Tag: cradle of democracy

Lights are out or returning back on this morning in Malta. It’s long past being a funny situation – the power station business that is – and the blackout will ironically throw more fuel into the incandescent fire that is every discussion about power stations, government contracts and governmental mismanagement.

While Malta floundered around in the dark UK Deputy PM Nick Clegg was busy reassuring his voters that the forthcoming government programme will include “the “biggest shake-up of our democracy” in 178 years”. This includes fixed-term parliaments, a fully elected House of Lords and a referendum on electoral reform.

The Liberal leader is in charge of the reform plans and has stated that he wants to “transform our politics so the state has far less control over you, and you have far more control over the state”. Centralised states were on the mind of Clegg throughout his presentation and at one point he stated:

Britain was once the cradle of modern democracy. We are now, on some measures, the most centralised country in Europe, bar Malta.

Now that’s a bugger innit? The contrast being made is obvious. Britain has relinquished its past as a “cradle of modern democracy” and having done so has approached – what? – Malta. Ouch. That hurts. It’s painful. But there must be a reason why Nick’s first thought when thinking of a decentralised (and consequentially distant from being a cradle of modern democracy) country leaps to Malta.

My bet is that if any repercussions will be had in Malta all blame will fall squarely on the nutjobs at the Alleanza Liberali who have carried the “Liberal” name for quite some time now – with dire consequences on any chances that name might have if taken up by normal minded people. There might even be a photo of Nick with John Zammit (who is currently busy working on www.freewebs.com/mintoffjani) as part of his Mintoffjan/Liberal project.

It would be too easy though to blame it on the nutjobs though. Nick Clegg, deputy PM of one of the largest political realities in Europe does not think highly of our political system – were it just a voice out of the blue it would be something we could easily ignore. Instead, Clegg is simply confirming what this forum has said for ages – the PLPN duopoly has much to answer for in this respect.

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• Nick Clegg promises ‘biggest shakeup of our democracy since 1832’ (guardian.co.uk)