Primaries

The rise of primaries is an encouraging sign. When we have real parties again, they should select their parliamentary candidates by putting out their shortlists of two to ballots of every registered voter in the constituency in question, they should elect their Leaders by putting out shortlists to nation-wide ballots of the entire electorate, and they should put the top 10 policies proposed by their local branches out to a such national ballots, with people entitled to vote for up to two, and with the top five guaranteed inclusion in the manifesto. These three types of ballot should simply take place, as a matter of routine, in the course of each Parliament.