What do people really want? Mainstream political parties might not be the answer

Mainstream political parties might not be the answer.

There were Whigs and Tories, Conservatives and Liberals and later on Conservatives and Labour and Liberals. Britain keeps changing and this is only natural. The system kept evolving. There was a time when only those with a certain income could vote. There was a time when women couldn't vote. The system hasn't been the same. It has changed and needs to keep changing to accommodate new realities.

First-past-the-post might no longer be the answer. In fact, when the London Assembly was conceived the system chosen included a vote per constituency and a London-wide vote. You vote for your chosen candidate at local level and you also vote for a party-candidate regardless of where you live within the Greater London Region.

In time, political parties have become Vote Cooperatives - a blend of people who might have diametrically opposed views on practically every issue and only come together under a label in order to get elected. This is an anomaly that leads to people voting for ideas that they reject simply because they come under the same banner ie Conservative, Labour.

Anna Soubry and Jacob Rees-Mogg (Conservative Party) and Hilary Benn and Jeremy Corbyn (Labour Party) got elected under the same banners and the present crisis didn't come out of nowhere. It was made by the way political parties are organised. Vote Cooperatives lead to confusion and crisis. Journalists and politicians talk about splitting political parties and mention it saying that it would be a catastrophic event. In fact, splitting political parties would be the best thing that could happen because it will clearly show the electorate what political parties really and truly stand for.

For many years, it has been said that the House of Lords is unrepresentative because its members are not elected. The House of Commons is unrepresentative because political parties are marred in confusion. When you vote Conservative or Labour, what are you actually voting for?

We could have several political parties with clear political agendas. We could have two elected chambers - a Senate and a House of Representatives. Senators would be elected nationally and Representatives would 'represent' local constituencies and a specifically written Constitution for everybody to know what the rules are. We could introduce a ballotage system. Senators and Representatives would come out of the first round of elections and a President and Vice-President would be elected after the second round to ensure that they have both cross-party political support.

Einstein defines 'Insanity' as the attempt to get different results using exactly the same methods. We can trust Providence to give us a strong leader or we change the electoral system and have a written Constitution.

The political system is in crisis and it will not be mended because Britain has changed and the political system is very much anchored in the past.

Devolution created a whole set of contradictions that included a Scottish Parliament, a Welsh Assembly and a Northern Ireland Assembly (hasn't been working for more than a year) but failed to create an English Parliament. Devolution should have been about creating a Federal System. You could have National Parliaments and a Federal Parliament in which all nations could be represented. Unfortunately, expediency and a rush to introduce patches instead of generating a coherent political reality has led to paralysis. Driven by circumstances, the Westminster Parliament is forced to introduce legislation to deal with issues that the Northern Ireland Assembly should be dealing with and it isn't dealing with.

Looking at London and the way London is governed, there are virtually power monopolies and no working Opposition. There are no effective power balances. Boroughs are effectively Feudal States and on top of the Boroughs structure there is a London Assembly with limited attributions. Overlapping authorities create costly confusion and limit accountability. So call Safe Seats are the opposite of a working democracy. We have a system in which - in most cases - you already know who is going to win before the election ever takes place.