Jury Trial

Just a quick follow up to my post on the Jury Team. It seems the British public have no more taste than I do for people who stand for everything and nothing. At a time when independents should benefit, and the Jury Team had had a fair amount of oxygen of publicity (including appearances by Sir Paul Judge on the TV and in national papers, and an Election Broadcast), the Jury Team seem to have been wiped out in the European elections last night. From what I observed, they never achieved more than around 8,000 votes in any region (which at a guess will amount to less than 1% of the vote and less than 0.3% of the electorate), when even obscure parties like the English Democrats, the Christian Party, and the various "real socialist" alternatives were polling many times that.

They have gone strangely silent since voting night. There's nothing on the website, and they haven't been tweeting. Could they have suddenly realised that people don't just vote for a person and some airy-fairy promises to "clean up" politics, but for the programme that a candidate espouses and has some hope of promoting?

You only had to watch their Election Broadcast, and look at the statements of some of their candidates on their home page, to realize that there was nothing there to vote for.

Andrew Armes, East of England region: 'Independent candidates can really represent the diverse views of the electorate rather than career politicians. In my line of work we do business and life coaching which is all about developing open and honest and independent thinking and these sit very well with the proposals of the Jury Team around transparent, honest and open government.'

James Lowey, East Midlands region: 'All the parties are the same - the main three as well as most of the fringe ones - and I really see and feel a real need for change.'

Reza Tabrizi, London region: 'Politicians are clearly disconnected with people and out of touch with their needs. This has got to stop; the party system is clearly broken.'

Barbara Hibbert, Yorkshire & Humberside region: 'I've always been interested in politics but I've never felt able to commit enough to any one party before. So the opportunity to stand under the Jury Team umbrella is ideal for me. It gives me a chance to be independent but to have a group to work with.'

OK, but what do you stand for?

Looks like another stillborn political movement. People want a clear exposition of an alternative and critique of the government (like Dan Hannan gave us), not a random collection of whingers about "the system".