Democracy

Are we seeing the end of democracy in this country? Persistently and consistently we see the Prime Minister refusing to answer questions during PM's Question Time. That effectively means that he is not being held to account by Parliament. During Tony Blair's reign as PM he often simply ignored Parliament.

When I was young our Police Force was the bedrock of law and order. The police could be relied upon to assist the public and maintain stability on the streets of the country. In recent years it has become increasingly clear that under the NoLab government they are acting more like the Volkspolizei of East Germany or the Stasi of Rumania. That means they are being used by the state as a weapon to be used against the public.

There are daily reports in the mainstream media of people requesting assistance from the police who are usually 'too busy' to respond. However, if anyone is deemed to be guilty of any form of protest against the state then the police descend mob handed usually in a blaze of publicity. It is not a coincidence. This during a time that the young are running around murdering each other on our council estate streets.

It's the same with the Social Services. They are charged with protecting vulnerable children but we have seen recently with two dreadful cases that they seem to be incapable of decisions demanding common sense as opposed to political dogma. They seem to be hamstrung by government directives which clearly cannot be challenged.

We have never had a vote on the European Union which despite the cost involved is imposing itself on all walks of our life without any form of opposition. No mainstream political party challenges Europe so it is left to various fringe factions to shout from a distance usually too far away to do any damage.

The reason for this is our undemocratic electoral system. It has maintained the two major parties in power since we began to vote. For your vote to count you either have to vote Labour or Conservative. The problem is that in modern times there is nothing between them in policy. Neither of them discusses the major issues which affect the voter. Now if we had proportional representation then all votes would count because the smaller parties would get seats in Parliament according to the proportion of the vote that they had polled. Now that is democratic but it will never happen here because Gordon Brown hates democracy. After all he is in power without a vote, he supports a European Union but doesn't allow us to vote and he is waiting until the bitter end of NoLab's tenure to hold an election because he will lose the vote.

I think that doubt might even be penetrating the hide of even the most hard nosed NoLab supporter when they see the antics of the police and the government. In Mugabe style authority they arrest a member of the opposition and hold him without charge for nine hours during which time they rifle through, his home, his constituency office and his parliamentary office despite the 'privilege' accorded to MPs. If Shadow Cabinet Ministers are not immune then what chance you or I?

This is intensely undemocratic and when the Home Secretary says she knew nothing about it I just had to laugh! These people lie with such expertise that they could give lessons to the mother of Sharron Matthews. The problem is I think worse is to come unless somebody has the courage to stop it!