Where are the democrats? We see them dwindling away, even in Westminster, the Mother of Parliaments. The decline in representative government is reconfirmed every time the Government announces a policy to the media first rather than to Parliament. The latest example was the self-parodic announcement by Gordon Brown on his own website of flat-rate allowances for MPs - virtual government by internet pronunciamento!

The technocrats say it's all too complicated for the people, or even the people's representatives, to decide. Back in 1975 some argued as a reason for not voting in a plebiscite that it was for the elected representatives of the people to decide on any fundamental issue facing the nation. If that was true then - and MPs did combine, even to topple unpopular governments - it is not so today, when the people can no longer leave it to their elected representatives to exercise anything resembling the popular will - paradoxically often better reflected in the Second Chamber.


That's why Libertas helps to remind Government and Opposition that the people are beginning - slowly, perhaps - to articulate the demand that the trend to 'elective dictatorship' be finally reversed.