There are a two websites I would like to see for the UK which I think might do something to mend our broken politics.
The first I would like to see would be an equivalent of the American factcheck site, with professional journalists checking all statements made by politicians of all parties and checking official government statements. They would also monitor the media for uncritical recycling of corporate and government PR. This would have to be done in an impartial way with no political bias.
The second would be a site where people could pledge money to be paid to a named politician if that politician retired from politics before the end of the calendar year. Of course there would have to be safeguards, for example the money would be repaid if the person concerned re-entered politics later and the definition of re-entering politics would have to be clearly stated.
But together these would act as a check on the culture of spin and lying in politics and would let the public provide incentives for an unpopular politician to leave the game between elections. The amount of money pledged would give a direct indication of the unpopularity of the person and indirectly could show the unpopularity of each party
I don’t have the time or money to set up either.
Any volunteers
Tags: democracy, factcheck, incentive to leave political life, politic, political lying
