The refusal to debate and the decline of democracy

Things are not going well for democracy in the United Kingdom.

The main political parties are hardly entering into the main issues of the local elections or European elections - with the possible exception of UKIP and to be fair the Lib Dems.

UKIP have tapped into a seem of popular dissatisfaction with what I would call our ruling class ( which I'd define by their common background and career, rather than the political flag ).

Politics has become Marketing for cynics.

Hence the answer to the rise of UKIP has been to attempt to smear and play the man, not debate the issue.

We have the Racism card being played, not only by the Left who have long used it to try to censor debate, but now by the desperate Conservative party. The main stream media has swung behind the campaign against the plebs, but occasionally you see articles where occasional commentators point out that the consensus in politics - which runs against majority opinion on many issues, is a problem.

We are trying to have an election. People, many ordinary people, are standing for office.

Tempers are getting frayed -self appointed activists groups are organising "counter" demonstrations to scare people away from debate with their smears. The media is playing into this theme.

In the end things will calm down after Thursday, but we should not kid ourselves that democracy is drinking in the last chance salon in the UK.

We need proper debates, calm heads, some mutual respect.

Democracy only works in the end if 49.9% of the people are willing to be ruled by 50.1%'s wishes. ( See this article by Sean Thomas in the Telegraph - which runs through these issues ).

Since all of the three legacy parties have an almost unified position on many of the key topics, which is often against the majorities wishes, we can't be far from democracy breaking down.

That is something we should all pause and think about after Thursday.

It looks like the combined unified action all all the establishment may yet save David Cameron the passing embarrassment at the count on Sunday night, but nobody should fool themselves that we can carry on like this.