Is it the endof democracy?

Democracy was the key concession demanded by the Tories and eagerly surrendered by the Liberal Democrats in the secret deal which resulted in the Coalition.

Indeed, the whole “reform” package - referendum, reduction of MPs and five-year fixed-term parliaments - is designed to weaken still further democratic accountability and social redress.

The so-called “Big Society” is another brick in the wall being built to keep out the people.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has quite rightly highlighted the Coalition’s lack of electoral viability and mandate.

Its authoritarian agenda is systematically robbing our pensions, savings and wages, the fruits of our labour and the wealth of the country.

The crackdown on the low-paid and benefits recipients is in stark contrast to the generosity towards the highly-paid and bankers’ bonuses, the whopping four per cent corporation tax break for big business, and the lackadaisical approach to the tax cheats and dodgers who cost the country £120 billion every year.

The condemnation of the Archbishop for speaking out - though he is not the only one - is the clearest admission yet of the moral bankruptcy of British politics and the movement towards government by unelected diktat. And it is the same across Europe, Most governments no longer even pretend to take notice of the people.

George Orwell was surely right when he declared: “In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act”.

If we are not to wake up one morning to find that democracy’s epitaph has been written, then we must all become revolutionaries.

STEPHEN JACKSON

Second Avenue

Bexhill-on-Sea