Playing the funny old game of democracy

Maurice O'Brien • Published 10 Sep 2009 14:00 4 Comments

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FUNNY thing democracy. Means different things to different people.

Like an old coat you can put it on, button it up, wear it wide open, or dump it in the wardrobe at the mercy of the moths; and when all's said and done it's still an old coat.

Remember the German Democratic Republic, a state where the leadership was so hellbent on ensuring the will of the majority of the people never surfaced that they built a wall around it?

Meanwhile countless millions of repressed people still live in chains in euphemistic people's democratic republics across the world.

While doubts may remain over whether the BBC is being guided by expediency or a rare desire for impartiality, there are certain political figures so obnoxious and repugnant that they should certainly never be allowed anywhere near a broadcast.

Only the other morning, disgraced ex-minister Tony McNulty, still under investigation because of duplicity over his addresses, was being interviewed by BBC radio on national security. In more honourable times he'd have been out of a job and ashamed to show his face but, with the Morleys, Viggars, Morans and Steens, he's insultingly hanging on until the bitter end, wringing the last penny from the trough.

That said, however, it will be a good moment for democracy when BNP leader Nick Griffin gets to appear on Question Time.

It should also be a moment of abject shame for our frontline political parties, because it's their gutless, deceitful ineptitude which created the conditions whereby ordinary folk joined the knuckle-draggers to enable the BNP to take 6% of the vote and two seats in the European Parliament.

But instead of refusing to share a studio, and running away like startled virgins, every decent politician worth his salt ought to be fighting tooth and nail to get on that panel at any cost. The only way they will defeat the BNP is through the power of debate and the force of argument, not by turning their backs. Any politician not prepared to take up that challenge is also a coward.

- NOW that we've discovered professional rugby union can show professional football a thing or two when it comes to cheating, if that fake blood came from a joke shop does that mean we're supposed to giggle when someone carelessly leaves his head on the ground and gets it stamped on, or when they do that gouging thing with each other's eyes?

And, as Dean Richards was the Leicester coach when the smirking Neil Back blatantly knocked the ball out of scrum-half Peter Stringer's hands at a potentially match-winning put-in, to cheat Munster out of the 2002 Heineken Cup, will someone now apologise? Don't make me laugh.

Have your say. Post a comment on this article.

Megs
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Sep 11, 11:47
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Nothing funny about democracy.. simple really it all boils down to majority rule.. of course there are people who will pervert this principle.. However the truth is still simple..

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politico
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Sep 11, 12:42
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Not really - didn't Labour only win about 35% of the vote last time round? And yet they have total control of the Government.

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Howard Thomas
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Sep 12, 19:54
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Good article -----quite right that the best way to tackle the BNP is to expose their policies for what they really are. I recall listening to an interview on radio just after Griffin was elected to the EU in which he quite clearly stated that a black person could not join the BNP, and then went on to say that he was not racist!! Kinda tells you all you need to know.

It is without doubt that the increase in popularity of the BNP is a result of the failure of the big 3 parties to deal with the issue of immigration , and should they eventuallly do so the BNP will slide back under the rock from which they emerged!

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Megs
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Sep 14, 11:42
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Blankity Blankity.. Blank !!...Democracy will prevail.. whether you wish it to be perverted or not !!

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