Ah, well, exactly the same thing happens in Canada, McGrath. The Conservatives, elected to a majority with only about 40% public support, act as if they had a majority mandate for the Canadian public.

Face it, political parties are corrupted institutions who seek power because they want it, and who do everything possible to retain power once they get it, and who will sell their souls to the highest bidder without a flicker of remorse. A political party is a gang. It's easy to corrupt a gang...just offer them a lot of money and let them rule the local turf.

But do not expect them to be public servants. They serve themselves.

I honestly believe that the only way to solve this sordid situation is to do what was done previously with the absolute monarchies which governed most of the word. Get rid of political parties. Disband them. Have indepedents run for office everywhere, people who are not connected to any political party organization, people who only represent themselves, their personal ideas and experience, and all of whom are funded equally from the public purse and who all get equal media coverage. And make elections much shorter and fare less costly than they presently are...like about 2% of the present cost. And do not divide the government into partisan blocs, but have it be an assembly of equals...as it once was, for example, in Athens...or as it is now in various city governments. I think that political parties should be done away with entirely.

This proposal, I imagine, will be met with hoots of derision from various quarters and I will be told it's an impossible idea.......

........which is just the sort of reaction I'd have gotten from a lot of conventional minds in 1650 if I'd proposed getting rid of the absolute (or otherwise) monarchs who governed much of Europe and replacing them with publicly elected assemblies of representatives.

Fine. (shrug) I'm just freely expressing my own ideas. I don't expect them to change the world. I'm not going to lose any sleep if a variety of people here disagree with them or if they are not adopted by the world around me. I'm just one person, and I'm just talking, period. And that's what everyone else here is doing too, just talking, and that's fine with me. That's normal. It's nothing to get in fights with each other about, cos that doesn't solve anything either.

If we disagree....fine. Okay. No sweat. Life goes on.