Ringside Report Op-Ed: Democracy Something That Should Never Be Taken For Granted!

By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

As I sit in my Kailyard I wonder often about the future.

Democracy is a funny thing. Not funny ha, ha but funny peculiar.

It comes in all shapes and sizes and the ideal, given fruit perhaps by the British Empire’s need to feel good about itself was perhaps a fanciful notion that we should try and improve the lot of the people around the world by exporting the values that we should triumph because they are, a good thing.

Except when we were in charge. When in charge democracy for the natives was not a good thing. It was a bad thing. A thoroughly bad thing. If we were still in charge I often wonder if we would continue to pronounce democracy as quite the watchword, we do…

Bit democracy does not come in one flavor.

In the American election we got the opportunity to see how it worked in the US. Fixed terms and the way colleges elect the leader of the Free World. It was utterly compelling.

Perhaps it is slightly undemocratic that someone could win the most college votes but not win the popular vote, but we have that too in the UK.

The way the elections are fought for the UK parliament means that most governments since the Second World War have won enough seats – members of parliament – to form a government but not enough popular votes to claim a clear mandate – they rarely get more than 50%.

Instead, we believe that there is a connection between the local people and their member of parliament. The idea is that the most popular local person gets the most votes to represent their constituency. It is an ideal that is admirable but in a global world and one of the internet there is clear influence coming from worldwide politics which could be argued has corrupted this ideal dynamic.

There is also the ability for our government to call snap elections.

This would appear to be contrary to the system in the US. Biden would be unable and to be fair it would hardly be advantageous to him, to call an election for four more years. This is perhaps due to the two terms a President is confined to.

We have no such factors in the UK. Nor any more in Russia, where I think, Putin has managed to gerrymander the issue to become the President for as long as he wants to be.

And so, in Canada a snap 35-day election is coming close to a conclusion.

Having an election during a global pandemic must be a challenge but one where the Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau is looking for an opportunity to consolidate his power and also make a case for him being able to tackle the real issues in his country without the need to engage with partners to dilute his ability to so do; it is intoxicating.

And now he is struggling.

Once the darling of global liberal, Trudeau seems to be suffering from that radical fatigue that comes with – once the easy stuff is done and the headlines fade, the boring stuff, like actually running the country requires your attention.

There ain’t no photo ops for that kinda detail honey…

And now we are looking at him being unable to hold on to power – oh democracy.

We had that in the UK when Prime Minister, Theresa May called a snap election to produce a clear-cut administration and she lost most of her majority and ended up in a far worse state.
Will Trudeau suffer the same fate? Does it matter for the rest of us if it does?

For me, Trudeau is an iconic figure. He has brought focus beyond the idea of being a smart and slick politician to the next stage of how you manage to do that with the right people in your party.

He produced a balanced cabinet, he gave people with experience the power so that doctors ran heath, educators ran education and the world saw him make a difference. I am not fooled though by the headlines. He needs to provide the political acumen to deliver more than a headline and in the next few days we shall see if he can or if he is going to end up being that guy who once ran that place that is at the top of the USA. And that might not be a good thing after all.

A view from the new Kailyard or, how you look over there, from over here…

(kailyard n. a genre of sentimental Scottish literature turned into effective invective comment from one Donald worth reading…)

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