A thoughtful line from Georgiansilver. Don't assume that the board would be running an avaricious company for the benefit of its investors. Think more of a charitable trust. Trustee directors of such organisations often do an admirable job. I have to think only of that wonderful organisation, the CAB, where I myself do an admirable job... Anyway, it's an idea that deserves to be teased out in the review of UK governance that is now so desperately needed.

The UK constitution has degenerated into a basketcase, In particular the upper chanber is a mess. Its hereditary element has been removed only to be replaced with an ill-defined, ad hoc process of patronage exercised by the leading political parties - especially whichever one happens to be in government. The fact that the government of the day can "rewrite" the (unwritten) constitution at will (sweeping changes to the upper chamber, the relationship between governance and the judiciary, etc) is ridiculous. And any reform of the voting system for the lower chamber is in the gift of the government, and as the late Robin Cook observed (with regret): no government is going to change the system that got it into power.

On the question of PR v first-past-the-post I would make this observation without comment: Labour achieved a landslide victory in the 1997 general election with a smaller vote than Labour achieved in 1951. Yet the electorate was much smaller in 1951 than in 1997. And in 1951 Labour LOST.