Dismal post-election blues. And my new party.

It was a grim old day, today. Having gone to sleep just as the exit polls were indicating the horror that lay ahead, I woke up in the wee hours and spent far too long numbly reading the online papers and chatting disconsolately with friends on Twitter. I think I went back to sleep around 5am and got a couple of hours sleep.

The mood in the office was subdued with occasional bursts of restrained anger borne, I think, of an anxiety about five years of unfettered Tory rule. (Although I think my Scottish colleague was quietly pleased about events north of the - as yet technical - border).

And I found myself thinking, how long can we continue to pretend that we are living in a democracy when our first past the post system means that we all live under the absolute, uncompromised rule of a party that only 39% of voters asked for?

To be honest, it's not only the part of our democratic system that's flawed, not by a long shot. Take, for example, local government, which at the parish, town, district and county level is populated by unpaid councillors. Now, by and large, these people do a job for which there is very little reward except for the not to be discounted value of knowing you are doing something for your community. And I think the fact it's unpaid is really wrong.

It means that for the most part, the only people who are really in a position to take these roles, which demand as much as thirty hours a week, if not more, are people who don't need to work, which translates into a lot of retired people. Now, I'm not ungrateful for the work these people do but it's hardly representative, is it?

I've been thinking for a long time now that it would be good to make this a proper job. Let's say, term-time, 09:30 to 14:30, five days a week on maybe £15k per year. Suddenly, that would be come a very attractive job to some people, especially that vast, untapped resource of mothers with young children at school. 

I'd also change this from being a party political role. I don't think it means much for a district councillor, for example, to be Labour, Tory or Liberal Democrat: their role is to serve the needs of the community. We should be electing able people into those roles, which barely have a political dimension to them, anyway. 

One of the things we chatted about in the office was the French mayoral system (my colleague Steve's parents used to live in France) and I think that's a good idea. Here, we could have a system of councillors from whom a mayor - with some serious budgetary control - would be elected based on their track record locally.

That, I think, would leave us in a position to have a national system of proportional representation, which is something I'm very keen on. I don't think this needs explaining but, basically, we'd all vote and the parties would be allocated seats on the basis of the number of votes they achieved. This would liberate us from the situation where those of us in safe seats who don't agree with the incumbent MP effectively don't have a vote. (Although, as it happens, I am more than happy with mine.)

For example, in this election, the loathsome UKIP had as much of the vote as the LibDems and the SNP combined. While those two parties earned 64 seats between them, UKIP were only given one. Now, yes, that does suit me, as it happens, but it's not fair. There's a lot of people out there whose concerns are not being addressed. And they need to be before we see a resurgence of the black shirts. It's not enough to ignore them just because they didn't get many seats.

I ended the day suggesting that I might form a single issue party whose sole aim would be to introduce PR. Our manifesto would consist of two pledges. Firstly, that upon election we would introduce proportional representation. And secondly, once proportional representation was in place, we'd resign as a government and force a general election under our new, fairer system. Vote for us and we'll give you a proper vote.