It is one of those weeks when I was finding it hard to come up with something to write about especially with the entire focus on Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Then I got to thinking the very simple thought that however bad we feel our governance is we clearly have to be thankful we don't live in Putin's Russia.
This link is good summary and reminder of Putin's 2018 Presidential victory which I'm afraid you will need to cut and paste as it doesn't open of this Google blog for some reason.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/03/russia-putin-election-disinformation-troll/555878/
At least at our General Elections we can vote out a Prime Minster and his/her government and in the last 77 years we have had seven changes of governments, between Labour and the Conservatives, that is since 1945.
I still believe very strongly that our system of governance is no longer fit for purpose which is why I've been involved with The Harrogate Agenda and its six demands for the past 10 years.
There is one undisputed fact about our Agenda and that is that it exists and while anybody can support all or just some of our demands they can never claim to have invented them!
The current Ukrainian crisis has brought out some of the worst in our government but few seem to be noticing. We have an energy crisis, a ballooning debt crisis, a cabinet who tells us one thing and does the opposite. Meanwhile it is freezing bank accounts and seizing houses of Russian oligarchs. If it can do that to them, without parliamentary scrutiny, how long before it uses those powers on us?
ReplyDeleteYes, it "is no longer fit for purpose". No one is coming up with anything better than the 6 demands. Implementation is needed urgently.
We need the people to get behind them and we then have a chance.
ReplyDeleteThank goodness political opposition isn't supressed and we can at least change our government. However, it's my belief that we have the minimum requirement to qualify as a democracy.
ReplyDeleteIt's a romantic view that believes politicians work for the benefit of the electorate. They have their own agendas and are often aligned with an agenda of others rather than the electorate. This was the case with the EU and also net zero and immigration.
That's why we need more democracy than the bare minimum. We need power to decide single issues and override our political class.
I agree with you 100% which is exactly what our six demands are all about based on a sovereign people and politicians who become our servants instead of our masters.
DeleteIf you think about freedom and tyranny, one is being able to make choices for yourself and the other is where another or others don't let you. When it comes to law, most should protect us all from having our rights or freedoms being infringed by others or even to protect us from ourselves.
DeleteWith government, we all can't have our own way so majority rule also means the least number of people as possible don't get what they want. When ever we hand over a task to someone else to do on our behalf, we risk the job not being done as we want. With government, we risk representatives not representing our wishes but that of themselves or others than their electors.
No one would say they agree with everything in any parties manifesto. Further, there is no requirement for manifesto pledges to be honoured at all. Then we have the circumstance where all parties have the same policy. All these facts mean we are far from free with representative democracy. Representative democracy stops us having choices.
'We can vote a Prime Minister/Government out'.
ReplyDeleteWell, we can replace a Government most of us didn't vote for with another Government most of us didn't vote for.
Well, sometimes anyway, if the votes are geographically spread in the right way otherwise Governments can survive with healthy majorities with 36% of the vote.