What's So Wrong With Democracy?

There many models for governing countries; monarchies, republics, ocracies and isms galore.  Well our system is a bit of a hybrid democracy and whilst not being perfect, seems to have worked reasonably well up until now.  I can hear some of the alternatives being bellowed even as I write.  I can even understand a lot of the objections some people have.  However, I think most people in this part of the world seem to think that whatever model they prefer, they believe that it should have a basis in democracy.  If that is the case then will someone please explain to me why we are all sitting practically silent in the face of a deliberate dismantlement of our own democracy. 

This government has embarked on an enormous programme of privatisation of public services going way beyond anything that has been attempted before, some of it has happened overtly such as The Post Office, but much, much more is happening.  I imagine most people still believe we have a National Health Service, a public service staffed by public employees funded directly from taxation. However, that is no longer true.  Piece by piece, and in larger and larger chunks it being 'outsourced', in other words privatised.  Huge parts of the service have been sold off to the lowest bidder with increasingly negative impact on the quality of service provided. This is not a criticism of those people at the coalface of providing the healthcare; they can only do what they can with the resources given them.  Let me explain what I believe the problem is.  I have used this analogy before and I can't claim to be it's author but it's which rather cleverly demonstrates what is happening.  If you think of outsourcing in the following terms:

1. Hold your hand out to one side, level with your shoulder and think of that as the service you are paying for.
2. Now hold your hand out once again this time level with your waist and think of that as the service you are getting.
3. The space in between you can regard as profit for the supplier.

No matter how wrong you might think that is, however enraged you might feel about this enormous earth-shift in policy that is happening without you being consulted, what I have described is only a tiny part of what is happening. They have no electoral mandate for any of this, the Tory party made no reference to privatisation on this scale prior to the last election and they haven't informed us what they were doing or how far they intend to go. In fact the only clue as to what their intentions are is in a quote from Oliver Letwin made in a private meeting prior to the last election, 'the NHS will not exist within five years of a Conservative election victory'.  And as I mentioned earlier, this is only the tip of the of the iceberg. Here are just a few of the services going under the hammer either now or in the near future: Legal Aid, The Land Registry, Crown Prosecution Service, the Fire Service, what is left of the Ambulance Service, and the Police. Yes you did read that correctly 'THE POLICE', West Midlands and Surrey police forces are to be the first up for grabs.

What seems so wrong with this process is not just that this ideological shift has taken place without our knowledge or permission; and not either because we are told it will save money (because in most cases it actually costs more, it just shifts expenditure into a different budget); but many of the companies bidding to take these contracts have long histories of incompetence and fraud.  Many of these company names will be familiar to you such as G4S, Serco, and Capita but there a few others.  Often they are awarded a contract in an area of expertise that they have no history or experience in, purely on the basis of the size of their bid.  The contracts are enormous and so when they fail, the government has to try to find a new contractor at very short notice meaning they may have to pay much more to get the fulfilled. 

I'm not sure that a lot readers will be aware that this is happening, I'm even less sure if many will support it.  But one thing I'm completely certain of is that the only way to stop it is to protest about it to your MP about it. If enough people make enough noise they will have no choice but to rethink.  For those of you that have never written to your MP, it's easy; just go to the BBC News home web page. Near the bottom of the page under 'Democracy Live' there is search box called 'Find a representative'  where you can just type in your postcode and it will take you to the information page for your MP including his/her email address. Just click on the link and send your thoughts off to your parliamentary representative. He/she will normally reply by way of an automated email, and perhaps more formally a week or few later by post.