John Pilger - Incisive as ever

JP is ALWAYS worth some time. His "cut the crap" honesty is always refreshing and a reminder that we are not alone in our justified distrust of politicians - particularly those who have been bought-off by the bush crime syndicate.

YET - how many will STILL vote for these criminals next time? Nazi Germany got entirely what it deserved through the peoples' failure to oust Hitler. How with WE look to our children's generation? Good guys or bad guys?

Why does anyone ever vote for these lying cretins? It's not even like their campaign advertising is any good and that they have anything to sell. I'd pay good money to find the answer.

I suspect that it's because the news system conspires to make them not appear the fools that they are, while framing everyone else as not serious enough to criticise them properly.

In a sense, we watch politicians speak to each other too much. Prime Ministers Questions is a waste of time because it's the same opposition cretin who always asks the questions, and he is not qualified to put the case on many issues.

If people were selected completely at random from the country, and given an hour to debate with the Prime Minister each day on camera with a moderator of their choice there would be a far better chance at piercing the reality bubble.

The answer is to make two years the maximum term for any Prime minister and cabinet minister, no Prime minister or cabinet minister ever to be elected more than once. This limits the opportunity for good guys to do good but there are not enough of those anyway to outweigh the massive bonus of the system. Voting would have to be compulsory but electronic, even if this means taking the equipment to the house of any person without the resources to effect their vote otherwise.

How exactly, would compulsory voting make any difference? What is the point of voting when none of the candidates are satisfactory? What if I don't want to vote - wilfull non-participation if you want to call it that?

I agree that compulsory voting is not the way forward.

Whenever there's a particularly low turnout in an election, the major political parties and the media start tut-tutting, and asking what should be done. They always select compulsory voting.

A cynical person might suggest that the usual purpose for this is to shift the focus of the matter onto the public: to suggest that voter turnouts are low because the public are indolent and don't know how very important it is. Sometimes calls for compulsory voting are even accompanied by statements of this sort.

Unfortunately, I think the cynical person would be essentially correct.

This merely serves to distract attention from the fact that the real problem is the crap politicians.

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I have some reservations about electronic voting. The first is that it's quite hard to keep secure from fraud. That's been very well documented.

In particular, why bother to introduce electronic voting and go door-to-door? You can go door-to-door with paper just as easily.

The second reason is that you can't spoil your slip electronically.

If you don't want to vote in a paper election, you can write something strongly-worded on your slip and hand it in. A few people will read it, because it needs to be agreed that its a spoilt slip.

In some elections, it really is your best chance of changing the world, to try and impress on the vote-counters the awfulness of it all.

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On the other hand, I think Alterkocker's comments on tenure of the post of Prime Minister are acute but perhaps don't go far enough.

Local government often does good.

Even David Blunkett, who acted like Satan Incarnate when Home Secretary, is fondly remembered here in Sheffield for his good running of the place.

There are so many examples of politicians doing great evil at a national level, that you can't help wondering if one needs to have a Home Secretary, or a Prime Minister, at all, no matter how small their grip on the post. Why not have no executive whatsoever: just have a committee, and make all the minutes of their meetings public?