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The writing on the wall?




 British democracy in terminal decline.


 

Firstly, let us dispel the myth that Britain is a democracy. It is not and never has been. In Britain, we are ruled by an elected dictatorship, which we have the "democratic right" to change every 5 years or so. The Country is in fact governed by the Prime Minister aided and abetted by "the cabinet" or as in the case of Tony Blair, a very few close "advisers". This little cabal, usually meet in secret, take decisions and create policy, and then tell the rest of their respective parliamentary party what the policy is and rely on this "lobby fodder" to march through the Government lobbies in pursuit of Party unity. Only rarely is this "unity" challenged when Government rebels find some proposal so obnoxious that they publicly object and indicate that they will at least abstain, or horror of horrors, they will vote against the Government. At this time the "Government whips" get to work, threatening a member's career in the house, or promising a promotion, or some other seedy inducement or threat to the individual MP, and usually but not thankfully always, the objections melt away and the Government "survives" the vote. There are fortunately a few members in the House who manage to retain a degree of honour and principal. It is against this background that the "long-term terminal decline" of British politics should be viewed.
This decline has been evident over many years but only in recent years has this decline accelerated at such a rate. Probably the biggest factor in this is the ever increasing availability and use of social networking and its ability to spread comment, news and debate to a wider and wider audience. Tweeters are now everywhere commenting and spreading news more quickly than newspapers or television news could ever possibly compete with. Political events are instantly analysed, commented on and passed on and the activities of politicians are closely scrutinised. With this relatively new public awareness, there comes the realisation that currently all political parties are basically the same with the "rush to the centre ground" of the late 1980's now producing the effect that there is no real choice when voting and all options lead to the same result. The voting system in any case leads to the anomaly of more than 60% of those bothering to vote, choose nit to vote for the party which wins under the "First past the post" election method. Under these circumstances, it is difficult to see any reversal of the decline, particularly as Governments become even more unrepresentative of the people in the country. Perhaps a complete replacement of the current political system is called for, in my view it is certainly necessary..
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