I'd vote for Frank Field any day. He says it like he sees it, it's a rare quality in any politician!

I think you are probably right about this but it is a very real problem that there are so few contestable seats left. It concerns me that entire geographical areas now depend on the government for a living and are huge net beneficiaries of taxes from others. With the modern tendency to aspire to leave such areas ...(like inner London) whole people vote for their feet their vote suddenly becomes worthless as the move to Conservative areas where vastly more votes are required per seat( 43,000 to 23,000 Labour ).
Then we get the typical inner-city left seat where antediluvian politics are still the currency of a cost free vote for other people?s money. You might say that other areas would become more Conservative, and although it does not seem to me to have the same effect ,it is noticeable that the differing strands of opinion have almost nothing in common..( A similar separation has occurred in education and it is similarly damaging )

This makes an election more like an elected dictatorship. Even if Brown does scrape home he will be in open war with the South of England and , in fact with the majority in England from the start what can he really achieve under such circumstances? This sense of having no say is worsened by the EU lie and the Scottish lie and the boundary commission lie and the .......etc.etc. As the state expands and more and more powers are taken over your life the sense that you are your enemy?s puppet is dangerously de stabilising. Tax becomes theft.

With this in mind I think you have to try to think of ways to restore legitimacy without losing the direct accountability we have and certainly not involving the squalid deals of the Scottish assembly under PR or STV which ?inexplicably? appeals to the centre. I would suggest looking at an element of PR in the HOL. That would discourage tactical voting as well and would mean everyone?s vote mattered at least. I think the Conservative Party should offer such a compromise to the Liberals ( who need 70,000 for seat)...of course , I doubt they would get many votes without tactical voting but we shall see.

Obviously we have to move to English votes with the advent of devolution and a combination of secondary PR would properly reflect the sort of country we live in.
From this a Liberal Conservative consensus on English matters would emerge with the Liberals as the junior partners . On the UK I `m not sure but at least it would mean that the government that arrives would be one with a legitimate right to lead the country and not ,as has been the New Labour way , follow and mislead it , aware of its underlying weakness.

"I cannot see the benefit of a system which engages me in who the Conservative candidate in Warley should be. Surely I would plump for the most ineffective character they would put up?"

Bob, you'd be spoilt for choice.

Wicked, David, wicked.

I'm not convinced either, but in most US states you can only vote in one party's Primary. So if an individual was a shoe-in for your party, then yes you could go and vote for the most ineffective Tory but otherwise you would probably prefer to vote in your own Primary.

The only solution to the democratic deficit is PR. Whatever damage it would do to either of the main parties, there is no justification for having a parliament unrepresentative of the vote of the people and essentially making some votes worth much more then others.

The Lib Dems may love it but it would result in a greater number of parties, so no one party would always be able to 'wag the dog'. It would also mean that New Labour could no longer just target a small number of swing voters in middle England.

Whilst I'm not in favour of PR, for reasons of the back-door coalitions being cobbled together after an election, I know what you mean Bob. However, I would speculate that the biggest losers from PR would actually be the Lib Dems. The two major parties are pretty much established as that, and a proliferation of alternatives would provide a big threat to the 'everything to everybody' image the Lib Dems portray.

The 'plumping for the weaker candidate' objection is the common one Bob but funnily enough the overwhelming evidence from the states is that this simply doesn't happen - certainly not on any meaningful scale.

And even to the extent that it does it's more than offset by the positive of genuine engagement along party lines from opponents and independents (I might want reforming Blairite as a Labour candidate, you might want a moderate tory etc.)

I take your point about turn out but we may want to revisit that in November...!

You good voters carry on, I've retired.