The expense crisis reveals a nation governed by a political elite that has stopped listening and who are accountable to no one but their party machines. Too many MPs seem more interested in changing their homes than changing the world. Our society faces real problems - mass unemployment and growing poverty, the threat of climate chaos and an erosion of our civil liberties to name but three. These all require effective government working on behalf of the popular will. Yet our whole political system is close to collapse. We demand a new electoral system that makes everyone's vote count.

On the day of the next general election, there should be a binding referendum on whether to change to a more proportional electoral system. This should be drawn up by a large jury of randomly selected citizens, given the time and information to deliberate on what voting system and other changes would make Parliament more accountable to citizens.

We demand the right to be able to vote for a change:

Helena Kennedy

QC

Philip Pullman

author

Damon Albarn

musician

John Sauven

Greenpeace

Martin Bell

anti-sleaze campaigner

Richard Wilson

actor

Polly Toynbee

journalist

Susie Orbach

author and psychologist

Jonathan Pryce

actor

Caroline Lucas

leaderGreen party

Brian Eno

musician

Neal Lawson

Compass

Ken Ritchie

ERS

Colin Hines

Green New Deal

Matthew Taylor (in personal capacity)

RSA

Hari Kunzru

author

Mark Thomas

comedian

Oona King

ex Labour MP

Michael Brown

journalist and ex-Tory MP

Pam Giddy

Power Inquiry

Salma Yaqoob

Leader Respect

Wes Streeting

President NUS

Gordon Roddick

Lisa Appignanesi

Chair of PEN

Prof James Forrester

Carmen Callil

author and publisher

Sunder Katwala

Fabians

Billy Bragg

musician

Sam Tarry

Chair Young Labour

Peter Facey

Unlock Democracy

Prof David Marquand

Dave Rowntree

musician

Richard Reeves

Demos

Ann Pettifor

Advocacy UK

Prof Richard Sennett

Sunny Hundal

Liberal Conspiracy

Anthony Barnett, openDemocracy

Richard Grayson, Social Liberal Forum

John Harris, journalist

Pete Myers, enoughsenough.org

Steve Richards, journalist

Tony Robinson, actor

Richard Murphy, Tax Justice

Jeremy Leggett, Solarcentury

AC Grayling, philosopher

Katie Hickman, author

Benedict Southworth, World Development Movement

Lance Price, journalist

Ann Black, Labour activist

Peter Tatchell, Human Rights campaigner

Hilary Wainwright, Red Pepper

David Aaronovitch, journalist

Kevin Maguire, journalist

Henry Porter (Comment, last week) says that MPs have 143 days of holiday, yet he knows full well that parliamentary recesses are anything but a holiday. They are a time when MPs do important, often difficult and boring, constituency work. He writes of parliamentary tradition and disregard for the UK's unwritten constitution. Yet he seems unaware that in the UK's constitutional tradition MPs are elected representatives, whose job is not just to legislate nationally but to represent locally. Yes, some have done terrible things and they should go, but most MPs are not crooks.

Paul Sagar

London E1

Henry Porter is spot-on in his analysis of the problems and solutions to the political crisis. However, both the political crisis and the western banking crisis were anticipated well in advance of current events. Anybody who had read British Government in Crisis by Sir Christopher Foster in 2005 and Traders, Guns and Money by Satyajit Das in 2006 would not have been surprised by the current crises. Both crises have been aided and abetted by New Labour's unwritten policy of the Americanisation of the UK.

David Blunn

Eglwyswrw, Pembrokeshire

Henry Porter's list of recommendations to reform Parliament is both useful and practicable. If I were to pick one reform, however, I would opt for proportional representation. We cannot claim to have a genuinely representative democracy when our electoral system produces governments that have registered fewer than a quarter of votes.

Dr Tal Younis

Bishopbriggs, Glasgow

Our problems with our parliamentary democracy are far more serious than those of some MPs fiddling or being greedy concerning their expenses. The real problem with our system is that it totally fails to address the four major and inter-connected problems of our society, to wit: taking real and urgent action on climate change, curbing population growth, bringing about a fairer sharing of the Earth's resources and failure to regulate wealth and business to serve the needs of society.

Instead of grappling with these, our parliamentary system is obsessed by the need to maintain the short-term popularity of our MPs. Possibly, present public anger may give us a chance to change the system to one which addresses these real issues.

Tony Hamilton

Broadstone, Dorset