A great prize could await Britain this week: a change that could reinvigorate and re-legitimise our politics in the same manner as the great Reform Acts of previous centuries. It is that prize, above all, that we would urge all our readers to keep at the forefront of their minds when they go to the polls tomorrow. It is time to use our rotten voting system (for what we fervently hope will be the last occasion) to change the system – and deliver a new politics.

via Leading article: This historic opportunity must not be missed – Leading Articles, Opinion – The Independent.

Brooker on Cameron:

He isn’t even a man; more a texture-mapped character model. There’s a different kind of software at work here, some advanced alien technology projecting a passable simulation of affability; a straight-to-DVD retread of the Blair ascendancy re-enacted by androids. Like an ostensibly realistic human character in a state-of-the-art CGI cartoon, he’s almost convincing – assuming you can ignore the shrieking, cavernous lack of anything approaching a soul. Which you can’t.

I see the sheen, the electronic calm, those tiny, expressionless eyes . . . I glimpse the outlines of the cloaking device and I instinctively recoil, like a baby tasting mould. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t see a power-crazed despot either. I almost wish I did. Instead, I see an avatar. A simulated man with a simulated face. A humanoid. A replicant. An Auton. A construct. A Carlton PR man who’s arrived to run the country, and currently stands before us, blinking patiently, blank yet alert, quietly awaiting commencement of phase two. At which point, presumably, his real face may finally become visible.

via The party leaders’ public personas | Charlie Brooker | Comment is free | The Guardian.