Ideas for Power2010

I've been tagged in a meme by Reading Blogger, Oran Jepan. Now that sounds desperately exciting and as though I know what the heck is going on! I had to look up who Power 2010 are and work out what, why, who and whether.

As far as I can tell it is a place that wants ideas for how we will be governed after the 2010 election. And this is when I'm wondering if kids will be wearing Gordon Brown masks on Halloween!

I want something very simple from my elected representative.

It isn't hard, and the clue is in the name.

Yes, I want to be represented.

Now, to be fair to Andrew "Dead Man Walking" MacKay, he has been a good constituency MP. He's answered mail and emails, made representations, represented or argued with my views, and even agreed that MPs who are found to be sleazy in their expenses claims should have the whip withdrawn.  Well, until he was caught with a pair of second homes, that is, at which point he decided that was for others to judge.

So, apart from trousering a huge amount of cash, he's been good.

I want the good bits without the deep pockets. I want an MP who lives in commuting distance of the constituency and thus of his office, the House of Commons. And I want him to commute.

And that also means another thing. I want Parliament to work Office Hours. That means they don't get time to have other jobs, too.  MPs are paid enough. They ought to be able to live on that.

I want my MP to realise that he is my (collectively our) servant, and is not there to feather his nest. I actually don't mind paying him a bonus to attend and do his job, but I expect him to be there as a public servant, doing a public service.  I say him because Bracknell's new Tory candidate is not female, but I include both sexes in the masculine pronoun.

There are, also, too many MPs.  Elect fewer, pay them more, and make them work their butts off for it.

I'm meant, now, to tag five other bloggers.  It was quite hard to find a well balanced choice of bloggers to tag, but I think I have. Of course all of them may choose to do nothing at all! That's the beauty of this concept.

• Tom Ilube, Mr Bojangles
• Troy Norcross, Mobile Marketing and SPAM
• Chris Pounder, Hawk Talk
• Stephen Glenn, Stephen's Linlithgow Journal
• Mark Mills, A Corner of France. Unusual, for Mark is an ex-pat, so his views will be interesting

That's quite an eclectic mix. Hmm, that sounds like a transport café! "Let's all meet at Eclectic Mick's for a Mick's Grill!"