Russia Undemocratic.

[sunnysan]

Am I the only one that finds EU condemnation of this hyprocrytical?

I will never be an apologist for Putin/Medyedevs bully boy tactics and the state of human rights/judiciary in Russia but fundementally I ask the following questions?

1) Did we elect Gordon Brown? A flippant observation is that at least Russia had an election.

2) Did we elect any members of the EU parliament, and did we vote whether we wanted to be members of the EU?

Do we really think that our rulers can take the moral high ground regarding democracy?

Is our apparent adherence to the principles of democracy purely owing to more refined and subtler methods of manipulating the electoral process?

[Churchill]

The UK is not a democracy.

Hth.

[snaw]

Was going to but it's not worth the effort of bothering.

If you think democracy in Russia is even valid, and in addition more advanced than in the UK you're a lost cause.

[PRC1964]

1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirkcal...ection_results

2) http://www.europarl.org.uk/guide/results1999/main.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_...ferendum,_1975

[TheFaQQer]

Am I the only one that finds EU condemnation of this hyprocrytical?

I will never be an apologist for Putin/Medyedevs bully boy tactics and the state of human rights/judiciary in Russia but fundementally I ask the following questions?

1) Did we elect Gordon Brown? A flippant observation is that at least Russia had an election.

2) Did we elect any members of the EU parliament, and did we vote whether we wanted to be members of the EU?

Do we really think that our rulers can take the moral high ground regarding democracy?

Is our apparent adherence to the principles of democracy purely owing to more refined and subtler methods of manipulating the electoral process?

1 - In this country, you vote for a party. The leader of the party that wins becomes Prime Minister, same way that John Major and Gordon Brown did. We don't vote for PM or President though.

2 - Yes, we did.

HTH

[expat]

1) Did we elect Gordon Brown? A flippant observation is that at least Russia had an election.

Popular vote does not elect the Prime Minister in the UK. We didn't elect Blair or Thatcher either (not to mention Major), we elected the Labour Party, or the Conservative Party.

[sunnysan]

Was going to but it's not worth the effort of bothering.
If you think democracy in Russia is even valid, and in addition more advanced than in the UK you're a lost cause.

Russia is definately not a democracy, never said that it was. In fact its a police state with no independent judiciary, gulags and precious little adherenece to human rights.

And yes, I was focusing on the PM, which was my mistake, but we did vote for the Labour Party and we did vote for the EU, thank you for providing evidence of adherence to due democratic process

Why then does the Torygraph publishing sensationalist stuff like this?

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/politic...democratic.htm


I know its a blog but its linked to the front page of a major UK newspaper and it comparing the EU to tinpot dictatorships and Russia (Dictatorship but not tinpot).

Surely this is really bad journalism? I thought the Telegraph was at least sensible but it appears to be a bit of a rant.

Isnt this really comparing apples and pears or are we generally living in a state with no due democratic process. Is this guy just an irresponsible ranter or does he have a point?

[snaw]

Well his specific point appears to be regarding having a referendum on Europe. We may agree with his sentiment (I'd like it, but I'm sure they avoid it cause they know they'll get battered), but having referendums isn't really part of the democratic process here.

We elect a parliamentary democracy, and essentially hand them the power to make these decisions, for which they'll be held accountable at the next election. That's our version of democracy, like it or not. Hope I'm not being too patronising.

Back to his point, which appears to be your basic run of the mill eurosceptic rant, on his blog where as far as I'm aware most political journalists have license to vent their opinions which may differ from the organisation they work on.

Bottom line, think it through for yourself, you're a grown man.

[AtW]

Gordon Brown does not kill opposition leaders using poisons or has assassins killing female journalists shot in the back in their own houses to then only say to the world that the journalist was not very important.

Also Gordon Brown does not have tame electrocal commission that would refuse to register for votes his competitors and instead register totally unelectable people.

And most importantly - Gordon Brown did not blow up underground on 7/7 in order to get himself elected - nobody caught MI5/6 agents with explosives on their hands in immediate vicinity of the terrorist act, unlike FSB folk who got caught red handed putting sacks with explosives that they later claimed to be sugar and that it was all training exercise.

On the basis of detailed study of the history of the Third Reich I can categorically state that Hitler was elected in a democratic way than Putin himself and now Medvedev, even though there are great many similiarities.

[DodgyAgent]

Russia is definately not a democracy, never said that it was. In fact its a police state with no independent judiciary, gulags and precious little adherenece to human rights.

And yes, I was focusing on the PM, which was my mistake, but we did vote for the Labour Party and we did vote for the EU, thank you for providing evidence of adherence to due democratic process

Why then does the Torygraph publishing sensationalist stuff like this?

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/politic...democratic.htm


I know its a blog but its linked to the front page of a major UK newspaper and it comparing the EU to tinpot dictatorships and Russia (Dictatorship but not tinpot).

Surely this is really bad journalism? I thought the Telegraph was at least sensible but it appears to be a bit of a rant.

Isnt this really comparing apples and pears or are we generally living in a state with no due democratic process. Is this guy just an irresponsible ranter or does he have a point?

He has a very valid point. If you think about it our democratic system is very tenuous. We have little choice about who runs the country whether it is centre right Tories with their policies or centre left labour with more or less the same policies. Neither party is prepared to challenge a status quo that is so obviously useless in so many areas. To add insult when we think that OK maybe at least our incompetent politicians are at least our own incompetrent politicians they then gladly hand over much of our powers to the European Union without us having a say in the matter.

The European Union itself is totally undemocratic, which doesnt matter at the moment simply because we are still free to conduct our day to day business. The EU is at the moment pretty insignificant responsible only for taking a sizeable chunk of our money and distributing it amongst its officials and cronies.
As soon as the EU gets its new powers and becomes Europes central figurehead responsible for diplomacy, defence et al then all I can say is "watch this space"

DA in "off to Russia" mode