Heresy Corner on John Sergeant and the death of democracy

Top blogging:

In the judges' despair and Sergeant's popularity can be detected the elitist's fear and mistrust of the mob. In public life today, politicians are keen to give away power, to palm off responsibility onto unelected quangoes and committees or upwards to Brussels or the IMF, to appeal to supposedly objective science. For to decide questions in a manner that is politically accountable is to allow the public to have a voice.

And except in questions of "law and order", where public prejudices may to a limited extent be indulged, this is to go against the grain of a governing class that assumes it knows what is right and that public opinion is there primarily to be manipulated.