thread

Hello Democracy, it's been a while

1. I know a lot of people are worried, very worried, that western democracy is on the point of extinction.

I beg to differ, it's my view we are witnessing its rebirth & mighty painful it is too.

2. Believe it or not I spent years with absolutely no interest in politics. Didn't watch politics on the news, didn't talk about it, didn't vote. John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown & David Cameron: interchangeable politicians who didn't represent my values.

3. I didn't even take much notice of the referendum, as the MSM had informed everyone the remain vote was comfortably ahead. So I voted & forgot about it until the next day. Even then it wasn't a big deal, nor for the next 2 years.

4. Oddly enough it was a remainer who persistently alerted me to the trouble we were in with our democracy: my other half. That's when I started to take an interest.

5. I've written about this before, but it's to the fore again. The reason we have so much pain at the moment is because the government is having an internal war with the blob.

6. We've seen it today with Priti Patel. They're out to get her. Ministers shouldn't rock the Westminster boat. It doesn't matter that the boat needs a refit, all that matters is that the civil service carry on as always.

7. You can put whoever you like in government, but little will change if the civil service are running the show.

I'm sure many are good people, but they're unelected & unaccountable to the public, so they have lasting power regardless of who is 'front of house'.

8. In my view that's how it was from John Major's premiership until the present government came to power. The EU called the shots. Any unpopular policy our government wanted could be legislated for in Brussels.

9. Discussions behind closed doors. And our governments might shrug their shoulders and say 'well it's Brussels, we don't like that policy either, but there's nothing we can do'.

10. That isn't a functioning democracy.

For all those years from John Major's premiership we had no real choice within the main parties, they were all of pretty much the same neoliberal view.

11. Clearly Jeremy Corbyn exposed the divides within the Labour Party & Boris Johnson exposed the divides (& loyalties) within the Tory Party.

Like a pendulum that has slumbered for 20 years, our parliament started to swing left to right, creaking at the joints.

12. Brexit nearly brought the whole lot tumbling down. See here how close it was:

13. What we are in the middle of is a rebirth of politics. Old skills have been lost due to Parliament's lack of debating anything important. Politicians now have to sit up and take notice, or be found wanting.

14. We're not out the woods by a long way, it's going to take a decade. Labour shall have to find new politicians who have a capacity to debate serious topics - they can't hide behind identity politics for much longer as it's destroying them.

15. Our biggest democratic deficit lies with the media. We really are in trouble with the state of our networks. There are very few journalists who report news. Useful discussion is elusive, but propaganda is rife, on both sides of the political divide.

16. It's a difficult conundrum: free speech (with bs) v limitations on free speech (with all the dangers that poses).

Thank God for social media. I find the most thoughtful, well researched articles are written by normies.

17. Long may that continue amongst the parroting insanity of the MSM.