In the partisan world of British politics, insults and accusations of sleaze frequently make parliamentary debate seem like a soap opera. Now, with the launch of an American Idol-style political party, it may soon resemble reality TV, too, reported Time magazine.

On March 16, Sir Paul Judge, a multimillionaire businessman and former director general of the Conservative Party under Prime Minister John Major, launched the Jury Team, an umbrella organisation for Independents that is recruiting candidates via its website (www.juryteam.org). There, any member of the public can announce their candidacy for the upcoming European Parliament elections by describing their political interests in an online profile, uploading a photo, and linking to their profiles on other social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. Then, rather than the party selecting which candidates to field in a traditional closed-door process, the public decides through text message voting.