The first point to note is that political systems have obviously not yet converted to the distribution models of the internet era.

In fact, they do all they can to force voters away from their specific beliefs and to vote for a highly constrained number of 'hit' parties.

These constraints work in a number of ways.

Deposits can be required to get on the ballot paper in the first place. In UK general elections, a deposit of £500 is demanded from anyone wishing to stand, which is forfeited if the candidate received less than five per cent of the votes cast in the constituency in which they stood. Research from the House of Commons Library showed that 1,386 deposits were lost at the 2005 general election; that is by 39 per cent of all candidates.

Beyond such crude constraints there are other formal transparency requirements such as complex legal rules for submitting accounts and funding details, and checking that financial donors meet legal criteria for handing over their cash.

And electoral systems such as first-past-the-post can make it all but impossible for more than one or two candidates to have any chance of winning a seat.

And there are informal constraints such as access to media, which denies the public the opportunities to learn about the policies of parties away from the usual mainstream. This is due to mixture of reasons including a lack of resources and space to cover the range of smaller parties (time and space is of course one thing the internet and its multitude of contributors have in unlimited quantities, and this is another reason that the role of traditional media companies in intermediating between politicians and the public will continue to decline) and a belief that they 'don't count' and won't influence the result.

There are also other vested interests at stake, whether it might be public sector workers or welfare recipients who lean towards parties which promise to increase the role of the state, or middle class voters with an interest in tax cuts.

So the existing system in effect does all it can to push voters towards the major parties and away from smaller parties or independent candidates which may more accurately reflect their beliefs.