Web of deceit in name of democracy

THE FRIDAY THING: SETTING up a web site to give the public – that’s you and me, the taxpayers – a voice in the running of the country seemed like a good idea at the time.

After all, it’s our country, too, so why should we be restricted to only one say every five years on what goes on?

There was a a lot of support for the plan to put voters’ e-petitions on the web, and a commitment from Government that if a petition attracted 100,000 signatures or more it would be debated in the House of Commons and if enough MPs voted in support it would become law.

It’s hard to know what David Cameron and his collision parties thought (assuming they thought at all and didn’t just view it as a super wheeze that would do no harm and look a bit like democracy in action).

As fast as the petitions went on the web they were supported by 100,000 voters. So there was to be a referendum on Britain’s future in Europe (at last) and the inexplicable rise in duty on petrol and diesel, crippling to thousands of people, would be scrapped. Only there isn’t and it won’t be.

Instead of following the wishes of the people, the Government is looking at ways of drawing up detours on its road to greater democracy. It will finish in a cul-de-sac, mark my words.

First they thought of increasing the number of signatures required but decided, rightly, that might upset millions of folk. Then they came up with a series of dodges that could see issues not debated in the House of Commons but in meeting rooms, anterooms and maybe even the bars, Commons loo and in taxis... and thus rendered meaningless.

In other words, the Government could set talks in operation but without any promise of positive action at the end. So, you might ask, what would be the point?

Instead of giving voters a rare (might I say unique) faith in their MPs, the Government and the democratic process this unedifying shambles has merely added fuel to the flames of cynicism and mistrust that so heats up the temperature of we, the disappointed and disillusioned governed.



GOOD news for the hundreds of us of a certain age who regularly trek up the stairs, into the kitchen, the sitting room or the garden and then forget what we went there for. We are not going bonkers after all, well, at least this is not the definitive proof that we have lost all our marbles.

According to the latest batch of boffins to catch my eye the sudden memory lapse is caused by the door. Well, not just the door, it’s the going through the door that is the problem (and I don’t mean because it’s locked and you’ve forgotten where you put the key — check the fridge!)

According to Experimental Psychology (a must-have magazine for most of us, bonkers or not, I suspect) the brain, or the bit of it left after years of use and, in some cases, abuse, sees the doorway as an “event boundary” (and no, I don’t know what it means either and if I ever did I’ve forgotten).

But every time we pass through a doorway, they tell us, it signals the end of one memory episode and the beginning of another, so it kicks out memory of what you’ve gone for and, no doubt, looks around the new room and admires the curtains. It doesn’t say that when you go back through the door you remember what you went in there for initially, which is a bit of a shame.

There are no clues, however, as to how you find your purse, wallet, glasses, TV control box or the cat. Even the best of doors is no help there, sadly.



FINAL WORD: Having been a supporter of the Metrolink project from its inception (and possibly in a minority at the time) I sincerely hope that the arrival of the tram will bring benefits that help everyone to put the havoc it has created into a proper perspective. We must all hope that it brings more people into Oldham than it takes out.