What would you rather have? A minister with 100% of his or her attention on running their department, or one that is forced to spend weeks concentrating on winning a by-election. To send some 80 ministers to Cheshire to try to retain a single seat in the house of commons, when those ministers have a duty to the country, is wrong. If ministers spent more time running the country, rather than having to worry about part politics - whether a by-election, funding events or schmoozing powerful people - then the country would be in a much better shape.

And maybe even Brown would not be facing the problems that he is facing now. The 2p tax cut was purely a party political measure, aimed at sniping a resurgant Tory party. It backfired on him, and Labour, but more importantly it has backfired on the country. For purely party political reasons - as there is a by-election in a few days - Brown’s puppet has increased the tax paying threshold and is paying for it my borrowing from future taxation. If it were not purely party political, then Darling would have reversed the 10p decision. As it is now, middle income families benefit twice - once from a reduction of the tax rate by 2p and again by the increase of the tax threshold. The net effect for low income earners is still negative - the removal of the 10p rate is a bigger effect than the increased threshold for coming on for 1 million of the lowest earners.

So what is the solution? How do we divorce party politics from running the country? We don’t, but at least we could negate some of the effect of the party by not holding by-elections. What the solution is I do not know - but perhaps since people tend to vote for a party rather than individual, then the party incumbant party keeps the seat. Alternatively, perhaps one should have a vote without a campaign. Simply 1 week after the funeral, a vote is taken.

The more I think and read about modern UK politics, the more I realise that we need to take the party out of politics.

First post in a while again. The main culprit this time is work pressure. Having returned from a gruelling 3 week trip in Blighty, I find myself working like a madman to catch up. The main problem is the pressure to write research papers…. Since I do not have a permanent academic position (only semi-permanent) I need to get my research profile up to make the next step. Once I have a permanent position, I can relax a little (but not much… next step is the professorship), get back to politics and start enjoying life again.