It's a fair bet politicians are held in lower regard this week than they were the week before. And lower than the week before when Peter Hain resigned. Contempt for MPs comes not just with revelations about a few individuals' dodgy dealings. Anger grows because the political class make glib gestures, rather than govern.
Voters sense Britain is becoming a state of failure; billions of pounds go into a health service riddled with delays and MRSA. More money on schools has seen standards actually decline. The criminal justice system is often useless. Government has lost control of our borders - as well as its own agencies and quangos.
The electorate now recognise that an alphabet soup of quangos - NICE, QCA, FSA, CSA et al - preside over us, whomever they vote for.
At the same time, the internet is stripping away the barriers to entry in politics - as surely as it has in business. Conventional "pendulum politics" breaks down, while consumerist voters seek out the distinctive and the particular.
Corporate politics and corporate politicians are about to give ground to the authentic and the niche. Ironic, isn't it, how the Westminster elite quibble about state funding to run their political parties, just as it becomes less and less necessary to have big, expensive party machines in order to engage with voters?
Ponder the possibilities. A popular mood of radical anti-politics mixed with the internet; it could get interesting....
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