Monday 15 June 2009

Don't vote for me, vote for you!



With so much talk of the need for political change, and the plethora of micro democratic reform inspired groups popping up, perhaps we are moving toward the inevitable conclusion of any mature party based democracy – we each become our own party. We all then get to vote for someone who exactly espouses our views and in whom we can justifiably place our trust and confidence. Voting would be compulsory and the only name on the ballot paper would be one’s own. This would mean we all get the government we deserve and no one could complain about not being represented. There would be no minorities to complain or majorities to crow, no manifesto promises would be reneged on and everyone would have to whip themselves.
As everyone would be ‘perpetually elected’ the people who would actually sit in the House of Lords and the House of Commons would have to be selected at random in a similar manner to the current Jury Service call up. Once selected for service in either house the representative must decide on a term of service, with a minimum term of one day to a maximum of one month. This would ensure that parliament is constantly being refreshed, with no one becoming complacent or stale and may of course necessitate the installation of a revolving door.
All ministers including the Prime Minister would be selected by a secret ballot of the whole house each morning. This will not just keep each PM on their toes, but also add an entertaining level of bewilderment to the answers at Prime ministers question time. It is not expected that the daily changing of ministers will in any way affect the Civil Service’s ability to run the Ministries.
Anyone selected to sit in the House of Lords will not only get to choose their title but also get to keep it for Life. In fact all such new titles will be ‘Hereditary’, meaning that over time the numbers of those with titles will eventually end up outnumbering those without. Leading on to an inevitable point somewhere in the
future where everyone is a Lord or Lady, Duke or Duchess, Earl or... well you get the point. Of course as no one with a title is allowed to sit in the Commons this would eventually mean that the only person legally able to sit there and to simultaneously occupy all the Governmental posts would be Tony Benn.

Works for me...

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