Are we really a democracy?

R R

Rascal

El Presidente
Joined
10 Jan 2005
Messages
64,381
Location
Paderne
Team supported
RCD Espanyol
The PM has always been in our democracy the first amongst equals, he is not in effect the leader of the country but the first minister in the cabinet that answers to the head of state

I thought brexit was the correct course of action because i am a democrat, i believe in the democratic process. However, is democracy really served when there are unelected advisor's helping to make policy on our behalf. We have outside interests influencing political direction, from big business to special interest groups, none of of who have democratic mandates. The media has undue influence and whilst i support a free press, i do not support an unduly partisan press that uses its influence to set the political agenda. I did not vote for a media baron to run the country.


As a Communist i believe in democracy, democracy in every facet of life, we should have the ability to decide not only on a national level, but on a level of how my little close of 25 houses decides whats best for us as a community to how the nation is run on our behalf.


Our country has been run by Governments with minority of votes for generations, how can that be right. If a country is run by the 34% who voted for , the 66% who voted differently are disenfranchised.

Has our voting system produced a tyranny of the minority or is it fair that the minority have the greater say and the majority just have to suck it up.


Basically the question is this.

Is our democracy fit for purpose?
 
There will always be a spanner in the works of any political system, it's the human element.

This country is run better than many many other countries and life isn't anywhere near as bad as the pontificating chattering classes make out, utopia isn't achievable and chasing it is a useless folly.
 
Well over half of the people who get to vote on decisions affecting us aren't even voted for in the first place. Someone can lose an election and then immediately be put into the House of Lords. Others are in there because they're mates with whoever happens to be in government at the time. Some are even in there because their great-great grandfather was particularly good at killing foreigners back in the empire days.

And then within the bit that is democratic, there are the people who have undue influence over our politics. Political parties taking donations from foreign nationals and companies who clearly have no interest in the success of the UK. There's no reason anyone who's not a UK national and resident should be allowed to donate to our political parties, and there's no reason why any single person or organisation should be allowed to donate more than a few grand.

And then of course there's the massive disconnect between the number of votes and the amount of power given. Which then disenfranchises massive numbers of people who happen to live in an area where their vote doesn't count because most people they live with disagree with them, even if country-wide their views are pretty common. It also creates a situation where the individual politician is irrelevant, so someone can have a vast expenses scandal, or do a completely useless job, but because they're in a safe seat, their performance isn't reflected in how people vote. Look at Matt Hancock. Even the most ardent Tory would struggle to defend his performance during the pandemic, and yet his share of the vote actually went up in the most recent election. And that's because his constituency was a safe Tory seat long before he took over and people vote for parties, not individuals. Or Jacob Rees-Mogg who was shifted around various constituencies until they found him a safe seat to get elected into (starting in Fife and ending in Somerset - he's from London). Or even Boris himself, whose first constituency was Michael Heseltine's seat that has been Tory since 1910.

There's this impression that the constituency elects the politician, but in reality, politicians are selected by the parties. And sure, to some extent they need to choose someone who will appeal to local voters, but let's be honest, there are so many areas that are never going to vote any other way, so people with connections can easily be placed in a seat they are guaranteed to win. David Cameron, Michael Gove and George Osborne were all given their first taste of being an MP in completely safe Tory seats. Priti Patel lost her first election badly, but was identified as "promising talent" by David Cameron and basically handed a chance to get elected in a constituency that she was guaranteed to win. And the problem is when you're in this situation, there are virtually no consequences for doing a shit job, or even for outright corruption for individual politicians.
 
WNRH said:
Democracy isn’t fit for purpose. It allows ill-informed idiots giving power to ill-informed idiots.

But there’s no better option.
Click to expand...
Especially when education has been dumbed down consistently for 40+ years and the advent of social media giving everybody a voice.

Add in the adage of assuming MPs looking out for their constituents more than their need to line their pockets.

I wonder when the public will finally work out that disaster capitalism is the root of the global malaise and where we will be at when that happens.
 
Democracy is overrated. I’d only want a proper democracy if the general public were reliably clued up. In fact, democracy can only work if that’s the case, and it’s nowhere bloody near the case.

I wouldn’t trust the general public the way it is with fucking anything, at all! Look at the Brexit vote, what percentage of the voters were reliably clued up? I’d bet it was a tiny minority. Don’t get me wrong, there were undoubtedly reliably informed and clued up people who voted Leave and Remain, but the majority voted off the back of gut feeling or falling for a pack of lies.

Nowhere near enough people are reliably clued up about any matter to ever be trusted with proper democracy.

If it were up to me I’d be taking votes away from people, never mind wanting a more democratic country. I think the general public should have to pass an exam in politics and current affairs to be able to be awarded a vote. If you don’t pass the exam, you don’t get a vote because you shouldn’t be voting if you don’t understand politics or current affairs.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Whether by design or accident our democracy' keeps the masses in line by giving the illusion of representation whilst the toffs run the country for their own benefit.

The monarchy, the house of lords, the honours system and by extension the old school tie network all need to go.

Not going to happen, the masses in this country are too conditioned to bowing down to those who they believe to be their betters.
 
dave_blue12 said:
Whether by design or accident our democracy' keeps the masses in line by giving the illusion of representation whilst the toffs run the country for their own benefit.

The monarchy, the house of lords, the honours system and by extension the old school tie network all need to go.

Not going to happen, the masses in this country are too conditioned to bowing down to those who they believe to be their betters.
Click to expand...
Because we are a nation of cap doffers. I have never understood that.
 
dave_blue12 said:
Whether by design or accident our democracy' keeps the masses in line by giving the illusion of representation whilst the toffs run the country for their own benefit.

The monarchy, the house of lords, the honours system and by extension the old school tie network all need to go.

Not going to happen, the masses in this country are too conditioned to bowing down to those who they believe to be their betters.
Click to expand...
Not at all. We don’t bow down and don’t think they’re our betters.

Most people seek out work we want to do and leave the running of the country to the people who wanted to seek that out as their career path, all while - on the whole - just happily getting on with our lives since most peoples’ day-to-day lives are completely unaffected by politics, which is where our kind of democracy works, and works well!

People have got more ambition and more interesting interests and skillsets than working in govt provides. Politicians are fairly low skilled and generic civil servants. That’s all I look at them as, I don’t care what school they went to or if their family owns acres of land somewhere. Very few politicians are experts in their field and their field can change at the drop of a hat; one minute you can be the Minister for Health, the next you’re the Home Secretary. MPs are are just a load of Jack-of-all-Trades, Masters-of-None! Why would anyone think that makes them our betters?

If you were serious about Health, you’d get a specific job in the Health sector. You wouldn’t seek out politics on the off and very slim chance you ever got to work in Health. Leave the Minister for Health job for some yes-man somewhere else.

The good thing about Britain is that we’re democratic enough and the govt have just little enough influence over its citizens, that we could all live an entire life never voting even once in our lives, never even thinking about politics, never being affected by politics, and live a happy life, doing a job we enjoy, bringing a happy family into the world. You can be poor and do this, like so many happy families are, don’t have to have money. And leave all the govt shit to people who want to do it, never really thinking about them never mind bowing down the them or thinking they are our betters.

I think people who are interested in politics get too wrapped up in it all. I’d emplore anyone who is very wrapped up in politics and political outlooks, to take a two year hiatus from all things political and just life their life in the real world for those two years… they’d see that politics is NOWHERE FUCKING NEAR as important as they think it is, and politicians, political parties and political outlooks, and so-called issues that society faces are nowhere near as important and influential, as big or as bad, as those wrapped up in politics think they are.

And that’s where our democracy is a successful democaracy.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
FPTP is a blight and a hinderance on this country. I believe it is a source of most that is wrong with politics and the effective and fair running of the UK.

It’s a democratic system of sorts, but it’s unrepresentative and unfair that render it to be a wholly flawed, and supremely wank, democratic system.

Given the current state of our politics, and the standard of politicians these days, I fail to see how anyone can defend it anymore.
 
Democracy?
We have a system where one party is elected by a single country within the U.K.
that governing party then has the right to stop ‘the will of the people’ of any other country seeking independence
we have a system where media is effectively a propaganda mouthpiece for that party
we have a system where governing politicians can do exactly what they like without being held accountable
we have a system where governing politicians can tell whatever lies they like without challenge
we have a system where the few are enriched and the majority pay for it.
If this is democracy you can shove it.
 
Rasc asked an interesting question and the first thing I thought about was what a poster on the board wrote, not long ago, essentially saying you have to trust the government you voted in and leave them to do their jobs.

It's this kind of release of responsibility that allows the illusion of 'democracy' to fester. This is rinse and repeat, especially in this country that is considered one the older democracies in the world.

Once people vote a party in, they dust their hands off and get on with their day, leaving the smart talking politician to make the decisions. It's funny, but the late great Bill Hicks described it as 'nothing to see here' and you can insert any country and any activity into the space to make it relevant for where you are.

Bill Hicks:

Go back to bed, America. Your government has figured out how it all transpired. Go back to bed, America. Your government is in control again. Here. Here's American Gladiators. Watch this, shut up. Go back to bed, America. Here is American Gladiators. Here is 56 channels of it! Watch these pituitary retards bang their fucking skulls together and congratulate you on living in the land of freedom. Here you go, America! You are free to do what we tell you! You are free to do what we tell you!​

Click to expand...

They want to answer no questions in a straight fashion and just for you to be a "docile apathetic consumer" of democracy.

This is how the likes of Johnson and Biden and whomever get away with twisting the promises spouted to get into power and once in power, know we are helpless as we have given them the mandate to make whatever decisions they deem fit.

Not me, I question why should I trust this process that people are apathetic to?

Bill Hicks:
This is where we are at right now, as a whole. No one is left out of the loop. We are experiencing a reality based on a thin veneer of lies and illusions. A world where greed is our God and wisdom is sin, where division is key and unity is fantasy, where the ego-driven cleverness of the mind is praised, rather than the intelligence of the heart.
Click to expand...

Yep.
 
The original post actually questions two separate though interconnected points: democracy and the electoral process. ‘Democracy’ has always been difficult to define, even in Ancient Greece, and it has meant different things to different peoples throughout history. As for the electoral system, FPTP creates clear winners and losers, but it also keeps the extremes far from the levers of power. However, whether that is a healthy consequence in a society that is so increasingly fragmented is moot.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Unread Posts

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top