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Once upon a time, people lived in small communities of a few thousand. In Today’s communities, we’re talking in terms of hundreds of thousands, maybe million, all identifying as one community, needing political representation.
The old system of voting for someone, known to most of the community, doesn’t really work, anymore.
When I go to vote, I no longer know any of the candidates and they rarely try to make themselves known to me. I read election leaflets and see election posters but they’re meaningless to me. I see a face and I’m invited to vote for the most photogenic. I read promises and I know, from past experience, that they are lies.
MP’s no longer pretend to represent the wishes and concerns of their constituencies, claiming merely to be representative of them and so vote their own interests.
Because of party politics, their self interest lies in staying in a large party, which can attract the funding needed to advertise their “promises”. The Party can attract donations (bribes) from businesses, who expect to gain an advantage.
Independent candidates are unlikely to help change government policy, so are unlikely to attract donations to advertise themselves.
In addition, candidates are limited in how much they can spend on advertising themselves but those in a party benefit from their party’s unlimited spending.
My solution: get rid of voting and pick candidates, by lot, from those registered voters, who are prepared to serve as MP’s.
This way a constituency gets someone from their area, likely to have similar concerns.
There would be no wasted time and money advertising themselves and no boring Party political broadcasts.
There’d be no whipping MP’s to vote for policies they don’t support.
Admittedly, MP’s can become corrupted in office but many won’t and lobbying groups would find it harder to gain advantages.
MP’s would have real life experience and a wealth of varied expertise.
Nepotism and cronyism would be limited, by their limited time in office.
MP’s could vote PM’s and Ministers in and out of office, by a simple majority. They’d all be judged on merit and unlikely to try to dominate, so likely last longer in a post than under the present system.
Of course, the present lot would oppose such changes… if allowed to.
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