Know many entirely reasonable bosses, do you? 😉

Well, I’ve been lucky but this is a problem. I was pondering making it a basic right, like maternity cover, but that may still lead to longer term discrimination.

If they had to quit, they’d at least be getting paid their old salary for the duration of the campaign. That will still be a deterrent, especially where it’s an employer’s market for that role, but also in those cases getting a temp in might be cheaper than replacing the candidate.

Needs more thought.

the campaign period itself is long enough for intimidation to be applied, once the candidate’s manifesto is made public

But that can’t be helped, the manifesto has to be public and we’d have to fall back on general laws around interfering with the process.

I can’t think of an answer to that one that isn’t “yes, but no, but …”

Exactly, I’d say no limits and hope for the best — it’s the only fair solution. Then there’s no need for first-come-first-served basis, only the best of bad options.

But there surely has to be some mechanism whereby a constituency can recall its MP and the voters say “Oi! You! NO!”

Definitely, a local petition or something.

I’m not sure how relevant it is when, as we are suggesting, you no longer have a ‘government’ and an ‘opposition’

Indeed, I was still thinking Old World. If there’s no government to bring down, why have an early election?

I wonder if we’d get that American problem of not being able to pass a budget. Of course there it’s exactly the kind of partisan posturing we’re hoping to eliminate, but the House could genuinely be undecided on something that could not just be shelved.

Maybe that’s a call of a second chamber, some representative of councils or something? I think it’s usually a good idea to get a second pair of eyes on anything, anyway.

Indeed … and I’m hoping you (or someone else) will come up with a sensible solution 😉

Perhaps there needs to be a limit to the number of votes cast (5?, 10?) by each person, regardless of the field.

If voters actually have to go through lists of thousands, they’ll be in the booth all day. But as there’s no such thing as objective vetting (do they have a manifesto? but no judgement on its contents) how to deter the chancers is still a work in progress.