Mayor Idol 2008

Jaime's idea for a new election system: process of elimination. It's pretty simple really.

My reasoning is that tactical voting is a load of bollocks. You should be able to vote for the candidate you actually believe will do some good, rather than the one who's not as bad as the other guy.

The thing is, we've got pretty slim pickings for our 2007 mayorall candidates. And ok, I probably haven't done as much research into their policies as I could have done. I suspect that my hopes and attitudes are most in line with the greens or lib dems, but it's likely I'll end up voting for Ken, purely because it's the most effective way of voting against Boris. Even though potato-face Livingston is about as close to my heart as the "free London Lite!" paper pushers on Oxford Street.

But if we voted in heats, Pop Idol-stylee, everyone could vote for who they actually want in power - at first at least. We could get a true representation of who voters really want in. And if your favourite got voted out, you'd still have the chance to choose the lesser of the remaining evils. Ok, so with this system we'd probably still end up with Ken. But at least you wouldn't have a fragmented left (or right) canabilising their own votes. And you never know, Brian Paddick might actually have a chance without everyone going on about 'wasted votes'.

Of course, a simpler solution still would be to have some decent candidates that we could have a bit of faith in. But I'm not sure if those types of people make it in politics.