A paper by Roger Myerson in 1993 (link here) measures candidates via two dimensions: honesty and ideology. Under proportional representation, no matter where your ideological position there will be an honest candidate asking for your vote. Consequently, dishonest politicians won't be elected.
In single-member districts, however, only one candidate can be voted. The voter (as a Nash eq.) will prefer a dishonest but ideologically alligned candidate, hence plurality rule in single-memeber districts will be associated with dishonest incumbents, who are hard to oust from office.
There are problems with this paper, because I don't see why strategic voting is only a viable option in the second case. As James Buchanan would say, all voting is strategic.
That said, one of the beauties of Public Choice theory is the wide applicability of some very simple concepts. In a very neat model, I think we can see the crux of the problem with Tony Blair: we'd rather elect a liar than a Tory!
Note - if your immediate reaction is "but he is a Tory" then you've just supported the Median Voter Theory.pdf, the most famous Public Choice model.
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