Robert Verkaik (Extracted from "MPs urged to end 'first-past-the-post' election system", The Independent, 14 November 2005)

"Proposals to end Britain's first-past-the-post system for electing MPs and replace it with a more democratic alternative, will be published tomorrow. A coalition of constitutional reform groups and MPs will call on the Government to back a national referendum to choose a more representative method for electing politicians to Westminster."

[Ed: Proportional representation and other proposed systems of electing governments are the last gasp of politicians in trying to bring about "democracy". However, most problems today are so complex that only a minority of the population have the interest, time or capacity to try and understand them. This is why -- whether politicians are proportionately elected or are "first-past-the-post" -- electorates in all developed countries tend to divide pretty well 50:50 on most issues because simple slogans emerge in a competitive way from imaginative spin-meisters and usually become equally effective. And, instinctively, we are tribalistic anyway. But this is not the way to deal with complex problems and, already, focus groups, think-tanks, scientific research groups, specialist interests, and so on are quietly becoming the new forums of policy formulation and governance. The increasingly discredited and distrusted old-fashioned type of politician is slowly, but inevitably, following the religious cleric into historical oblivion.]