h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

were your policies? Or will I regret having asked?

End of the Party Whips
Transparent Pay for MPs and MEPs
An independent Politicians Complaints Commission
Capping donations to political parties
Elected Select Committees
Term limits for MPs and MEPs
General elections every five years
Referendums as requested by 5% of the electorate
Government departments run by a Board
Independent publication of Government statistics

A lot of this is now being proposed by the parties, but that list was drawn up months before the expenses scandal broke.

The most important part was campaigning as an independent not beholden to a party chief or whip and answerable directly to the constituents. The example I quoted was with the recent issue in the UK of Post Office Closures. This is actually an EU Directive which governments have little say over and it's causing trouble throughout Europe. Labour MPs wrote to and met constituents over the issue and assured them the Labour Party was fighting the closures. On the day of the vote they all voted in favour of the closures because they were ordered to do so by party whips.

Party MPs work for and owe their careers to the Party. Independent MPs work only for their constituents.

When we had the last elections (for Hesse), no party had an absolute majority. The social democrats had said before they wouldn't build a coalition with the lefts (remains from the former GDR, possibly still having former STASI members), but if they wanted to win, they'd had to take the lefts on board. Now the voters were against it, so the candidate had the party members vote. There were two or three who voted against her, so they had to have new elections after all. The damage for the party was huge, the voters didn't trust them any more. Those who voted against her have to pay a fine and are excluded from the party and their offices.
What you listed looks very reasonable to me. Did you get any votes?

Over 6000, which was a drop in the ocean really.

It was too technical a manifesto and trying to cover the whole of Scotland with very little media coverage was difficult.

When I do it again, it'll be in the town where I live and I'll campaign on local issues.

Yes, that doesn't sound like many votes, but considering the circumstances you mention, you must have been very convincing.

Good luck with the local elections. Here, I know most local candidates, or I know their children, or both. It makes voting easier.