• I was. I'm glad you got it :)

    I don't agree with mouldy wotsit but my point was that our democracy isn't really delivering for a lot of people, the Brexit vote is proof of that.

    Although there was also a serious point about how he/she has not proposed how this better/more direct democracy will work. Which is how it tends to roll with Leave supporters.

  • This is one of the things that I find very annoying about the more loudmouthed Leave supporters. They spout these buzzwords and phrases that they've been fed by the campaign as if they're a done deal. Challenged on them they're either jump to other phrases, dismiss the argument as sore losing or point to spurious evidence. The whole DECC thing put up by mouldy warts is a good example of the latter. May hasn't shut down the department in the interests of shedding bureacracy and small government. She's done it to serve her own political interests and ambitions. She'll happily set up a new department or regulate a new part of British life for the same motivations. It's generally a given that the only thing people like May want more than power is more power.

    So now the Leave movement has a handy band of sock puppets prepared to go out and defend the decision while those that orchestrated are casually renegging on virtually all of the promises and benefits that the campaign was based on. This is one of the ways that really highlights the difference between a general election and a referendum. With a GE the party makes a lot of promises that nobody really trusts but you vote for them because they represent politics and values you're largely sympathetic to. With a referendum the politicians are playing the same political game but the voters feel they'll be getting something more tangible.

    That, I think, is a very big problem. We've been drawn into this political game for centuries and now, having voted for that tangible, specific thing, people are thinking they're going to get it. In reality, if it does happen, it'll be like the difference between the Big Mac picture and the misshappen bready meat lump you get at 3am in a motorway servies. Only this time you aren't out drunk with your mates yelling MAAAACCCCEEEE DEEEEESSSS every five minutes in celebration of salty grease, you're driving through the night up the A1 to see a dying beloved relative one last time and all you want is some small solace that the world is as it should be. For the vast majority of that overwhelmingly high turn out at the referendum that voted Leave, nobody sent them the memo that told them that they still need to go out and get what they voted for. They still need to harvest the wheat, bake the bread, slaughter the cow, grind the beef, grow the veg and put it all together themselves while a politician congratulates themself for all their hard work. At some point they're going to realise that dinner is two thin crackers around some dubious weeds on top of a mush of lips and assholes and will be disaffected from voting for anything for a generation. Who gets to benefit from this clusterfuck? The political right who have always loved low voter numbers.

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