A democratic election, said J. B. S. Haldane, is a way of deciding the result of a civil war without having one. He had a point. In some developing countries political parties are essentially tribal groupings, and an election is a formalized tribal fight. Even in the developed world, the parties used to stand for identifiable social blocs — the workers, the middle class, and so on — and each party favoured its own. This at least gave the voters a choice. But modern parties, as shown in the recent British election, have quite a different strategy. They ‘steal each other's clothes’. Each tries to broaden its appeal by devising policies very close to those of its rivals. The result is a complex ‘curd’ of policies, intertwined and very similar — indeed, often identical. This is the notorious ‘Maas-trick’, in which all parties collude in the same policy, denying voters any way of rejecting it. But such is the logic of modern consensual politics; so Daedalus is now taking that trick to extremes.

Group decisions are best reached, he says, not by simple voting, but by the Delphi method used in technological forecasting. A secret poll discovers the spread of opinion, which is then displayed to all the voters. Those finding themselves on the extremes of the distribution tend to change their minds; those in the mainstream retain their convictions. So a second round of voting gives a narrower distribution, which is displayed again for a third round of voting. A few iterations usually produce a clear consensus.

Daedalus wants to do this for a whole nation, and the whole range of political policies. Modern media, especially the Internet, seem ideal for the purpose. With DREADCO's computing expertise behind it, a consortium of polling firms could probably do the job whenever an election loomed. All parties could then be presented with one comprehensive set of policies expressing the people's current will. They could only compete by submitting bids to carry them out for the least amount of tax.

Politicians will heave a sigh of relief at not having to invent any more damned policies. They will compete purely for power, which is all they want anyway, and will be judged on their cash flow and competence, which is all that matters in practice. But as the logic of the customer- contractor relationship sinks in, they could find themselves facing novel competition. Bill Gates or Richard Branson might put in a lower bid than any of them.