I think, as long as we have First Past the Post, we need to make constituency MPs more accountable to their constituencies. My suggestion is regular summaries of how local MPs are doing against their promises in the election on the local news channels and in the media and the power for the constituency to hold a recall vote.
This will break some of the power of the party whips and will make the MPs be more representative of their constituents on pain of being fired.
MPs and even ministers don't run the government, the top civil servants do. They can say what they like when trying to get elected but they are soon put in their place when they try their wild ideas.
People seem to think a guy can change from Education or Transport straight into Health or Environment and start putting their ideas into practice. They can't. They can tell their Heads of Department (guys who have been working in that part of government for many years and are experts) what they would like to do, but their choices are limited to what's possible and practical - and what the Treasury will allow. Then it has to pass the Cabinet and the PM.
So please don't start let us start publishing in the media the things they promised but couldn't make happen.
Why do they promise things in the first place? Purely because if they didn't, someone else who did would get elected. Would you vote for someone who promised nothing at all? It's better to look at their promises as their hopes, dreams and inspirations, we all have those, we're only human.
