Are we a Democracy really?

The Guardian Twitter feed very kindly guided me to an article about the British Prime Minister David Cameron being hamstrung when it comes to criticising Israel in relation to its recent activity in Gaza. Apparently he and Mr Hague had done so pre coalition and were lambasted by a number of Tory party donors. It brought me to recall a trip that Tony Blair, when Prime Minister himself, took to Libya when they were bringing Gaddafi out of the cold. He was accompanied by the CEO of BP. I remember the news reporting that he (The BP man) was the second most powerful man in the country. The most powerful man, it was said, was not part of the delegation. Conclusions can be drawn.

I shouldn't really speculate, but if I was a betting man I would put my shekels on most of the British public who make themselves aware of world events condemning the consistent killing of innocents, particularly children in Gaza. However it seems our leaders live more in fear of their Part paymasters than the public that votes them in. People who are at best answerable to their company shareholders and at worst only to themselves. Arguably the same or similar applies in most, if not all the world's prominent democracies. Obama's administration has only been able to use semi committal lawyer speak to condemn events because he does not need to be re-elected. Even then uses the UN schools as a shield from the powerful American lobbies. Principled it is not. Full of fear it certainly is. Oh and the US continues to ship the weapons that are killing these poor souls over. If I handed my friend  the bullets to shoot his neighbour then I would be an accessory. If I knew that said neighbour's children were standing in the way to stop him and he would shoot them too regardless then what am I? But I digress (I am half Welsh after all).

Democracy is what we in the Western world use as a verbal weapon against the nations that don't seem to tow the line yet we are clearly falling short in the application of same. The voting system in the UK, particularly when it comes to general elections, disregards swathes of voters intentions. Marginal constituencies were targeted at the last general election, for example, where the cash pockets of one individual funded the campaigns in these areas for one political party. And it is these areas alone that determine the political fate of the country every five years. In turn when these gentlemen and sometimes ladies are elected it seems they are often swayed by corporate winds and if not seem powerless to break them.

Understandably the establishment fears the results of true democracy. It is often considered that the masses are not educated enough to to truly understand the machinations of running a state. Though I would argue that too much democracy  may allow more educated people to have more say and hence more likely to dig more deeply at the roots of it. It is no wonder that there was little appetite for AV (Alternative Vote) in the political arena outside of the Liberal Democratic Party when the referendum came about. On the other hand maybe they were right as we were too stupid to understand it and despite its flaws it would have given us the electorate more control over our political destiny. No proof of course that it would diminish the powers of BP et al. Big Society anyone? How about a flower show and a sticky bun contest? Something for us to have a say on. Mind you there is always a local businessman leaning on the Vicar to make sure his wife's buns make the grade.

Haider Bahrani is the Managing Director of Sonneteer. The views aired here are his own.
haider@sonneteer.co.uk

It's the people stupid!

Nothing to learnum here!

As cringe worthy and damn site anger stimulating things like Daily Mail headlines and Sarah Palin utterings can be to many they are certainly very effective in communicating with their audience. The recent, UK Conservative government led anti Alternative Vote campaign could, too, be viewed as having been plucked from the same reference book.

Readers of the broadsheet press will have gazed upon harsh and to some extent dismissive criticism of all of the above for being simplistic, populist and vulgar and yet their effectiveness is undiminished. Take Sarah Palin's book for example and combine it with her political short(video) that came out during the Mid term US elections. Both seen as tabloid, cliche and lacking in any cranial content. That is to quote some of the politest of critics. One could argue, however, that they are a stroke of genius. Ms Palin, the Daily Mail and Messrs Cameron et al. are fully aware to whom they are speaking and have tailored their messages perfectly. Sometimes the truth is a victim, but the audience is happy and the agendas are met. We dare not educate them else they might know what they are voting for(or against as is more likely)!

In much the same way that the Thatcherite philosophy of the 1980s relied on a large pool of unemployed to succeed this neo libertarian, staunch conservatism (an oxymoron if there ever was') relies on a pseudo educated masses to steamroller its' engine through.

It has been interesting to hear comments from my peers here in Britain while observing the news on the Arab spring. As young Egyptinas and Tunisians face cameras and articulate in good english about political freedoms and what not and to find out that some of them are shop keepers, taxi drivers and manual workers yet command a level of education we wouldn't expect on UK shop floors. That's unless they were Polish of course!

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Can't do, wont do; a prefect all at sea.

We will sell you guns and missiles! 

Admittedly I have never nailed my flag to the centre (ish) right mast and I am far from a believer in the Libertarian, Anarchistic ideology. Saying that I have always considered the likes of David Cameron and William Hague to be well intentioned people at heart. May be that is still to be born out and  my current anger, misinformed.  I am certainly a believer of, if you want people to travel down a certain road then you need to build the roads and build them from where they are now. Discarding the old roads but asking those who need new ones to build them themselves is a little bit 'Let them eat cake' ( a la Marie Antoinette for those of us who didn't read history at Oxford). So we have an ideology of young conservatism of the Thatcher era which tore the heart out of British humanity eating away at the innards of current leadership. A philosophy born of millionaires and not for the better, greater society.

The well intentioned amateurism of Messrs Hague and Cameron has none been more evident this Arab Spring. While William observes the the dramatic nature and the likely consequence's of the fact that the Arabs are humans with normal human needs like us (the great civilised people of  the west) after all, David sups with the tyrants. One hopes that Mr Cameron(David) will have been lecturing the Saudis on the merits of pluralism rather than begging them to pump more oil and buy more of our guns. The confused messages, never the less, show off a bunch of guys put in charge of the Zoo, having lost all the animals and no idea how to start getting them back.

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Ideology and carpet bombing.

Not quite how I planned this blog as intended to start some months ago. Time has been mine enemy. The current cuts bonanza has reminded me of the invasion of Iraq a little. 100s of thousands of innocents dead apparently for the greater good. Well if any were my relatives I may have a different view. Often the ones bombing are idealogs who will not be directly, emotionally or otherwise, affected by the carpet bombing.

This is a post on the BBC website in response to a question on the cuts. Oh sorry I mean spending review. After a meeting with David Cameron I was asked to refrain from using the word cuts in reference to the cuts. So the word cuts and spending review will now mean one and the same. This is just so i dont say cuts too often when referring to it, the spending review.

I digress. My response on the BBC blogs:

History will prove this to be all folly. There is only a feint whiff of pragmatism in all these cuts. An ideology of small government is stinking through all of this and no one seems to notice. They say that after a few minutes in the pigsty you don't really notice the smell any more!
"The bourgeoisie, by the rapid
improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication,
draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation."
Now that simply wont happen if we cut everyone out of a means to make money and grow. Investment, investment, investment by Education, education and so on. We are blindly ruining a whole generation all because of some libertarian extremism brushed up as the country's saviour!
Oh Karl Marx wrote the quote. So even the so called inventor of Communism was really a social democrat at heart. The solution is more important than the method of achieving it. The question is, what is the solution in your mind?

Confidence is the key here. This is not achieved by demoralising a nation. There is a good way out of this. This is not it. This is a confidence trick