her current job at the John Smith Centre helps disadvantaged young people, not least of colour, in to this world.

“It’s this ecosphere, more often than not, that will provide all our future politicians more often than not. How healthy and diverse is it? If it is dominated by one particular force – and I would argue that force is still white middle aged men – then the market is broken.”