Must do better – what’s been wrong with this election and what must change next time

This has been the most sterile election campaign since before the Great Reform Act, when MPs could be chosen in the living rooms of landlords’ mansions and votes were bought rather than cast.

Much of that is the fault of the media. Politicians are now so scared that their campaign will be derailed by a “Gillian Duffy moment” that they prefer to avoid anyone who is not a registered party supporter or in a place of work where people can get sacked if they speak out of line.

This is a huge shame. Politicians should take the risk of walkabouts and open meetings and the media should cut them some slack. It would do a lot to help restore trust in politics and bring future election campaigns alive. lead to more coalitions, but as Germany (and the past five years in the UK) proves this is not the nightmare of unstable government its critics claim. Oddly, the Conservatives have been most guilty of this during the campaign – and have rightly paid a price for it. David Cameron has pledged an extra £8bn for the NHS but won’t say where the money is coming from. He has also promised to cut welfare spending by £12bn but only identified where £2bn of those cuts will come from.

Such chicanery underestimates the intelligence of voters and further undermines trust in politicians and politics. It is fine to say you will try to increase the budget of the NHS if you can find the money – but don’t promise to. Equally, if you are planning to make cuts there should be a moral obligation to explain who will lose out. One of the more noticeable things about this campaign is the number of people who look at you blankly when you ask them how they are likely to vote. Too many simply shrug and say: “Oh, I don’t vote.”

This election is closer than almost any other since the 1970s and yet it is unlikely to match the turnouts we had in the Eighties.

It is time to make people turn up and vote by law. They should not have to vote for any particular party – there should be a “none of the above” option on every ballot paper – but everyone should have to make that conscious decision or face a fine.

It works in Australia and is uncontroversial. Itwouldwork here too – and would concen- trate the minds of people who prefer to shrug, complain and look the other way. At this election and at the last, the leaders’ debates have defied expectations by being illuminating, well watched and of surprisingly high calibre. But we only had one real debate this time, because of David Cameron’s reluctance to engage with Ed Miliband head to head. It is quite possible that, unless things change, they won’t happen at all at the next election.

The next government should establish a commission with the job of setting the broad ground rules for future televised debates and legislating to ensure that they happen in every subsequent election. The battle buses, posters and endless pieces of election literature that have clogged up doormats for the past four weeks have mainly been funded not by small donations but by millionaires, big business and the trade unions.

This is wrong and it distorts our political system. For the Tories it means they could never consider introducing a mansion tax because their donor base would revolt. For Labour it means future MPs are selected not democratically, but by those who get on best with their union paymasters.

If the public want politicians that serve them rather than vested interests we need to pay for politics from general taxation. Each party should get a set level of state funding and a cap of £1,000 should be introduced on all political donations. This would do more than anything else to clean up politics, restore trust and level the political playing field.