Who’s opinions should carry more weight - politicians or the people?

Given that the basic definition of the word democracy is ‘people power’ taken from the Greek words demos meaning people and kratos meaning power then there can no argument against the people’s opinions being taken into account.  After all, if juries, made up of members of the public, can sit in judgement on their fellow man then there is no good reason why their views on other issues should not be taken into account.

Today far too many decisions are taken by our elected representatives on matters that were never discussed during the election campaign. What makes todays cross section of MPs believe they alone have the insight and right to legislate on our behalf without seeking our approval? Don’t forget that our 650 MPs represent 0.0014% of the electorate!

Then the argument is put that the people are to ill-informed to have their views heard and taken account of. However even if this were true, which I don’t accept, then if you consider the breakdown of our social grades and disregard the opinions of say the D&Es then the rest still form 74%.

AB	Higher & intermediate managerial, administrative, professional occupations	22.17
C1	Supervisory, clerical & junior managerial, administrative, professional occupations	30.84
C2	Skilled manual occupations	20.94
DE	Semi-skilled & unskilled manual occupations, Unemployed and lowest grade occupations	26.05

Another key point to grasp is that once a system of Direct Democracy is up and running, in line with our six demands, the people will not want to exercise their right to have their voices heard on every action and nuance of governance but they may well wish to have their say on the major issues of the day. Bearing this in mind I favour the collective wishes of a majority of the people over the distorted and blinkered views of the very illiberal elite who currently govern us.

The last point to cover in this post is the issue of the access to information. In the distance past the Bible was the source of all knowledge and consulted to try and answer all the questions of the day. Then over time we moved into the realms of the elder statesmen (or women) who used their experience and wisdom, with others, to tackle the issues facing them in government. Now we are burdened with a new breed of ‘Here today gone tomorrow’ MPs more concerned with their celebrity status and I simply will never accept that their views are better than those of the majority of the electorate.

In time, as covered in the thought provoking book’ Homo Deus’ algorithms may well give us the best answers and solutions as to what government action should be taken to any given problem but until then I want to see the people as sovereign with the mechanisms to have their voice heard and only acted on given that set criteria are met.