Does Democracy Work?

It is generally accepted that that the concept of democracy began in Ancient Greece. Athenian citizens had rights to debate and influence decisions which would affect the city-state.

This is a long way from our current version of democracy, parliamentary democracy, whereby the voters choose a representative who will act for them...

Is this the best way to govern? In theory, yes. However, this must be dependent on the ability of the electorate to make a well-balanced decision.

This can only happen, if a) the electorate is presented with all of the facts and b) the electorate can understand these facts.

Point a) simply does not happen in this world. Expressions such as “National Security” and “not in the Public Interest” are bandied around by lawyers and politicians who wish to “protect” the populace from the nastier side of government.

For point b) to happen, the electorate has to be educated to a certain level. Voters must care enough to question and be lucid enough to ask questions. This immediately makes a mockery of the Western attempts to introduce democracy to nations such as Afghanistan whose mentality is still very much Medieval.

Even our own democracy is flawed. There is a huge level of political apathy not helped by a generation of smarmy, dishonest breed of professional politicians who would stoop to any level to remain in power.

This means that our leaders are not elected by a majority and the electorate does not have the opportunity debate pertenant issues.

Let me give you a couple of examples.

For many years I lived in West Reading. My local MP was Martin Salter. A decent man, who cared for the town he represented. He commuted to and from Westminster and was not involved in any way in the expenses scandal as he was an honest man. He was approachable and would talk to anybody. However, he was a Labour MP. So as a Conservative voter, when it comes to the General Election, do I vote for the man, who I know would represent my town well, or for the party that I support?

Second example is more general.

If there ever is a vote in Parliament for the re-introduction of the Death Penalty, how do MPs vote? Do they follow their own conscience or do they follow the will of their electorates? In the past it has been the former and there is no indication that this is likely to change.

So Democracy as we know it isn’t actually democratic. However the alternatives aren’t particularly palatable and so we will have to make do with this until somebody can come up with a better alternative...