From Nick. I am a constituent. See that's what he was doing last week.

In brief, 'We bought NatWest and that seemed to go well, so we decided to buy ABN Amro, but sadly that didn't turn out so well. Both were kind of hostile takeovers, sort of, so we didn't really do any due diligence. Imagine our surprise when the ABN Amro deal went pear shaped, for us, for the banking industry and for the country. Incidentally, can the taxpayer send the next instalment of my six figure pension to a PO Box in Jersey? Thanks awfully.'

for really useless ones that don't know their arse from their elbow.

It's a clear 2-1 victory to those two over-exposed types who just like sitting around on their fat bottoms all day. I mean the pandas, obviously.

Even 38 Degrees is a start - and I don't mean to sound dismissive either its just not much of a time commitment.

Other political parties are available.

I know I sound like like a knackered old class war troll when posting on here but I genuinely don't think right wing views are morally indefensible at all - its just a different opinion. The Tories used to be the biggest popular political party in Europe with over 3 million members, and amazing number (and hence all the C&UA clubs round the country).

I do worry that they are now the willing slaves of a tiny number of financial services paymasters - and its a worry for all parties now that a professional and biddable political class has become so corrosively cynical that they have lost interest in us.

I don't think it's fair to say that only those who are actively engaged in political organisations are entitled to voice opinions. Maybe that's not what you're saying, but it seems a bit like it.

The main issue is that there isn't a party for most of us. 38 Degrees are certainly not to be sniffed at, but they're not a party. They're an issue-by-issue campaign group, and I've been proud to support them on several things this year. But if they organised as a party, I couldn't join them, because I don't always agree with them.

Today as almost never before in the history of modern politics, most of us are unrepresented, and I think a lot of us are coming to the conclusion that we're unrepresentable. I couldn't join a political party, because I could never expect to be supportive of everything it does. If you want to get anything done, much less get nominated for a seat, you have to be the loyal activist, and I'm just not prepared to do that.

And, thanks to our archaic representative system, there is absolutely no point in my casting a vote for a minority party, even if there were one which represented me.

Our democratic process is pretty damn undemocratic. That's why people sound off in frustration. That's why people don't get directly involved: for so many of us, it's hard to see the point.

And then have a candidate foisted upon it by a Central Office against local wishes.

The theory of British politics and the reality of it are very far apart. And the reality is distasteful.

youth I joined the Labour Party and found it to be a truly depressing experience. The CLP meetings were dull and it was full of politics with a small p with people only really concerned with their own ambitions or protecting their own positions.

If you want to try and improve things by joining a local party, good luck to you, but if my experience is anything to go on you will need to scratch an awful lot of backs and need the patience of a saint if you are going to influence anything more substantial than the type of biscuits on offer in the meetings.

Sadly, it's little wonder that many of today's politicians have bypassed the grass roots, working their way up via being a researcher, assistant or through the media.

There was a feature on child poverty. The measure of child poverty is if a child is raised in a household which brings in 60% or less of the national median income. (Incidentally, I died a bit inside when the correspondent described that formula as "a bit complicated" before explaining it.)

Anyway, in a natural quirk of statistics, this means that in straitened economic times, you'd expect the number of children in that definition of poverty to actually reduce, because the median household income is reduced. The "poverty threshold" gets lower. You have to be poorer now to count as "in poverty" than you did a couple of years ago.

Over the last couple of years, the number of children in that definition of poverty has actually GROWN. Families which used to be above the poverty threshold are now below it, even though you now have to be poorer to qualify than two years ago. A whole cohort of families have seen their incomes reduce faster and harder than the national median.

Which is as good a way as any to show that the government's policies are hitting the poorest hardest.

If people think things are bad now, they're probably going to get even worse. And there's only so long you can blame an outgoing government for things (and that's a whole other argument). Even the first Blair term, with its extended honeymoon didn't get away with Major-bashing forever before people started to ask questions about its performance.

And, in this case, there's a growing middle class, partly created by public sector management expansion that is much more fearful than it was and potentially quite mobile in their choice of "leadership".

I'm fairly sure that the Millibot won't last until 2015, he's a decent enough man but it looks like he's not really up to the job of leading a political party. That said, I don't see much in the way of comfort for the Conservatives, who are likely to be massively unpopular with the economic downturn affecting more parts of the economy than say, the recession of the early 1980s. And they seem currently particularly adept to be alienating significant portions of their own traditional electoral base (let's see how the shuffling about over the HS2 rail link goes in the Home Counties, shall we?).

The Lib Dems are basically toast if Clegg leads them in to the election, and not much better off if he doesn't; any new leader will be probably be tarred with the brush of having sat in a coalition cabinet.

I reckon the turnout at the next election will see a new low in living memory. Not, as the political hacks usually claim, as a result of "voter apathy", but something far more deeper and corrosive: voter antipathy. More and more people are actively eschewing the "traditional" channels of representation and instead moving towards single issue protest, or more diffuse affiliations like Occupy LSX. I don't feel in any way connected to anyone in politics at the national level; it feels like a cosy, rather hermetic little enclave for those of particular social and philosophical training (good school -> off to Oxford or other high ranking university at a pinch to do PPE or similar -> work as researcher for party -> get on candidate list -> get safer seat -> on greasy career pole up the junior ranks - > ministerial post -> cabinet post etc.). Still, at least it doesn't actually let them loose in the real world.

The Occupy movement is an interesting example, if we're honest. There doesn't seem to be a single traditional core but there is certainly a commonality of interest in a variety of areas that provides motivation for this stuff to happen.

are you claiming that only the portion of the electorate that vote Labour are not 'selfish, greedy, stupid and easily-manipulated'? Great to see you're full of the milk of human kindness.

The current economic conditions are pushing a cohort who used to earn over the threshold BELOW the new, lower threshold. If they weren't being hit disproportionately harder, they would stay comfortably above it. That's the point. The actual definition of poverty wasn't the issue.

(That said, I think your your point about relative poverty is well taken - at least theoretically. In reality, the area below 60% of the median income is not a place in which I'd like to raise a child.)

Meantime, how are the supposed wealth creators doing? Very nicely. Not exactly the miracle of trickle-down economics that free-marketeers would like us to buy into. I thought if the rich were OK, we were all OK? Isn't that how conservative supply-side economics is supposed to work?

Seems not.

Because the median income would hardly change at all. The mean income would, however. This is why the median is the correct measure to use for this kind of profile

If however, 20% of the sample population suddenly started earning 30% more, that would have an affect on the median levels. However, tha point about relative levels of poverty is sound.

should be about not being able to afford fundamental requirements for a reasonable life. Roof, heat, healthcare, food and that type of stuff. It shouldn't be the answer to an equation based upon an average.

the 60% of median measure is a little more complicated than that since it also takes into account family size and what you have left after you've paid for housing, possibly some other stuff ... this makes sense as a family of four in a three bedroom house in an area with astronomical council tax is hardly in the same financial boat (on 60% of one median wage) than the likes of me for instance (with a one bedrm flat and no other mouths to feed apart from mine on 60% of the median wage) ...

...my one about Francis Maude and mandates was intended quite lightly, too. Oh well. That's one of the nice things about here: threads sometimes deviate from their intended course!

http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/europe#comment-509698

*disappears up own reductio ad absurdam thanks to stimpy*