A couple of interesting BBC articles I found this morning:
One is from Nick Bryant, the BBC's "man in New York", on the state of democracy in the UK and other 'first world' countries. He identifies an increasing disconnect between politicians and the electorate, and considers some reasons for this: the development of the stage-managed career politician, and the growth of non-party pressure groups.
The other comes out of an interview with Gus O'Donnell, Cabinet Secretary (i.e. the top civil servant) at the time of the last election. He expressed his concern that the UK electoral system is unfit for purpose, because of the "unparalleled divergence between votes cast and seats received", where a likely outcome is "the Conservatives will win England, the SNP will win in Scotland, and we will end up, quite possibly with Ed Miliband and Labour running the UK."