Did Davey do the right thing?

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

well it should be noted that the Italian and Greek Governments [whatever their character or views] were established by deals and votes in the respective national parliaments .... so the democratic issue is how sustainable those deals and votes are, and if public dissent can force a re-arrangement of power and policies .... i find it hard to see how derogating the democratic process involved enhances the general prospect for democracy .... one of the key features of democracy is that it will disappoint and frustrate some people some of the time and we are all enjoined to tolerate this frustration until the cause is won through debate and vote eh?

[Lateralthinking1]

Yes, well, you could of course conceivably have in the UK a majority Government which bans all further elections. At times one is tempted to ask what the hell our monarch and our army are for precisely. Neither is my favourite institution. But in that little matter to ponder, they start to look almost like good value. They are at the end of the day our checks and balances.

In Italy and Greece you have a situation now where elected representatives have done deals admittedly not to ban elections but to narrow them down to the point where they just aren't elections. Rather like allowing Bolsheviks and Mensheviks to take part and not a lot else, they have agreed to elections only between Euro capitalists with slightly differing views. Views about the extent to which you should push very narrow borrowing limits set by outsiders as far as they can go. Any further? No. Remember Ceaușescu.

Sure, they will look like proper elections. The Greens will be there, so too others, but they might as well be parties of Walt in practical terms. For if those parties were to be elected and wanted to go beyond the imposed limits, the penalties would make their programmes non-viable. Await then Mickey Mouse elections with democracy left flailing about in the ashes of Fantasia.

Parties are not elected to remove power from the electorate. They need to be "dealt with" whenever they try.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Parties are not elected to remove power from the electorate. They need to be "dealt with" whenever they try.

...who by?

[Lateralthinking1]

I think democrats across Europe should join together and threaten to declare war on the new dictatorship. That might then bring it to its senses. Bear in mind that the demand here is not huge, even if it would make all the difference between humanity and inhumanity. It is to enable national populations to act sensibly in the light of what has happened.

Remember the private sector's mantra? - "We don't need regulation because it is in our interests to self-regulate". Well, it is very selectively applied to the point of downright sinister. The demand in a word is "Trust".

All those who fought for us in the past wars are looking down now and saying "my God, all they care about is their home comforts and nothing else". It wasn't just Gilmour who was defacing the Cenotaph. It's the whole of Europe plc.

I'm not looking for a war. However I do feel having thought about it over the weekend that the order is (a) Get democrats together and threaten military action against the EU if it doesn't immediately restore democracy (b) Still try in parallel to radically reform the institutions, even if unlikely and (c) Failing that, a UKIP style withdrawal for the UK.

All of this needs to be done within months not years. It is just too laid back. We are drifting out of democracy and frankly that's just not on, however awkward or unfashionable that view is perceived to be. All those who disagree are just wrong.

[vinteuil]

All those who disagree are just wrong.

oh, the joys of certainty!

[MrGongGong]

Because we (inevitably given our system !) have a government that more people voted against than for
then it is surely incumbent on them to have a bit more humility and empathy ?
it seems to me that its more than a little hypocritical to complain about the lack of "democracy" in the EU when we have very little "democracy" in the UK

[Chris Newman]

All those who fought for us in the past wars are looking down now and saying "my God, all they care about is their home comforts and nothing else". It wasn't just Gilmour who was defacing the Cenotaph. It's the whole of Europe plc.

I'm not looking for a war. However I do feel having thought about it over the weekend that the order is (a) get democrats together and threaten military action against the EU if it doesn't immediately restore democracy (b) Still try in parallel to radically reform the institutions, even if unlikely and (c) Failing that, a UKIP style withdrawal for the UK.

I think that the generation of my father and my uncles must view Cameron's isolationist stance as part of what they fought against. And Winston Churchill, who dreamt up the EEC in the first place, must be kicking his coffin lid in outrage.

UKIP? The BNP at prayer? I want no part of a Britain like that of Franco's Spain.

[Lateralthinking1]

Mr GG, I am in favour of PR. However, in the current world there are two main differences:

1. The difference between:

(a) an electoral system that is heavily weighted against parties with a significantly alternative programme being elected into Government (FPTP)

(b) a system that has economic penalties which, if they were to be elected, would prohibit their manifesto programmes from being undertaken (Enforced monetarism).

Neither is good. However, here, if I am in a tiny minority and want a huge spending programme, I can vote for a relevant party knowing that, in the unlikely event that it was to be elected, our manifesto-based "contract in democracy" would stand.

2. The difference between:

(a) a political restriction of fair democratic representation by nationally elected Governments (UK)

(b) an economic restriction of the same thing by politicians and bureaucrats mainly from other countries who are not even that because they are rather mouthpieces for unelected shareholders and banks (EU).

Chris - Do you not think though that we should try to separate two strands here? There are the natural isolationists who have been with us for decades and who UKIP epitomise. Then there are those of us who feel that the current monetarist policies of the EU, which are being forced on countries, are isolated in themselves, ie from the original EEC model, and indeed a betrayal.

My understanding is that an Attlee style party - which I would vote for - would have to leave the EU to put its programme into action whether it wanted to or not, certainly in Italy or Greece, and probably coming to a street near us soon. The Americans who agreed to Churchill's request for a loan fleeced us but did not meddle in our politics so far as I am aware.

What I am saying is that while UKIP are to the right of goodness knows what, anyone who wants Attleeism - which I understand to be effectively Keynesianism - would probably stand a greater chance of succeeding by voting for UKIP first.

(The only alternative options are to force reform, try forlornly to persuade into reform or live with it as it is)

[MrGongGong]

What is the point of voting in the UK when the "manifesto commitments" and "pledges" made are thrown away once people are in power ?

no point at all as far as I can see
as for advocating UKIP as some kind of credible alternative
delusional fantasists who hide some dangerous beliefs (not very well hidden IMV)

[Lateralthinking1]

The first is a point.

In a funny way, this goes back to Hitchens. There he was being accused of suddenly turning into a neocon. He supported wars that I did not and do not. His reason was that the opponents were fascists that made the US seem by comparison red.

I'm not sure there is any real evidence to suggest that he fundamentally changed. Many would say that he was a leftist to the end. If that was him in 2011 - still to the left - and it is difficult to be sure because he didn't focus hugely on economic policy - there would be a man who had thrown his lot in temporarily with the right to defeat something he saw as even further to the right.

That to me is sad and unfortunate - symptomatic of our times - but it makes sense. I suggest he knew that his original politics stood no chance of succeeding in the US but felt that the faintest of a glimmer there was better than no glimmer at all.

I am sort of seeing the Merkozy Plan as the economic and undemocratic equivalent to human rights abominations under Islamic fundamentalism; UKIP as the democratic equivalent to Wolfowitz; and what I want being something entirely different but possibly needing the latter to keep the doorway open, if only very slightly. It's largely theoretical but in terms of humanity important.

(Incidentally, these things happen and sometimes in reverse. The number of times Enoch urged voters to choose Labour is simply staggering. Even so, no one was ever in doubt where he was on the political spectrum).

[teamsaint]

its not very democratic when the big economic decisions are taken by bankers, or their representatives.

[MrGongGong]

its not very democratic when the big economic decisions are taken by bankers, or their representatives.

is it any more "democratic" when the big decisions are taken by their Eton mates who got 36.1% of the 61% of people who voted
that's hardly "democratic" either and surely they should bear that in mind ?

[ahinton]

is it any more "democratic" when the big decisions are taken by their Eton mates who got 36.1% of the 61% of people who voted
that's hardly "democratic" either and surely they should bear that in mind ?

But taking that analogy further, is any decision "democratic" if not fully and demonstrably representative of the wishes of more than 50% of the electorate? - in other words, aren't almost all such decisions "undemocratic" when assessed on such a basis?

[Lateralthinking1]

There are several strands here. I would see your focus as being in the middle. That is to say it is about the extent to which representation in Parliament reflects the will of the electorate (or not!).

On one side of that "middle" is the issue of whether the Government, however representative it happens to be, is able to put its programme into place unhindered by undemocratic forces. You could of course also look at the trickier matter of the impacts on its programme of any forces that are more democratic. This could be argued in a number of ways theoretically. For example, what if a local authority had 100% support? But that is really one for the academics.

On the other side of that "middle" are the democratic rights of the individual voters beyond the issue of whether one vote is equal in representational terms to another, which of course we all know it isn't under FPTP. That I would argue is about whether as a voter you have equality in terms of knowing the party you vote for has a parity of legitimacy for its manifesto. This is to say each voter knowing whether every party would be able if in Government to put forward its programme without an external penalty to impede it.

Really it is about the difference between one voter saying "I am voting for a programme of Government" and another saying "I am voting for a roadblock".

[MrGongGong]

But taking that analogy further, is any decision "democratic" if not fully and demonstrably representative of the wishes of more than 50% of the electorate? - in other words, aren't almost all such decisions "undemocratic" when assessed on such a basis?

indeed they are
I'm not suggesting that "democracy" is the best way of deciding everything
we don't use it at all for things we think are really important (surgery, flying aeroplanes, high court judgements, unaccompanied Bach etc )
what I find irksome is politicians pretending that they somehow have a mandate based on the fact that a small percentage of people voted for them, which is why they could do with a bit more humility !