Welcome
Why Sack the Parties ? Well, our system of government used to have as one of its guiding principles that of separation of the various institutions, to maintain a balance and to ensure that no one institution had absolute power over the others. When political parties took over the power to appoint the Executive, we lost this important principle.
"The Prime Minister replaced the sovereign as actual head of the Executive when the choice of Prime Minister no longer lay with the sovereign; the sovereign lost the choice when strongly organised, disciplined parties came into existence and party discipline depends primarily on the degree to which the member depends on the party for his seat"
Sir Lewis Namier. Historian. (1952).
While not advocating a return to monarchic rule, and while we recognise the role political parties have in generating policies, and identifying and promoting candidates for executive office, we believe it is necessary to restore balance through separation and advocate the elimination of political parties from Parliament.
Sack the Parties proposes
- direct elections for executive positions, from local Mayor to EU President
- representative selection by sortition and delegation
- Lords reform through non-party-political closed- list PR elections
- devolution of powers to their lowest practical level (subsidiarity)
- a written constitution
Please take time to read the Principles upon which these proposals are based.
These proposals are further discussed within the context of the recommendations of the POWER Inquiry.
PrinciplesBlog
- The unveiling of the "big society" in their manifesto, while it impressed me, seems to have done little for the Tories with most voters. So, with no policies to fall back on, David Cameron has chosen to go for fear as his primary means of motivating voters.
- National Insurance is the ultimate stealth tax. So why are none of the main parties proposing to get rid of it?
- As someone who was born an brought up in the Stoke Central constituency, I welcome the candidacy of Gary Elsby to challenge the arrogance of New Labour who think they can gift the seat to their favoured candidate Tristram Hunt.
- This election is being misrepresented as a 3-way contest by those most likely to benefit from such a perception, the three main parties in Westminster.
- The next time someone gets the chance to mobilise significant resources in the name of democratic reform, can we please have some joined-up thinking?
- He stole an entire party, lied to Parliament, was jointly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and probably abused the expenses system. Tony Blair should be on trial, not being touted as the first President of Europe.
- There seems to have been much more fuss and palaver over the bath plug and porn than the £116,000 Jacqui Smith fiddled from the public purse. But now she's apologised, that's ok...
- Never mind the fact that she is typical of her colleagues in every respect other than gender (age, class, education, race), Harriet Harman is (thankfully) unrepresentative of her sex.
- Since when was getting 18% of the electorate considered a victory worth shouting about?
- Despite all the promises of reform, the wringing of hands and donning of hair shirts, Parliament has gone into recess without putting its house in order.
- It is downright hypocritical of David Cameron to suggest he is cleaning up his party. So he's paid back £1,000. What about the other £20k per year?
- Not only do we NOT need professional politicians, but their very existence degrades the quality of democracy.
- Now we know why it was so important that the Telegraph published this information.
- It doesn't matter that she was a Treasury Minister. It doesn't even matter that she was a Minister. She was a public servant milking the system.
- Labour were kidding themselves when they deposed Blair for Brown if they seriously thought he had any chance of winning an election.
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