The Siamese triplets

MAX HASTINGS HAS WRITTEN a very good piece in the Daily Mail, suggesting that democracy is dying, and fated to die, in part, through people's apathy  toward their professional politicians who are all conjoined at the hip, and seemingly beyond separation.

            Politicians act and think as a class; they are all occupying what they like to call the centre ground where they believe sits the British public. Party politics, which is the bedrock of any democracy, today comprises three main parties whose leaders cannot hold a contrary position on the two main issues of the day.

            Europe and immigration was never mentioned by Max Hastings in his article, but these two great issues are what the British people are most concerned about after the state of the economy; and because they see little difference between the party leaderships on these issues, they see no point in voting for any of them; which is why so many are turning to Ukip.

            As for the individual ministers and their equivalent office holders on the opposition front benches; they all come across to TV viewers as disseminating tricksters groomed, in many cases, by professional TV interviewers for a fee; a fee which they are all eager to pay. 

            Unable, or more likely, pathologically disinclined, to answer a question with a straight yes or no, leads the viewer to come to their own conclusions - the nature of which is often detestation. The people feel they are being conspired against by this detached, self-important covenant of the like-minded that occupy the Palace of Westminster.

            Of course the back benches are the exception, but not much of one; for they, like their party leaders crave power, and having won it seeks to cling on to it…a natural human constraint on rebellion of any kind. As for those reprobates on the backbenches who are beyond the leadership's grasp? Well, they are seen as 'swivelled-eyed extremists' whose opinions matter little their leaders.

DEMOCRACY IS DYING, just as Western culture (in Europe, at least,) is dying. Max Hastings, however, needs to go further than he has done in his article. Not only is democracy in its death throes, but so is English culture; that wonderful pragmatic force that led us to become the world's oldest democracy. A 2,000 year history, during which time our laws were fermented by conflict and civil war into our modern democracy. All of which our leaders stand prepared to give away in order to follow their infatuation with the anti-democratic nightmare of United States of Europe.

            It is not the people's indifference toward the political class that undermines our democracy, but the reason for such apathy. The political class have set their minds toward turning this country into a mere canton within Europe and eviscerating our country's history. This, more than the people's apathy, should concern Max Hastings.

            As for immigration from the rest of Europe, which we have to accept having signed up to the various treaties that our politicians told us were mere technical adjustments not requiring a referendum. We are about to fall victim in January of next year to the latest influx from Romania and Bulgaria.

            This of course comes after Tony Blair refused the seven year cooling off period authorized under the Shengen Agreement, before allowing such a migration. Bair allowed the Portuguese and Poles into this country immediately. Blair has been given some kind of award by the Polish government  for his good work at the time which he parades like a Victoria Cross.

            At his time we were promised that only 15,000 Poles and Portuguese would want to come and live among us; and we believed what our politicians were telling us. Or at least those millions among us that were not members of the BNP.

THE BLAIR GOVERNMENT used out-of-the-hat statistics to mollify a fearful public who wished not to be associated with the BNP; but nevertheless had their concerns. The Blair government used such an association to help him in his task, as a Europhile, to bring members of other European cultures to our shores seven years before they needed to have arrived.

            Whenever we in this country speak of the failures of social housing, the NHS, welfare, or education; the elephant in the room is always  immigration. 'Immigration is good'; and any attempt to question  what is regarded as a politically correct axiom, will lead to a hate crime.

            Max Hastings's article is only half right; the apathy of  today's electorate is due to the fact that no single party stands out, except Ukip, in meeting the requirements of the people - not only of the Conservative voter, but also Labour voters who  have turned to Ukip.

            The old party structure once had genuine ideological differences upon which our democracy could truly be described as such.  But today, with the historical death of socialism as a system of government, all the three main parties are now social democratic in nature. The Tories are no such thing any longer, and apart from the short interregnum of the Thatcher years, have been social democratic since One Nation Conservatism took root after the war.

            The death of democracy is upon us and it is irretrievable without conviction politics reasserting itself and taking risks; with genuine ideological differences giving the electorate a real choice between genuinely different parties - we can only hope.