Democracy must be treated as sacred

„If societies are held together, in part, by their ability to come together around particular sacred forms, then their failure can have dire consequences. These can be seen not just in the more spectacular acts of violence in London last week, but in a quieter, enduring cynicism that breeds across society. In Britain, as with other liberal democratic societies, the conviction that the government must be grounded in the will of the people is one of the sacred realities around which society is symbolically organised. The legitimacy of the institutions of government ultimately depends on this bond not being stretched so far that the sense of any mandate by the people is lost.

In Britain, we are rapidly reaching a crisis. This sacred principle of public life is being breached so often that the symbolic legitimacy of our central political institutions is failing. The most recent instance of this breach has obviously been the parliamentary vote to raise university tuition fees, pushed through despite widespread public opposition. Much has been made of the reversal of the Liberal Democrats' position on fees. But had the Conservatives had the courage to campaign openly on a policy of the effective privatisation of teaching in English universities, its number of seats at the last election would also doubtless have been much smaller.

Although the tuition fees rise may be the final breach of the bond between government and electorate for many younger people, this bond had been under strain long before the coalition came to power. Ever since people woke up on 16 February 2003 to the realisation that it was possible to bring an unprecedented number of people on to the streets of London for a demonstration against the planned war in Iraq without having any effect on policy, the sacred bond between people and government has been increasingly fragile.”