[lordnacho]

Ideas that I haven't tested:

- Once you leave office, you get a big salary for life, but can't have another job. No working for a bank, or happening into consultancy. No speaking fees, though you are of course free to give speeches to whomever you like. Yeah it's draconian, but there's plenty of people who want the role.

- Make all the government's accounts visible to everyone. All the money, wherever it goes, is tied to some contract. Website where you can find out who they paid to do the plumbing in number 10, with a full paper trail.

- You have to certify that you're not mates with anyone who is offering the contract for the new bridge. Someone finds out you went to school with him. You go to jail together (more likely a fine), lose the contract, he loses his job. Yes, it's a bummer if you're competent and you happen to know the PM, who needs you for something. But again, there's a lot of competent people.

[g_p]

1. There's something far less draconian than this in place for senior roles in civil service, where restrictions are put in place upon leaving for a period of (say) 2 years, to prevent you using information gained in the process within a relevant sector, and requiring approval of appointments for that period of time. [1]

2. That pretty much exists as it stands [2], at least for sums above a certain level (usually 25k). Similar rules exist for spend above £500 on purchasing cards [3].

3. In some niche sectors, there aren't a lot of competent people. There are generally a lot of people who think they are competent. It could be problematic in these areas (some of which are pretty important), but clearly this doesn't apply for all. Competitive procurement is the ideal approach, but it has many, many flaws when you know the system and how to game it. The big outsourcing companies have that finessed down to the N'th degree. Over-promising and committing to things that can't reasonably be delivered make competitive procurement a problematic system, but short of the ability to "blacklist" suppliers who inexcusably fail to deliver in bad faith (which would be controversial too!) this one seems hard to fix.

[1] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

[2] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-for-publ...

[3] https://data.gov.uk/dataset/42c4d19b-aef7-45d1-bd92-1167d2f8... (as a random example for purchase card payments above 500)

[phatfish]

The first step is far more fundamental. Have system of electing the members of goverment that results in a fair representation of the "will of the people". FPTP converges to a two party system and is undemocratic (at the extreme a party can have total power with less than 50% of the popular vote).

The UK needs Proportional Representation.

[tormeh]

> Once you leave office, you get a big salary for life, but can't have another job. No working for a bank, or happening into consultancy. No speaking fees, though you are of course free to give speeches to whomever you like. Yeah it's draconian, but there's plenty of people who want the role.

What is a job, exactly? How about I do you a favor, and you do me a favor, but no money changes hands? It would probably be an improvement over the status quo, but determined minds will find a way