Democracy?!

British politics seems to have descended into complete idiocy. For days we have endless discussions over what Gordon Brown knew or did not know about the antics of one of his stooges and whether he should or should not apologize. Meanwhile unemployment rises, pension funds sag, families lose their homes... and abroad Gaza suffocates, Iraq struggles, Pakistan smoulders, Thailand explodes...

Our parliament is such a charade. Having won a majority of the seats with the support of a quarter of the electorate (as usual), our rulers seem to think only of how to cling to power and the opposition only of how to wrest it from them. Liberal voters have not formed a government in living memory, and no honest republican can enter parliament, since an oath of allegiance to the Crown is required. Yet, when Labour and Blair were 're-elected' in 2005, people did not pour into the streets to protest.

The latest headline 'news': a rat spotted in Downing Street, and the leader of the opposition (whose party was in power for 18 years) says that Labour has been so long (12 years) that it has forgotten whom it serves. Good for the rat! Perhaps if we had a lot more rats and mice, people might begin to protest.