Ombudsmen over officialdom...

"YEARS ago the late Tory grandee Lord Hailsham predicted that if we carried on without govern- mental reform we would soon be ruled by what he prophetically called an elective dictatorship. He has turned out to be right." So says Frederick Forsyth in today's Daily Express, and Mr Forsyth is also right. [Link]

We all know what shallow, party-led cowards most Labour MPs have turned out to be - "timorous little serfs of the party machine" - everyone claims they speak for their constituents yet they bearly ever seem to manage it when 'whipped' elsewhere. Ows has long thought that to turn people off politics was a core intention of the New Labour Project, get power and do just anything to keep it - by hook or by crook - and they've been doing just that with ample evidence of both hook and crook and only recent events have finally managed to waken the latent concern of the dormant UK public (some of us knew before 1997!)

"...this sense of utter helplessness that caused the national 'turn- off' from politics. The expenses scandal was just an excuse for us to yell our outrage, not the cause of the outrage."

So we are asked, "by what authority have they become our masters and tyrants?" Frederick Forsyth's answer is: "restore the ombudsmen"..."the champion of the downtrodden citizen"

It was a brilliant idea, now knackered and eviscerated by triumphant petty officialdom.

FF suggests that The Conservative Party should bring back this idea making the idea of "a local champion, servant of common sense" a reality in each constituency and cover ALL issues.

Petty officialdom has convinced itself that it is our true master, forgetting that in the British system public service is supposed to be just that: service, not tyranny.

If Cameron could restore our right to be listened to and our wrongs righted at local level he would become the most popular politician in 30 years.

The point being of course, being able to avoid the "Dilemma of Democracy", how to prevent the 'elective dictatorship' that we seem to have foisted upon us!