DOES THE QUALITY OF MEMBERS OF Parliament matter? How can it not? We live in a parliamentary system. Most ministers are drawn from the elected House of Commons, rather than the appointed House of Lords. And we must believe that ministers make some difference to the way government departments perform.
If, then, MPs become less able, the system will be worse run. So how do we produce MPs? In a party system such as Britain’s, we get them care of the processes parties use internally to select their candidates in safe or target seats. If the calibre of MPs has indeed diminished, and our government is steadily poorer as a result, it follows that we must first look to the process of how
