I have previously written much about the “cancer at the heart of our democracy”, often citing Mickey Edwards book The Parties Versus the People: How to Turn Republicans and Democrats into Americans.

Mr Edwards has another piece on The Unraveling of Government due to the excessive power of political parties. This appeared online last week on the New York Times website and a version appeared in the Sunday NY Times.

I have cited other examples of party ridiculousness and I’m sure almost any reader can think of others.

Ronald Reagan got it partly right, the problem is not government per se but how we run our government. The political system, and in particular the power we give to political parties, is making our democracy dysfunctional.