politics - the reality and the appearance

What matters in politics is not the reality but the appearance. For example we hear a lot about how undemocratic and unaccountable the EU is. And of course it’s quite true. It is undemocratic and unaccountable. But is it any different really from other contemporary political systems?

Take Britain. The political system observes the forms of democracy but in practice the first-past-the-post voting system is absurdly undemocratic. Or take the United States, with its rigid two-party system that effectively makes it impossible for the dominance of the two major parties ever to be challenged.

And how accountable are political leaders in general? Yes, they can be voted out of office.  They then collect a fat pension (a very fat pension) and in Britain even the most abject failures as prime minister have a good chance of getting a peerage. H.H. Asquith led Britain into the First World War which makes him a major contributor to the destruction of western civilisation. As a reward he was made an earl.

One of the reasons that democracy is in trouble is that bad or incompetent leaders do not pay a genuine price for their nation-wrecking. I’m not suggesting that we should hang failed prime ministers (although I admit that the idea of doing so occasionally, to encourage the others, does have a certain appeal). But there have been plenty of western political leaders for whom a few years breaking rocks in a prison yard would have been a fitting fate. And knowing that leaders who make an unholy mess of things might actually face punishment would have a most salutary effect not only on politicians but on the general public. The postwar disillusionment and nihilism of the 1920s might have been less severe had the bungling idiots who led the way to war paid the price for their folly.

Don’t get the idea that I’m defending the EU here. It really is a bureaucratic nightmare. But modern politics on the whole is in practice pretty much a sham.