Mindless abuse is obviously your strong point. Advocating a spending priority in one localised area hardly disqualifies you from advocating cuts elsewhere.

Clearly you were just desperate to find something Craig Murray said that you could take issue with!

Yes. Tithing of all elected party members is right. These people are placed into office often by a small band of activists that work extremely hard on their behalf to get them in.

It is the elected members duty to repay the party with a portion of what they receive to not only reward the party for their support but to help the party to further their aims.

And no. there is no valid argument to spend £10,000 on communication in this digital age.

“Independent candidates tend to be … successful when there’s a particular local issue that’s not been taken up by one of the main parties, or they’re celebrities on single-issue crusades.”

Precisely so. The issue is honesty in politics.

To be fair, Alix missed out a category, and that category is ‘idiot’. Murray’s principles are a mix of already-existant Lib Dem policies and wishful thinking.

The man thinks taxes can be kept low and enormous flood defences can be erected, because ‘technology has moved on’. I’m shocked that a former civil servant can have such a lax grasp on the cost of public works, but there you go.

Independent candidates tend to be only successful when there’s a particular local issue that’s not been taken up by one of the main parties, or they’re celebrities on single-issue crusades. The voting public is very good at spotting egotistical idiots when they’re not hidden behind a party line.

During the debate on Post Office closures, many Labour MPs told constituents they were against closures and would fight such moves. When it came time to vote, they were subjected to the whip and they voted in favour of closures.

85 Labour MPs signed an early day motion opposing the arguably unfair extradition treaty with the US. They told campaigners they would fight the treaty. However, when the Tories forced a vote, the majority voted with the government.

How can this be classed as representative democracy when politicians are patently not representing their constituents?

An independent is directly accountable to the electorate in a way that no party politician is. There are no “safe seats” for independents. There is no party spin machine ready to swing into action and gloss over transgressions.

The political system in the UK is heavily weighted in favour of the parties. From sloganeering on ballot papers, to election broadcasts and tax rules on funding, the parties stack the deck in their favour every time.

“There’s no such thing as an independent. …. they call (their philosophy) “common sense”, or “what ordinary people want”.

Nonsense. There are all sorts of independents. Only some of them behave the way you suggest that they should be constrained to do. Many independents have many different ideas and philosophies. Some of them are very valid. They can think for themselves. They are independents.

It seems you are a rather dyed in the wool party loyalist, who is unable to contemplate the idea of someone independent enough to think for themselves, without having to refer back to the comfort blanket of a political party!

If you want to see some very well thought through policies from one particular independent who is going to do rather well in Norwich next week:

http://www.putanhonestman.org/craigs-policies

We need to transform politics do that people want to join and donate to political parties. Look at how Obama funded a lot of his campaign from relatively small donations.

As for re elections for defectors the only time I would say this might be justified is for MEP as under the current crap election system for the euros people do not vote for an individual MEP but for the party.

There should be no automatic re-election in these cases. People vote for the representative, not the party. If the party can sack someone who defects, it makes the party system stronger, which is something to avoid.

Is it acceptable to demand councillors pay a proportion of their allowance to their party – so-called tithing?

If the allowance is expenses, no. If the allowance is a wage, then it’s reasonable for any voluntary association to have whatever rules for its memebers that it sees fit to have — because people aren’t forced to join it.

Can MPs’ £10,000 communications allowance really be used to leaflet constituents as long as it doesn’t promote a party?

MP’s shouldn’t get money to post letters to their constituents. Instead they should communicate through electronic media.

In that situation, we do not only need parties. We also need independents who can challenge those parties from time to time, and force them to reform – as Martin Bell did, and as Craig Murray is about to do.

People who want to see real political reform should not vote for any of the unreformed parties standing in Norwich next week. Sadly, that includes the Lib Dems, who might be the best of the bunch as regards financial probity, but can’t nowadays pretend to smell of roses as regards consistency of policies and basic political values, campaigning methods, or campaign management.

Nor, of course, should anyone even think of the BNP as a valid protest option. To get rid of that idea, to give all the parties a real shock, and to force genuine change, vote Murray in Norwich on July 23rd!

Of course those who defect should offer themsleves for re-election. Now I come from a city where defections to and fro the LibDems are common. I don’t always agree with the reasons but always stand by the person who comes in (but not much the person who moves out =P). It is very clear that, despite us always repeating “It doesn’t really register with the public”, the election results show that it absolutely does.

So the time has come for a little of the revolution in politics Brown said he would implement. Let those who defect stand for re-election.