> when it originated, the King was the legislature .. the real power has passed to Parliament
> .. the Prime Minister .. political parties .. the centre of power keeps on shifting
.. to the international banks, the TransNational Corporations, and the US military-industrial complex as their enforcement arm. Governments are no longer supreme national authorities. They surrendered that to those named at the turn of the century.

> why it’s desirable to have the most disciplined groups having most leverage
Please note: ".. their discipline may arise from base motives". I emphasized that the principle operates regardless of motives. Those who learn how to utilize the principle can turn it to their advantage. Unfortunate, but true.

> Why is that preferable to the people not being ordered around in the first place?
Never said it was, and it's obviously not. What I'm saying is that the leopard not only knows how to scare the lamb, but how to trick it into flight and exhaustion. Saves a lot of effort for the leopard, and in the human context allows the leopard's lawyers to plead that the lamb sacrificed itself.

> citizen lobbyists can't offer donations, shares ..
Sadly, conceded.

> Nor could a citizen's lobbyist convince a politician of a backlash
Not so sure about this. ".. both parties have plenty of safe-seats" ignores the reality of the rise in support for Independents, which IMO is a card we need to play.

> politicians believe staying in parliament is the be-all and end-all .. VERY wrong
Too right! There's many a comfortable board seat to be had if you can find your SugarDaddy.

> to get people to engage .. is the ultimate way
It may well be that they won't do this until they're hurting badly enough to make the effort.

Beelz
-I think Peter's point about the Kings was that when Westminster (and many other parliamentarian models of democracy) were conceived more to the convenience of the existing lords of the time than to democratize; and it does show in its stratified hierarchy; Although Australia has managed to replace most of these bodies with elected ones, the stratification does still remain in some ways.
In other words, Westminster is, for lack of a better description, a system that falls short of aiming to be democratic per se.

A citizen's lobby could intimidate a politician, most definitely- but their rules are most definitely different. Other lobbyists can sweeten a deal for a member irrespective of public benefit- a body representing the public good is demanding the opposite- that politicians refrain from this for the public benefit;
Needless to say, they are going against the flow and trying to talk politicians OUT of benefiting from doing the wrong thing, which will put them at a disadvantage.
However, citizens groups ARE, luckily, the only lobbyists that can genuinely appeal to the very top layer- the voters. The rest can only make scare stories;
The downside is of course that most groups (GetUP included) have a lot of principles that are still partisan, so they have limited appeal, though their approach and general objective is something we need more of. (I can touch more on this later)

But ultimately, lobbying a politician only goes so far if that individual personally wants to do the right thing, and agrees with the lobbyist that it is what the public truly wants (and personally agrees with what the public wants). For a member who only wants to use parliament as a launching pad for their career, threatening them with speeding up the process won't work.

To sum it up- different games, different rules for the two. And the public do mobilize a fair few movements- though must be stimulated to do more- and this does, as you said, require either a drastic event, or a new attitude in emerging generations (and this looks optimistic).