Regime Change

I am becoming increasingly impressed by this government and the quiet way it is going about its business. Such a relief from the shenanigans of the Labour government over the last 13 years.  I was talking to a retired councillor today who was explaining how many staff they had to take on to deal with the regulation/laws that spewed forth from government over the 13 years and how contradictory a lot of it was. The  amount of energy Labour put in to getting a headline each day rather than on governance is still possible to imagine. How many Law and Order and Terrorism bills did they enact and are we any better off than we were before? One thing they left us though was our right to vote and in a way that does not skew the result. The AV proposal must not pass as it not only skews the result but weakens democratic choice. We do not have a proportional system and I hope we never do as I want to vote for a person and not a party. All elections in this country should be conducted in the same way as current Parliamentary elections and the referendum on AV should be extended to cover this issue too. Pity the Arab world though with its democratic deficit and Egypt in particular at this time. In order to keep the country from falling into the hands of another autocrat Mubarak should move quickly to hold truly independent and democratic elections in which he is  not a contestant and hand over to his successor whoever it is. That way he can leave the stage gracefully and with some honour. Small hope though. He will go messily in the end and leaving a vacuum to be filled with turmoil to be sorted out by the army. This will lead to another general becoming president who will no doubt throw a few crumbs to the crowd but will otherwise rule in the same way as Mubarak. These people can't help themselves.