Wednesday 27 January 2010

Yet Another 'Democratic' Deficit

Apologies for - to paraphrase my anti-hero, one D. Cameron - 'banging on' about democratic deficit, however a post by Douglas Carswell - he who is in the wrong party - again demons*trates yet another deficit in our democracy.

'Young' - and he is being just 38/39, born in 1971 - Douglas posts about his experiences sitting on the 'Public Accounts Committee*'. Apparently, so he reports, one question prompted the response that if the question was to be answered then the Committee would have to go into 'private session' as the information was subject to 'commerical confidentiality'. WTF!

As Carswell points out, this hearing was of the 'Public' Accounts not 'Private' Accounts - so the immediate supplementary questions must be: Whose palm(s) was/were being greased? Is not the job of the various parliamentary committees to hold the government to account? What disclosure could there be to fear? One phrase of government springs to mind: If you have nothing to hide...................

One also wonders how many of the electorate can be bothered with all this? Especially when, tonight, they can watch Emmerdale, The Krypton Factor, Send In The Dogs, Amanda Holden's Secret Lives - and yes we all know about her 'secret lives' - Holby City, Survivors - oh and on both BBC1 and ITV1 the governments version of the 'news'.
 
Patronising one is not, but one does have to wonder whether, along with a Citizen's Exam, there should not be a 'Voters Exam'?

* Perhaps they need Richard North as a 'witness' - lets face it, he knows, probably, more about the A400m project than the designers and builders! In fact the best move Cameron could make would be to replace Liam Fox with one R. North! 

Bugger, need to find him a seat - err......Witney would be good,  Richard.

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