The heart of corruption: doesn’t our political system have to change to reflect other changes?

Last year Simon Collister posed this question;

what will happen to government  when political bloggers change the way we (self) organize ourselves into issue driven groups, no longer reliant on the traditional and formal structures of membership organizations which have been built on a model first established by thinking during the early days of western Enlightenment more than 200 years ago?

As in previous posts I suggest we have reached a point in UK politics where the structure has to change because the electorate and its thoughts, feelings and ways of communicating have changed.

We need to educate our children on so many points, some very simple.  That great democrat Tony Benn, who served his constituents for 51 years, pointed out the simplest of points – we the general public hand over our power to those we elect for 4-5 years.  There are many other simple elements in the process that don’t get publicised, some are procedural, some are ethical.  Of course MPs need educating as well – so that they are not guilty of misusing the trust and power loaned them.

What actions are needed?

Proportional representation.

Education of children and the general population.

Education of MPs

Free voting in parliament

Less adversarial process

Above all a system that gets us out of the Lib-Lab-Con strait-jacket and allows us, and our MPs to pursue issues on merit and evidence instead of ideology.

Corruption is in the structure and process – the MPs are not much worse than in earlier generations.