Party (System) Over Here

Amidst all the seething and tooth grinding I haven't found the time to do a 'political' blog post for a while, partly because I've been (...whisper it) quite happy lately (George Monbiot is never quite happy) and also because I can only express myself coherently in Wetherspoons. Taking these poignant factors into account, I've decided to go for an easy target and attack the entire foundation of our political system, the party system. Because it:

1) cannot represent the opinions of 60 Million people adequately. How can two/three/two and half political view points possibly be representative of the nation as a whole.

2) encourages a small elite to dominate the country entirely, the people who are in the parties will only welcome those who share their opinions and backgrounds. Once again reducing the representative capacity of the government. Is most un-Meritocratic.

3) is easy for corporations to manipulate, rather than having to bribe the entire House of Commons, they simply have to bribe the leading figures in whichever party is in power, or make a generous donation to the electoral fund when a party is running.

4) defies the point of our representative system. This exists in order that each constituency votes for whomever it best thinks represents them, they should not be voting for a national party, and neither should the local candidate be representing one. The only way to operate an effective democracy is for all candidates to run as independents, with no commitments to a certain political party's aims.

That's all I can think of for now, but the repercussions of those four factors have already eroded democracy in the UK (and any other nation with a government dominated by a small number of parties) to a fairly drastic point, and it is likely to get worse before it gets better. Don't think AV will pass the ballot, and even if it does it really isn't going to be any kind of solution. Probably my biggest concern is the growth of corporate power in government, more and more politicians have come, and will come, to represent big business above the people who elected them.