The podium piece by Matthew Connolly (Gazette, April 20, 'Time is ripe to launch a moderate revolution') certainly ticked a lot of boxes for me, one of the discontents, the disenfranchised majority who are totally infuriated by the over-burdened, overly administered and expensive political system.

The political rainbow needs to be re-arranged or blended. The party system has created an edifice which is impregnable to those with moderate or centralised views. Decisions cannot be made in simple black or white terms but our Government system has no room for consensus when it adopts the ‘us and them’ attitude – we look after our own.

The ‘toe the party line’ whipping system, the corporate lobbying by multi-national companies, the media control, the still prevalent class war, unfair taxing or lack of it, grotesque spending on the military and underfunding of real social problems have created an imbalanced society.

Politicians seem incapable of breaking this crazy merry-go-round of squabbling and name-calling - it is worse than a nursery school playground.

I was really hoping that after the MPs' expenses scandal and the public opinion polls showing a complete lack of faith in them that there would be a sea-change in attitudes. But, politicians do have thick skins and they have not listened to any of our concerns - we still hear of corruption now.

My ideal would be to scrap the party system and fill the commons with independently minded people with real skills, not university trained professional politicians. Maybe then we could get a consensus of what is fair and right for everyone, not just a cosseted undeserving few.

I would love to reduce the vast number of Parliamentary constituency seats to, say, 300 and allow candidates to canvas their own personally held policies. The winner takes a Government seat and the second-placed candidate goes on to the opposition benches.

We would still have a smaller Houses of Parliament but both benches would be made of all political shades and opinions.

Each side would have to work together in order to get anything done! OK, that’s a step too far, but don’t lose sight of the thought.

But maybe that’s better than a reincarnation of Robespierre, another citizen who did take action! I doubt that Matthew will be sharpening up his axe very soon though.

Roy Wilcock

Kendal