The democratic deficit: The removal of democratically elected leaders and their replacement by technocrats

in Greece and Italy, this week has seen the removal of democratically elected leaders who have been replaced by unelected technocrats. To me there are issues around this, in no particular order:
Firstly – these governments are representative governments. There are the result of indirect democracy, not direct i.e. they are elected to represent those who elected them. Therefore, they should have the power to take even the most significant decisions without having to refer back to their electors.
Secondly: something as huge as what's been going on with regards to the austerity measures should have democratic backing. It might even get the people on side
Third: if they hadn't screwed up their economy in the first place they wouldn't be in this situation at all.
Fourthly: elections take time, decisions are needed now.
Fifthly: the needs of the financial markets and ratings agencies are being put above the democratic desires of the populations of these countries. But, at the end of the day the reason for this is that their economy is up the creek and they need to borrow money on someone else's terms.

Nick Clegg urges students to call off tuition fees marches‏

Now he's urging people to stop voicing their opinions. You know for certain if he wasn't in the government he'd be out there with them, calling the policy a disgrace and calling on the government to row back on it. But because he's the one who about-turned, he's calling for people to just agree with him and do as they're told.

first Scottish senior football club to become a fully democratic community interest company.

now that's interesting.
i hope they succeed as i'd love to see more democracy and less antagonism in the ownership of clubs

good point on tv debate

A good point on the TV debate and our parliamentary democracy generally:
"That message is that you the voter, on polling day, are voting for a Prime Minister, not for your local MP"


on 'corruption'
"Amongst all the corruption in Parliament exposed before the summer, there were a few examples of notably bad and surprisingly good behaviour. Cameron’s school chum Bill Wiggin MP managed to use Parliament as a cash machine, withdrawing £250 per month as petty cash and a further £400 per month for food, regardless of whether he was in his Leominster constituency or his Westminster second home and none of which reconciled with a single receipt. Laura Moffatt on the other hand made the news when it emerged she sleeps on a camp bed in her office rather than using her second home allowance."

"Party leaders already get plenty of air time and more than their fair share of newspaper column inches. Already, the overwhelming majority of people vote on party lines rather than on the strengths of their local candidates. Providing a TV debate as the locus of the election will make it more likely that Moffatt will lose her seat in spite of her strengths and less likely that Wiggin will lose his seat over his personal greed."


"It’s because of this conspiracy to get people voting nationally instead of locally, in conjunction with an electoral system that promotes parties instead of candidates, that we have 400 safe seats in a parliament of 646 MPs. And it’s this overwhelming proportion of safe seats that gave us a festering culture of unaccountability in Westminster, creating fertile ground for the expenses scandal in the first place."