Switching to "Party Free Politics" in the UK

Party Politics have, in my opinion, dominated government in the UK for far too long. The hierarchies of the major parties are often much too powerful and in many cases this negates basic aspects of democracy. Is the fact that we went to war with Iraq an example of this?
In order to win the votes of "floating" voters the major parties are not likely to produce manifestos that are too far to the right or left of centre. And, on the evidence mounting up during the last few days, they are all too aware of the need to appeal to persons worried about the services traditionally provided by the NHS and the education system, as well as making very obvious attempts to assure the growing numbers of pensioners, and families on benefits, that they will be looked after. These are areas which were traditionally the domain of labour but are now being cultivated by parties that were, historically, more inclined to the right.

In my opinion a great unknown in the next election will be the anger that is felt by many people over MPs expenses, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the damage that has been inflicted on the world by reckless financial institutions and the fact that many bankers, guilty or not of bringing on the World Financial Armageddon, will still be getting total incomes that to many people are astronomical.

I feel that the time is ripe for party politics to be swept out of sight. My ideal scenario for the next election should see the major parties backing a candidate in each constituency, these would be opposed by just one independent candidate, this candidate should have had a long period of residence in the constituency, he or she may even have belonged to a political party previously. Come election day and there would be a massive turn out of voters and they could show their desire for change by voting for the independent candidate. As I said that would be my ideal scenario.

Another system, that I would like to see introduced, would involve juggling the schedule controlling the days that Parliament sits. The system is as follows, in order to provide officially designated times, for all MPs to meet their constituency members, two days a month would be specified for this purpose. For example the first Wednesday in the month and the third Sunday. The MP would be available, in a suitable hall, paid for by Government, from 9AM until 5PM, say two hours for a working lunch between noon and 2PM. These days and times should be suitable for most people who wished to attend Q and A meetings with their MP. These officially scheduled meetings should not detract from the MP's normal arrangements for meeting and consulting residents of their constituency.

Frederick W Gilling Wednesday 17 February 2010