My late father - a rabid capitalist-industrialist - went to Cuba and returned very impressed with the health system. I have friends who go there every year, sometimes twice a year, and return every year unfavourably comparing our health system to the Cuban one. You make the mistake, Don, of elevating consumer hardware to a religion.

There is some, however, of what you write above with which I can agree. If we are to make the best (or least worst) of our present system then we need to be wary of kneejerk reactions tothe expenses muddle - however, although Bob Marshall-Andrews is a large claimer I have read his arguments that the expenses of his actual office were proper, and I think he is right. Proper office expenses are one thing. Moat maintenance is another.

I shall certainly be voting. Everyone should. I was half minded to vote Green in the Euro-erection, but by way of comparison I always get a reply from the local Labour Party to my emails, and I also always get a reply from the ward councillors who are conservatives. Reply from the Greens to my questions about their transport and other policies came there none. Shame really since that Green woman is not bad - anyone hated by the hard-core Eurocrats and the Eurobusiness lobby cannot be all bad.

It is not, however, I think, true to say that no revolution has improved the lot of the common populace. It took a long time for Cromwell's revolution to bear fruit, but it was necessary to overcome the Carolinian attempts to destroy the gradual process before then towards the beginnings of a separation of powers. Materially, the current population of the US are very likely better off as a result of their revolution, and the principles of their constitution are widely admired despite pork-barrel lobbying. Surely the French are better off today as a result of their revolution, although it may have gone a bit too far at the time. You surely would say that the Polish revolution was beneficial. Romania?

Your suggestion that we control the selection of MPs is only half true. We do not control the selection of candidates, and there is no obvious route for us to come to do so.