Britain’s Sclerotic Politics - NYTimes.com: Those who ought to make our laws, members of Parliament, mostly sit for so-called safe seats. This means that they represent districts that will never realistically change hands between parties at an election. Since voters have no power to recall them, M.P.s answer only to their peers.
Lawmakers become lawmakers mostly by working in the offices of other lawmakers. It’s a club.
Recent research found that over half of Labour candidates in seats where the party stood a good chance of winning in the next election had already worked in Westminster.
Instead of using primaries to select candidates for parliamentary seats, party hierarchies parachute in those whom they favor.
Politics has become an exclusive game played by insiders, little more than a competition between two cliques, at the top of the Labour and Conservative Parties, to decide who sits on the Downing Street sofa.