An endorsement of Deliberation Day...

No, not from the late Marcel Marceau, no....It's from the iconoclastic British journalist Johann Hari, who writes in the Independent, Do we want a democracy or a pantomime?

But elections do not have to consist of the airless circulation of soundbites, bike-riding photo-ops and ignorance. We can do better than this....

Item One: Deliberation Day. The American political scientists Bruce Ackerman and James Fishkin have come up with a simple democracy-deepener. Declare every general election a national holiday, and offer every citizen £150 to take part, there and then, in a day of debate, modelled on jury service. In the morning you watch a televised debate between the main political leaders, and then you divide into groups of 15 who go off for an hour to discuss what you've seen. Together, you figure out a series of questions you want to put to local representatives of the political parties – about any issue on earth. Then, when all the groups come together, the "foreman" of your "jury" puts your questions. After lunch, you reassemble to debate what you've heard. Then you vote, and take your cheque.

The national political debate would then no longer consist of10-second soundbites. Suddenly, politicians would be able to talk in proper nuanced paragraphs – and we could argue back. We could move beyond thought-halting slogans – like "tough on crime" or "war on drugs" – to a more rational discussion of the evidence.