As an example, suppose over the summer there had been a secret ballot amongst MPs for a new standards committee chair. Given the number of MPs deeply unhappy about the Telegraph, publicity, changes to the rules etc, in the secrecy of the ballot box it’s easy to imagine many of them voting for a non-reformist candidate.

The business committee being proposed is obviously a different beast. But suppose there is a period of controversy over its behaviour and whether it is doing things in the public (rather than MPs’) interest. And then a backward looking MP gets elected as the new chair after a secret ballot…

I don’t think the parallel with secret voting in public elections works, by the way, because voters are not accountable to anyone else for their voting behaviour. But if I elect an MP, isn’t it reasonable for me to know about what they then do in that role?

The argument over the secret ballot in the 19th century was rooted in whether it was better to have a system that is transparent – and transparently corrupt – or secret – and subsequently harder to corrupt. Correctly, Parliament ended up opting for the latter.

Who would this hypothetical controversial candidate for a select committee chair be exactly anyway? We deal with the opposite situation – the bland party loyallist being shoehorned in – at the start of every Parliament.

Most people, if asked, would say “yes” in response to the question “Should MPs vote as they think best or as their party tells them”. But then if they were asked “Do you prefer a political party which is united to one where its MPs are always arguing with each other and voting in different ways?” they would also respond “yes”. It’s the same as asking “Do you want tax cuts?” and “Do you want better and more extensive public services?”. They will respond “yes” to each, without necessarily seeing there is something of a balance between the two.

The votes in the ballot box tend to show what they really think, though politics being what it is people like to vote for parties which promises mutually contradictory things and then moan about politicians always promising what they can’t deliver.

I would like our party to show a grown-up attitude and in the way it presents itself move people away from this way of thinking. I regret, after 30 years of membership and trying to push this, I see little success. We too have campaigns run by marketing men who push this childish attitude to politics because they think of it a salesmen’s job, rather than an adult attitude to politics in which we work with the electors as colleagues.

Let’s be extreme for a moment – set a restriction on MPs so they can only vote on an issue if they were present for a minimum percentage of the summary debate; let reasoned argument and personal logic decide the outcome of a vote rather than ‘because I said so’. If MPs couldn’t be bothered to contribute and have their say, inform the voters, and I’m sure they’d be having theirs, at the election, in the ballot box.

More seriously, I would like to see things changed so that the whips have far less power to control how MPs vote. If their constituents are clear in their desire/approval for a certain vote, then that’s how the MP should vote, and the whips should not be able to punish them for it.