The one reform I do not want is more politicians in the House of Lords. They have overseen a major decline in the nations self-confidence and economy. Now we are teetering at the edge of serious decline.  The background to this debate

I am infavour of a non political non-party solution to the second chamber. Iceland and Canada are looking at random selection of representatives, similar to the way we already select juries.  One suggested solution is random selection 

* One of the major problems with the party system is, politicians spend all their efforts in scoring points rather than finding solutions, and following long term policies.

* The party system is also unrepresentative of the population in terms of social class and aspirations. All politicians court the rich and famous and have little genuine concern for the electorate except at election times.

* It will also stop the development of the party list system, which has been encouraged in recent years. Central party offices in London have been pre-selecting candidates. This takes away that power from local constituency parties.  It has also led to less politicians having real business experience.

* In recent years, politicians have been using large government advertising budgets for political advertising – showing how good the government is.  Allied to this the last government  used public funds to bribe voters before the last generation. That got us into such a deep debt. Because the electoral figures did not add up to a Labour victory, this meant uncontrolled spending went on for two years.

* Even more worrying was the Blair and Brown government’s tendency for gesture or sound bite  politics, continually tinkering with the state apparatus. This costed taxpayers millions. The government felt  sound bite propaganda on a daily basis was good. It sent out a message showing how active the government was – when in fact they were wasting money and paralysing the state. The electorate were not getting the services they deserved. It is no wonder there have been calls for privatisation of the state. Politicians were wrecking the state and moving  from the successful mixed economy model that I grew up with.

There has already been a widespread disillusionment with politician’s expenses. Now they are deciding how the rest of us are governed. We urgently need someone other than the House of Commons to deal with parliamentary reform.