A defence of political parties: Part 1

I’d like to write a series of posts here in defence of the political Party system. I’m conscious that this is not an elegant or fashionable position to take, and it’s certainly not one of those lines that you can defend in the 140 character Twitter template.

I’d go further: It takes a series of blog-posts – a set of milestones. It’s like fighting the great Earnie Shavers – there are about a dozen knockout punches that can be aimed at you early on – but if you can take the fight the distance, you often have a good chance of winning it.

Before I really get into the meat of it though, could I ask you to indulge me in something?

Just go here – I’ve pointed to this site before (it’s a few years old, but it still illustrates something very valuable – it was created by the late Chris Lightfoot) – fill it out willya?

If you want to, and you’re not too worried about showing your political colours, you can grab the URL of the results page and save it – or paste it into the comments box here?

I’ll explain why later.