Says a lot about how 'tics have inexorably shifted to the right when a bunch've blue bloods suddenly sound like the voices of reason. I still think the early ancient Greek parliamentary system sounded the most promising, which was more like jury duty and consisted of members of the public with no vested interest in their own career arcs or playing the long game, ascending to public office for a little while, before going back to their regular lives again.
It's awfully unsporting doing shit like this and tactically changing the voting regions in an equally beneficial way so that they're permanently ensconced in power. Still, I can't quite shake the image of Peter O'Toole in the last scene of The Ruling Class going to take his seat on the House of Lords, and suddenly realising he is in a nest of cobweb-covered skeletons and zombies. Whether they happen to be fairly decent chaps or not, they should not be there. It would be pretty selfish of me to pretend otherwise just because they're annoying the people I hate right now. We seem to be finding it harder to shake off the last few traces of medieval fog from our democratic processes than most countries. I suppose this is our equivalent of keeping gun possession laws intact because they were written on a worshipped historical document hundreds of years ago. Aside from a few bedrocks to limit maverick politicos from over-exerting their power, the law should be as fluid and changeable as the world. And yet the last significant political upheavel came about only after our wives refused to make us dinner anymore until they got the vote.
|
