After 14 years in power, the Tory party still does not seem to know how to serve everyone’s interests, even its own. After 14 years out of power, the Labour party’s one consolation is that, for all Angela Rayner’s best efforts, it could hardly do worse. Might a new model for selecting MPs help? After Brexit, ancient Greek democracy is a dead duck; but the Romans invented the republican system and that might have something to be said for it.
To reach the top job as consul, one had to begin at the bottom, the posts lasting one year (there had to be a gap of a fixed number of years between posts). Aged 30, one could bid to become a quaestor (20 posts), with financial and legal responsibilities; if elected, one also joined the Senate for life (which proposed all legislation, enacted only by the vote of a People’s assembly).
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