It seems everyone thinks democracy is a good thing to have but they disagree on what it is. Those who claim to have a democratic government insist that their democracy is better than anyone else’s or, as Andrew Feinstein put it recently, it’s the best democracy money can buy. I know one thing, politics is too serious a matter to be left in the hands of politicians.

It’s outrageous to say that “Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East” while actively carrying out genocide against the Palestinian people. The US Empire is no less guilty, they have a history of staging coups against democratically elected governments they don’t like. You can’t claim to have democracy at home while opposing it abroad. This what was wrong the Athenian democracy.

Sunak and Starmer, along with their acolytes, are incandescent with rage at George Galloway winning the Rochdale by-election. As Galloway himself put it, they’re cheeks of the same backside and he kicked both of them! They somehow manage to portray the result as undemocratic, Starmer going so far as to say that Galloway only won because Labour didn’t have a candidate – for which he has nobody to blame but himself. Labour did have a candidate until Starmer withdrew the whip – to mix metaphors, he threw the towel in then complained that the grapes were sour.

Starmer said in a statement: “Elected representatives should be able to do their jobs and cast their votes without fear or favour.” I doubt if he meant that MPs should cast their votes without fear of the whips or favours from lobbyists, and voters should be able to vote for the candidate they prefer without being abused as “extremists” by sore losers. I can criticise them on Twitter/X and I won’t be polite about it, we can’t all be as courteous as Jeremy Corbyn when we’re annoyed however hard we try. It’s what they signed up for and if they don’t like it they can block me, some already have. Starmer’s not doing his job as Leader of the Opposition, and he immediately suspends any Labour politician – be it MP, councillor or mayor – who tries to do it for him 😠

Nothing can be more egregious than Suella Braverman describing ceasefire demonstrations as “hate marches”, Sunak claiming that the country is being taken over by “Islamists”, or Starmer dismissing any opposition to Israeli genocide as “antisemitic. I’ve been saying for a long time that he’s only de jure leader of the party formerly know as Labour, de facto leader is Marie van der Zyl – President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews. Please note this is not the same as saying that Jews control our government, we don’t need to look far to see who does!

Any voters trying to inform an MP of their opinion, especially if they’re a bit noisy, are accused of harassment. It comes with the job! MPs harassing their staff, or each other, it’s a different story. At PMQs they behave like football hooligans 😠 I wrote this poem when Jeremy Corbyn was leader of the Labour Party, but it could be apply to “Labour” MPs.

If MPs see all criticism as abuse, either directly or online, and feel intimidated by constituents coming to their office to complain then they’re in the wrong job! A paranoid government that is so afraid of peaceful protests that it uses heavy-handed policing to suppress dissent cannot justify calling itself “democratic”. They ought to be afraid, but they’re inflating the danger.

When the people fear the government there is tyranny;
When the government fear the people there is liberty.

Thomas Jefferson

What I’ve said about politicians applies just as much to “journalists” who have a very aggressive interviewing style but don’t like it when the tables are turned on them, like the one who accosted George Galloway and felt intimidated by a group of supporters who crowded in to listen to what was said. It’s common courtesy to stop asking questions long enough for the interviewee long enough to answer 🙄 Of course some people aren’t really interested in the answer, it’s an excuse for a monologue. I can’t for the life of me imagine why anyone would go on Julia Hartley-Brewer’s show when all she does is go on an apoplectic rant. A free press? That’s another good idea we should try sometime.