April 6, 2025

In the end we are all sacked and it’s always awful. It is as inevitable as death following life. If you are elevated there comes a day when you are demoted. Even Prime Ministers.

Alan Clark (1928-1999), British Conservative politician, Diary, 21 June 1983, Jay p.96

Is not the root of democracy an aversion to permanence in any form—such as hereditary rule, or anything else that smacks of unearned perpetuity?

The opportunity to take some incumbent—whether person or party—“down a peg or two” is the one real treat afforded the democratic electorate. The trouble is that in many countries there are so few genuine alternatives on hand that government winds up swinging between just two parties of equally (in)competent members. National legislatures based on proportional representation, rather than the “first past the post” system, offer far more potential for fresh approaches.