A peerage! It seems that the last speaker to be forced from office, boss-eyed Sir John Trevor in 1693, was one of those who did not get a peerage following his fall from grace, and nor should Martin. Lord Martin of Milnburn or wherever it will be should never happen. It is an affront. We all know there are people who should never have been placed in the Upper House, having failed at their elected job or even run away from re-election, but Martin has been thoroughly disgraced in the process too.

Now, don't get me wrong, this is not snobbery, George Thomas was a man from a similar background and to me thoroughly deserved the last hereditary ranking peerage to be given to a former Speaker (even though it was pretty unlikely anyone was going to inherit it anyway). But at a time also when we need desperately to change both houses of parliament (or abolish both as I would have it) this is no time to be simply patting people on the back and kicking them "upstairs".

Not one member of the commons apparently dissented from the motion that Speaker Martin should be elevated. If they are so concerned about tradition and face that they cannot see that this is one occasion in which that tradition ought not to be honoured, given the extraordinary events that have led to this, none of them deserve to wipe their arses on that green leather benching.

So, we've got another cunning plan from the Balls-up that is our government led education system. This being the government that, twelve years ago, came to power on the mantra "Education, education, education". The sad fact is that for all their central interference 40% of kids born at the beginning of this era of "Education, education, education" cannot read satisfactorily, despite the literacy hour, the special measures and all the money (for I don't begrudge them the fact that they have spent money, just that they seem incapable of spending it wisely) spent on academies and such like.

It seems that change in state provided services can not be incremental change, but complete u-turns. Yet turning around a system of this size and bureaucracy is like turning the proverbial super-tanker around - a long slow process which is, unless you know precisely your destination is behind you a waste of time and money that could have been used to deliver actual teaching to actual children. And all too often we see that once one public sector super-tanker has managed to turn round, another politician has another cunning plan and the process begins again. Well, you can see where that will get you in the long run - nowhere.

This, I am afraid, is the fate of all centrally planned public services. The government has to be seen to be being fair to everyone because it is the main provider. In fact of course it is usually fairer to those constituencies that elect members of the governing party as their representative, or ones they wish to win over next time. So it has to roll out massive change, perhaps even ignoring those who have managed to make good headway despite the dog's dinner of central policy because everyone's got to do things the same way otherwise it's a "lottery" provision or whatever.

There can be no meaningfully functioning market in ideas, pedagogic technique, innovative governance or anything else, because all must be seen to be delivering the same sort of product everywhere. Well this is nonsense. To those who claim that "only the state can deliver essential services like education" I ask looking at yesterday's announcement, and the many other tumultuous changes of direction over the past sixty years, how do you believe such a system can possibly ever be efficient and good at producing its end product - an educated citizenry?

Or, as Prime Minister Hacker said once to Sir Humphrey "do you mean to say that the state of schooling in Britain today is what the education department planned?"

We need change now, "change we can believe in", and the only change I can believe in is to remove schooling from state hands completely and encourage competition, both the quicker to spread the best teaching and learning practices and the better to create efficiencies in the system as a whole that will allow for more specialization and meaningful differences between schools and other training providers so that people can choose for their children the style, environment and outcomes that they, not the government, feel is appropriate.

Well, what an unpleasant surprise I had last night. I was bloody stopped and me and my car searched by the police about midnight as I was returning from my friend's house in a nearby village. They said they were randomly targeting vehicles on these country lanes late at night, asked where I had been and where I was going and whether I had had a drink - I hadn't.

So he started on about whether I used drugs: I don't really know where that one came from, though he had seen my roll up fag and asked how long I had been smoking rollies. He asked me to get out of the car and to go and show my ID to his colleague and he had a quick nose around in the car. Now, I have got to be one of the untidiest person you could ever meet, but one think I do hate is people dropping litter and especially fag butts. So what I do when I am smoking behind the wheel, since my car came with no ashtray and lighter, is to twist the fag out out the window and then put the butts into my driver's side door pocket.

I don't know if I've done a proper clean out of the car since I bought it four years ago or so! I do usually empty out the big stuff in the car and do a general binning of the rubbish every so often but haven't done for a while. As a guide - he was asking about a spade in the back seat - which I put in there during the snow in December or whenever it was as I was driving up to my mothers and wanted to have one with me in case I broke down. Anyway - all this, notwithstanding my explanation that the fag butts were about my civic responsibility not to drop litter, made him decide to conduct a proper search of me and the car.

What a faff - on a pitch black country road in the middle of the night he went rifling through all the junk in my car, rummaged through my pockets and wallet and so on. Then came back and asked me, off the record so to speak, to be honest about whether I ever used cannabis. Well of course I do, but it's such a rare occurrence - basically maybe every couple of months when I go for dinner at a particular group of friends' houses, so I never have any of my own. He said "you have a habit, I notice, from the car, that suggests to me that you are a user". He wouldn't tell me what this habit was; he did say it wasn't the butts in the door pocket or the general mess, and that I'd have to work it out for myself.

Well, I haven't got the faintest idea. Unless perhaps he was referring to the fact that there was a Tesco back in the bag with half a dozen empty energy drink cans in - again the relics of several longer distance journeys over the past six months when I have stopped in service stations and I usually buy that sort of thing. So, is that it? I'd never really think of that as a trait of drug using, and I dare say that Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber wouldn't think so either!

I did notice that he didn't give me his name or number and whilst the female colleague did fill in a search form I was not given a copy - they said it was primarily for the supervisor at the station to record what they had been up to but that I could get a copy from their station (miles away in Bicester) if I wanted.

So much of a reward for going to do a friend a good turn. Do these people get off on stopping and harassing drivers for no observable reason? Jeez!

Do I look bovvered? Well, do I?

Let's face it, the problems of the political class in this country will not be solved by one person in a funny get up however many reform committees they chair. Representative democracy is the problem. The state itself. The sooner they go home for their long vacations, and we get to put padlocks on the doors so they can't get back in to continue screwing up our country and our lives the better we will all be for it.

Anyone who thinks the system can be fixed, even with major surgery, is missing the point. The political system is a competition to see who is most persuasive in getting to a position that gives them power over an unthinkable proportion of our national wealth and production, the ability to tinker with markets with the now seen disastrous results and to force us all into slavery to their ideas for generations to come.

We don't need a new Speaker, we need a new constitution, rebuilt from the people upwards and relieving us of the burden of the state and its political masters.

There's been a lot of knocking Max Mosley over the past couple of years, and it seems to be coming to a head in the current argument between the Formula One Teams Association and the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile of which he is, it should be noted, the elected president. As a motor car driver, this body represents, at an international level, the interests of all the national drivers' associations, and so, ultimately represents me.

But in all the criticism of Mosley, little has been said about his own history and interests in motoring and in motorsport. And this history is quite telling in the current dispute. This is a man who, seeking to get away from his family name, became interested in the sport quite by chance when he was invited by his girlfriend at university to a Silverstone race half a century ago. In contrast to the political scene in which he had dabbled with his father he was an unknown and nobody cared what his surname was.

This is a man who was driving in the race that killed Jim Clarke who decided to turn to building, racing and selling cars because both of his team mates had been killed in one season and he knew something had to be done about car safety. I had no idea until yesterday that the "M" in "March Engineering" is in fact "Mosley" - and I probably ought to have known that as my firm in the eighties acted as its broker on its rather ill-fated floatation on the stock exchange!

It's interesting that Williams are one of the two teams to have committed to next year so far - Frank Williams and Max Mosley go back a long way - it was Frank who built the cars in which Max raced all those years ago. Mosley knows what it means to be a small team fighting the giant car manufacturers, finding ways of making it easier for people to get started in racing at the top levels (he pioneered teams renting cars for a season for example). He has been ostracized by the big manufacturers before when he stood up for the little constructers and customer teams.

The FIA is of course about more than motorsport: Mosely says his greatest achievement as head of the FIA has been beefing up new car safety rules for all of us - the Euro-NCAP testing, and for racing drivers - the HANS neck brace for example, and whose avowed intention for the past few years has been to try to make F1 more relevant to us ordinary motorists by trying to get them to focus a bit more or development of technologies that can be of use in our cars to save fuel, increase safety or drivability and yes, performance in a lower energy future.

Whilst I am a little uncomfortable about the dominance particularly of Bernie Ecclestone and the various deals that have been done and threats that have been made over the years to get his and Mosley's way - usually it has to be said in defense of the sport in the face of political interference such as rulings by the EU and so on, I am on balance even more uncomfortable about a scenario in which the competitors control the lot, from the rules, to the intellectual property rights, right down to who may compete. Especially one dominated by the big motor manufacturers with their almost bottomless pits of money in good years.

It would be a little like putting Dwaine Chambers in charge of the athletics doping board! No, Max and Bernie's overall argument is correct - that the different aspects of the competition ought to be handled by specialist bodies. There may be quibbles about the immediate issue of how to reduce expenditure and so on, but I do hope FOTA see sense and find a way to reconcile their position with the FIA.

I never really thought I would find myself defending Max Mosley or Bernie Ecclestone to be honest. I had fallen for much of the popular image of them as autocratic oligarchs running a private empire. But let's face it, Mosley has been repeatedly elected by the drivers' representative bodies from around the world, even when it looked like he was becoming a public embarrassment for them over his private life last year. I guess it's a case of who you believe has the best interests of the most number of people involved in motorsport at heart - and on reflection I think that has to be the FIA rather than the cartel of global car manufacturers.

Just a quickie really. There is a lot of confusion in the non-wonk world about "PR". Of course there are two meanings for the "P" in "PR": "Preferential", in which candidates can be ranked and which tend to ensure that the one least out of favour with the most electors actually gets elected, which in itself has some good points - very few UK MPs and English & Welsh Councillors can claim to have the confidence of at least half their electors and this would give them that; and "Proportional", in which the aggregate votes across a number of candidates tend to result in a number of people being elected fairly closely related to the overall share of the vote a party gets - they have such a system in Northwrn Ireland and in Scotland for local government and, even on relatively small constituencies of three or four members seems to have produced a fairly proportional result in council chambers.

The apparent proposal due from Gordon Brown is to use "Alternative Vote" which is one of the purely Preferential types of PR, with no pretense to Proportionality at all. It has the advantage mentioned above of ensuring that in single member constituencies someone has to get 50% support and so, I suppose, is slightly better that being fed to alligators in a Florida swamp, but not by much.

However, given that a general election is less than a year away, assuming no attempt is made to invoke some of the Civil Contingency powers to grant Gordon permanent rule without parliament (which cannot be ruled out of course!), it would be impossible to rearrange constituencies in my opinion to accommodation my preferred method of multi-member "Single Transferrable Vote" which is the Scottish local government system and certainly not, God help us, any list based system, or even "AV+" in which the constituency is decided by Alternative Vote then some top up regional members are allocated according to the overall share of the vote for each party in all the constituencies in that region.

So, I would support the Alternative Vote suggestion for ONE ELECTION ONLY and with an automatic clause that after that the relevant body (is it the Boundary Commission any more or has it been subsumed into the Electoral Commission?) immediately begins to reform constituencies in preparation for STV the next time round. The primary legislation preparing for this should be included in any imminent Bill proposing Alternative Vote so there can be no doubt that it will happen.

If that cannot be achieved, then I agree with those who say that AV is too small a step which, once taken, may set back the cause of true reform for another decade, and we should not in such a case support it at all. We must secure a firm commitment to proper reform. It is the proportionality of the UK parliament that is all wrong. AV can make a small difference in that, but it can also have the opposite effect.

Yesterday, 8th June 2009, was the two hundredth anniversary of the death of Thomas Paine, corset-maker, pamphleteer, father of the American Revolution and member of the revolutionary National Convention of France. Despite all his achievements, six mourners attended his funeral, and his final resting place is unknown, having been disinterred by William Cobbett with the intention of giving him tomb in Britain, but the bones were lost when Cobbett died.

But as so often, Paine speaks across those two centuries as clear as the day he wrote. Of particular interest today, at a time when our government, parliament and constitution are showing such strain comes this gem:

I draw my idea of the form of government from a principle in nature, which no art can overturn, viz. that the more simple any thing is, the less liable it is to be disordered; and the easier repaired when disordered; and with this maxim in view, I offer a few remarks on the so much boasted constitution of England. That it was noble for the dark and slavish times in which it was erected, is granted. When the world was overrun with tyranny the least remove therefrom was a glorious rescue. But that it is imperfect, subject to convulsions, and incapable of producing what it seems to promise, is easily demonstrated.

[From Thomas Paine, "Common Sense", February 1776]

We all know what happened three and a half months later. And what a success that has been for two centuries. Time to listen to his words again in Britain today and do the right thing!

Who is this marxist Lib Dem woman on the BBC's "Big Questions" promoting a ban on independent schools? Sheesh - she's less Liberal than I am Democrat (unfortunately my digital "switchover" is not playing this morning and I can only get audio at the moment - whichbloodybetter change before the Grand Prix starts!)

So, we're to get an Independent Regulator for MPs? Might I suggest the acronym "OffRAMP" - the Office of the Regulator of All Members of Parliament.

Does nobody else think this is a really bad idea. I'm sorry, we "elect" these people to run the country, to represent us in the High Court of Parliament. I realize they're looking a pretty untrustworthy bunch right now, but who, philosophically speaking, has the right to regulate or oversee those we theoretically put right there, at the top of the tree of government?

That they cannot, it seems, be trusted to regulate themselves says more about the political system than can be fixed by some kind of external regulator. As Hans-Hermann Hoppe puts it:

"Free entry and competition is not always good. Competition in the production of goods is good, but competition in the production of bads is not. Free competition in killing, stealing, counterfeiting, or swindling, for instance, is not good; it is worse than bad. Yet this is precisely what is instituted by open political competition, i.e., democracy."

Basically our system of government is so undermined and the problems facing the country so great that I do not any longer believe that parliament can fix this on its own. As regular readers will know I'd personally prefer to do without them entirely. Their infantilizing tendency is a drain on the country and their propensity to claim to be able to act on almost any issue in all our names is repugnant to me. Putting this right cannot be the work of a general election process, as parliamentary reform will be subsumed within a mish-mash of policies covering every area pressing the country and there is a grave danger that any parliament so elected will feel itself cleansed and only needing minor tweaks to rebuild confidence.

This must not be allowed to happen. The combination of the contempt in which parliament is now widely held by the people of Britain and the economic situation is, to me, an unprecedented and unmissable opportunity for the widest reforms since 1649. I believe that a centralized parliament at Westminster and a government accruing more and more powers is no longer required in the 21st century, having evolved throughout eras where even travel within Britain was difficult and when the monarchial system required ministers to be physically at court in order to advise and have laws approved.

Central government is no longer even a "necessary evil" to me but an unmitigated disaster that does more harm than good to this country and the freedom, prosperity and happiness of its people. And this is an opportunity to begin to wield the grim reapers' scythe on its powers and constitution. But if members are going to vote themselves an opportunity for repentance and expiation by accepting the SNP/Plaid call for immediate dissolution and an imminent general election it must not be allowed to believe that any parliament elected is thereby cured of these ills. The new parliament must have only one effective function - to be a temporary body in which to agree the ground rules for the new Britain that will take us into the twenty first century as a modern nation of sovereign individuals requiring as little government as possible, and so I put forward the following amendment to next week's debate:

1. Lest any parliament elected as a result of this Act consider itself to have been cleansed of miscreants and absolved of blame, it is hereby enacted that this parliament shall sit for no more than one year, and shall be dissolved on a date to be decided by said parliament but in any event not after 9th July 2010.

2. That the sole purposes and business of this parliament shall be to:

• a) oversee and co-ordinate the process of research, consultation and formulation of new constitutional arrangements to apply to future legislative and government institutions;

• b) agree by a two thirds majority a definitive declaration of the economic and fiscal problems facing the country in order that in any future election the electorate will be able to know that proposals for economic and fiscal policy to deal with these issues are based on a common understanding of what the problems actually are.

3. In respect of 2.a) consideration of constitutional reforms to include, inter alia:

• i) reformation of the methods of election of members of all parliaments, assemblies and local government bodies throughout the United Kingdom;

• ii) reform of the methods of selection or election of individuals carrying executive responsibility in any part of the governance of the United Kingdom;

• iii) the introduction of fixed term parliaments;

• iv) the introduction of an English Parliament;

• v) the abolition of parliament;

• vi) reform of the second chamber;

• vii) abolition of the second chamber;

• viii) devolution of any or all powers and competencies of parliament and ministers to government structures closer to the electorate, including structures not heretofore in existence that may be recommended by these reforms;

• ix) widespread reformation of those local levels of government to enable them to take on new roles devolved from Westminster;

and

• x) any other matter referred to the parliamentary commission on petition of more than one hundred thousand (100,000) ordinary electors of the United Kingdom.

4. In respect of 3.

• a) that members of all political parties who have contested national level election in the past two parliaments be invited to participate in these reviews on an equal footing with members elected at the forthcoming election;

• b) that professional experts in constitutional arrangements in other countries and in political science more generally be invited to participate;

• c) that leaders of each existing local authority and their opposition lead members be convened to a parallel reform body co-ordinated by the Local Government Association to be consulted by and to propose initiatives to the parliamentary commission on reform;

• d) That local groups of interested citizens be formed to scrutinize the work at all stages and to be consulted on all proposals

• e) If the new consitutional arrangement call for a parliament to be elected at Westminster, elections to said parliament under the new arrangements will take place not earlier than 10th October 2010 and not later than 31st October 2010.

5. That on or before the last day of the incoming parliament as in 1) above a series of options numbering no fewer than two and no more than three presented by the parliament and, with the consent of both houses, up to a further two options presented by petition of half a million (500,000) electors or more shall be put to the electors of the United Kingdom in a referendum conducted under a preferential voting system in which the option achieving 50% or more of the votes cast in the referendum, or, if none, the first to achieve 50% after elimination of the least favoured options and transfer of their votes to remaining options shall become the initial constitutional arrangements with effect from 10th July 2010.

6. In respect of 2.b)

• a) agreement of a majority of two thirds of the interim parliament shall be required to confirm the list of economic and fiscal problems;

• b) if, by a date no later than 28 days before the end of this parliament, 10th June 2010, no agreement has been reached by a two thirds majority of the parliament, the session on that day shall not rise until it is able to reach a two thirds majority, with no adjournment for refreshment or rest after midnight on 10th June 2010.