Democracy in Britain is being devalued and this is why politicians are afraid of 'extremism'.

Day after day, Democracy in Britain is being devalued. There is no real enthusiam in elections and the lack of enthusiasm is being reflected with low turnouts. It is almost inconceivable that we have reached the present state of affairs with one three out of four people entitled to vote not turning out to vote.

People are caught up between useless politicians that usually appear on the media for reasons that have nothing to do with real politics in a country in which inflation is going up and up without a hope regarding any rises of income for the vast majority of the population that has to put up with rising financial pressures without having the means to remedy what is going on.

Parliament is a circus, but there is no fun on the streets of Britain and there is no fun within political parties that are facing discontent within their own ranks and the discontent is becoming louder and louder putting into question party political allegiance.

Foreign conflicts are the way to divert attention from what is really happening at home and this is why mass media are so profusely used to maintain smoke screens around what is really happening inside the country itself.

Conventional democracy has been failing for decades and colourful speeches and false promises are becoming less and less effective and the judiciary has been increasingly used to prevent explosive situations that will ultimately occur in spite of all legislation issued by the British Parliament. 

Coming to the issue of by-elections and to the reasons why they are being fought, it comes to our attention that more often than not they are now due to criminal behaviour or presumed criminal behaviour of elected Members of Parliament. This is a time when public and private lives become entangled to the detriment of democratic institutions. There is always the presumption that corruption is widespread, but this is the time when corruption is in full display in the public domain.

Despite noisy scandals, how much of an impact do noisy scandals have in terms of the will of voters to support a given political party or a given candidate?How much influence do the mass media have to influence peoples' decisions? We are driven by assumptions, but we have little to support our assumptions in terms of what will be the outcome of the election.

I do assume that most of us are so busy dealing with our own particular problems and challenges and know so very little about what is being done on our behalf that we become mere spectators. We are represented but we do not choose those who represent us. This is the state of what we call democracy.