Here endeth the silly season

with the closing of the Conservative Party conference. 

Due to charity commitments I was sufficiently lucky in that I was not able, had I been tempted, to listen to Cameron's speech but having read it, it would appear to be no more than a speech designed to show what a 'statesman' he is (not) with 'leadership' cropping up time and time again. This from a politician with more 'U' turns - or EU turns - (take your pick) attempting to show he possess decisive leadership qualities. Picking up on a remark made on Twitter, I can but agree that whilst it had been assumed MilibandE had plumbed the depths of poor speaking, Cameron seemed determined to put up a god fight for that accolade. Unsurprisingly, the matter of our membership of the EU was not raised, other than a passing reference to the euro and a repeat of the pledge that whilst Prime Minister Britain would not join the monetary union. He was his usual disingenuous self when stating that we would not be part of any future bail-out of that currency when he knows damn well we are through our membership of the IMF. That the euro is about to implode is not in question, yet there is never any mention of what he would do when it does - has any plan been concocted to deal with it when it does? Should we not be told?

On the subject of our EU membership we have been treated to William Hague touring the media studios attempting to defuse the growing anti-EU cries from within his own party and claiming that any referendum on leaving the union could harm British jobs and economic prospects, yet not offering one statistic to back up his comments - yet another 'scare du jour', a ploy of which our politicians are becoming so adept. That our democracy is in need of change is something that I continue to press; and nothing demonstrates that further than the Coalition's act to enforce fixed-term parliaments. It would seem that Cameron had a preview of a recently published book, "Dare less Democracy", authored by Laszlo Trankovits and published by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of the most influential German dailies, in which it proposed that there should be less democracy; that the functioning and efficiency of a society, state and economy are threatened if everyone can have their say and participate in everything - which kind of makes a mockery of Cameron's "Big Society". I am grateful to Edward Spalton for bringing that book to my tattention and can but repeat his remarks that the tendency to overrule democracy has been evident for years. At least this influential German author is explicit - like Peter Mandelson who declared that the era of representative democracy was drawing to a close - to be replaced, in his view,  by focus groups and consultative referenda (but never about the EU!). In Britain this state of affairs has, more or less, been achieved by all the three main parties agreeing on their common, willing subjection to the EU - the anti-democratic structure par excellence which dictates the majority of laws and rules. Yet Britain and other EU countries continue to join military expeditions allegedly to bring democracy to other countries.

That Cameron, Clegg and MilibandE are determined our present system of 'democratised dictatorship' should continue cannot, as I have repeated many times, be allowed. Their continued posturing that they represent the voice of the people is a sham and one, like all shams, will eventually be seen for what it is - something that is probably best illustrated by what might be considered a 'proverb', one which I read on one of the 'quote sites' that I follow on Twitter; and which is applicable to each of the leader's speeches at the Lib/Lab/Con conferences:

"After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring. He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him. The moral: When you're full of bull, keep your mouth shut."