[jambutty]

When I was standing for council I did consider (for a very brief short second) standing as an independent. But, as it was pointed out to me, I would never be in the ruling party and I would never be able to contribute to major decisions.

But that wasn’t the fault of being an independent Gayle. That was because of party politics. If all councillors were independent of a political party then everyone would have a voice and those with the same view on an issue would win the day. If there were not enough in the majority with a like mind then some horse trading would need to be done. Surely that is better than blindly following the herd?

Our current democratic system may well be the best that there is (allegedly) but that doesn’t mean that it cannot be improved upon.

If all MP’s had a free vote on all issues instead of being told to vote the way the party wants, that would go a long way to improving the system.

However genuine proportional representation would go a long way to producing a democratic Parliament.

So would not having the PM SELECT his cabinet and junior Ministers. The ambitious MP will kowtow to the PM just to get a job in office and the extra salary that goes with it and they will follow the PM’s orders to keep it. The cabinet should be appointed by the MP’s and also sacked by them when necessary.

You seem to have hit the nail on the head g_jones and Gayle. The parties not in power spend as much time trying to do down the party in power to defeat them rather than tackling the issues that will benefit us.

Surely government isn’t about trying to do the other guys down? Shouldn’t government be about running the country for the benefit of the country not staying in power as long as possible regardless?

One final point I would voice. If our democratic system is so open to scrutiny then why is there a 30 years rule (and 50 years in some cases) for Cabinet documents?