Saturday 7th July

The flame of democracy has been snuffed out.  Just like that; this time in Egypt, where the army has stepped in to remove a democratically elected President after only one year.  Democracy has failed the Egyptian people, who desperately want to join the modern world, who want to be accepted as more than dirty ‘ragheads’, especially the young – who like the same clothes, the same music and the same internet sites as young people all over the world.  And yet democracy has failed them.

But maybe democracy is failing us all.  The trouble with democracy is that by and large – the winner takes all. The voices and opinions of millions count for nothing if a simple majority votes for something else.  But where there has been an almost un-reconcilable difference between people and fighting has broken out, then a different sort of democracy can sometimes prevail.  The power sharing agreement in Stormont seems to actually work a bit better than our fractured system.

The trouble is that, however well meaning, and I give those in power in Britain that benefit of the doubt, party politics supersedes the will of the people.  At the last election we had a very fractured vote, and an uncertain result.  Labour definitely lost the election, and quite badly, though the first past the post system meant they retained a lot of seats.  The Conservatives certainly did not win either, falling short of a majority.  The LibDems actually lost votes and MPs.  But we have ended up with a situation which nobody voted for – a very Tory dominated Government pursuing radical policies which in their wildest dreams most Tories never thought they might see.  And all in the name of the grand coalition which was supposed above all other objectives to have removed the deficit and to have got Britain back on its feet.

But in our so-called democracy it will not mean a thing that millions are dissatisfied, and no matter how many take to the streets and fill – say, Trafalgar Square, the army will never step in and remove a deeply unpopular Government which has failed in all its stated objectives.

I am not sure if what has just happened in Egypt is any less democratic than here, and in some ways you could say it is more so. Until we come up with a system where the beaten still have some say in the way the country is won we will never have a true democracy.  Actually until people are prepared to do a hell of a lot more than vote once every five years we will never have anything like a democracy.