Primaries and plebgate

How Andrew Mitchell lost power. The interesting part:

"His authority was shot. He had no authority with backbenchers. They have not come through the party system. They look to their constituency much more than the central party and the whips. A lot of them have got good careers that they could easily go back to if they chose to. They will not be coerced."

Strong centralized parties are good for democracy, because they encourage coherent national programmes. The US's weak party system leads to porkbarrel spending in Congress. Localism in politics is overrated. In this context, the Tories' plans for more open primaries are a bad idea, so we should be glad they appear to be on the back burner.