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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