O.K. who are you and what have you done with Gordon Brown?

That is the question I found myself asking after reading this article in yahoo news.

New voting system?

I'm all ears...

A written constitution? Like in America?

I smell blood...

Of course, its possible that we will never get a new voting system or a written constitution. Its also very likely that the first "new constitution" will be awful.

However, the very fact that a governing political party is talking about constitutional change shows that our political class is desperate to restore some credibility and justify their existence.

What worries them is not so much that we'll vote for the wrong party, but that we won't vote at all, won't join political parties, won't contribute to their campaigns but instead will act on the popular sentiment that "it doesn't matter who you vote for cos they're all the same".

Monarchs don't pretend to have a popular mandate. They own everything in the kingdom. They are the master. You are the serf. There are no illusions.

Democratic politicians have to pretend that they work for you. Not for themselves, the banking cartel, the military industrial complex or any other special interest.

That pretence is wearing pretty thin.