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Sam,
Under the first past the post system the winning party, with a mandate to rule, has been voted for by a minority of the population. Most ordinary people know nothing about politics and a lot about football.
They vote for whomever they think is the least worst and never trust a word they say but they imagine that there is no other choice.
Mike.

A cynical but realistic view of politics in 21st century Britain.

Warren,

The winning party Labcon or Conlab say that they represent the people when tha majority of the people have not voted for them!

The present system is not democratic but corrupt like the majority of the politicians who take part in this confidence trick on the people.

Mike.

Mike,

Nothing will be truly democratic when people opt out on voting. It's the people who opt out that make it undemocratic, not the parties, or system!

Having mass public votes on everything would be even more undemocratic, as voting days would come round every week. People will get fed up and take it for granted even more than they do today. It would be seen as a weekly chore, rather than an annual privilege.

Then we have the financial costs of mass, almost weekly votes. Even electronic voting needs verification incase the software screws up. Also, the present system means only one ballet box at a time could potentially be tampered with; not making much difference to the overall result. An electronic system -if cracked- would leave millions of votes at the hands of the hacker (paid by big business, or church?). Wouldn't we have to mass vote, to choose which software the system would use? Also trusting them not to tamper with the results to suit their own political agendas? Who makes the software, what OS does it run on, who verifies everything, and who oversees the verifiers?

So we then have a system that's less democratic, costs more money, and can be tampered with on a grander scale than ever before. not only that, people with no knowledge of current affairs would be voting on foreign policies, education, taxes(ha!), health, transport, defence, etc......

Imagine the arguments around the dinner tables & pubs? We're held fully responsible for every decision made! If it was up to the public, we'd have voted in 275 different PM's in 10 years. A bit like Newcastle United & managers. As soon as theirs a little bit of uncertainty, or you have one bad week, your out.

Socrates was still stupidly condemned to death in the Athenian court, even though there were over 400 citizens in the jury..............which brings me onto juries........so 12 aren't enough now? Every trial is unfair because the whole country needs to see the facts of every case before going online to cast their guilty/not guilty vote?

Socrates was correct in doubting democracy; while it is the fairest way we know, it is not the wisest.

Sam,
You are still thinking in terms of Parliamentary democracy when I am think of circumventing it. I am writing a script at the moment and cannot concentrate on Socrates and Plato at the moment but remember Plato wanted to banish the artists from the Republic because he thought that they were the deceivers. Artists create the world by imagery.

I will answer when I have finished the script.
Mike.

Thanks Mike !thumbsup!