Democracy is such a joke. Give the power to the people, and let them decide how the country should be run. The inference being that we should always go with the majority, because that's got to be the smartest thing to do.

And how can you argue with that? If most of the people want it that way, then that way it shall be.

Except for the minor fact that the majority have absolutely no clue what they're voting for, why they're voting for it, and what effect it might have on them. Indeed, to a great many, voting is seen as a burden, and often deliberately vote against whoever is currently in power for asking them to vote in the first place.

I swear. Next voting day, I'm going to stand in the queues asking awkward questions of random voters as they walk into their polling stations. On the agenda:

• How would YOU tackle the increasing illiteracy problem in high school leavers?
• What do YOU think is the best way to tackle the teenage pregnancy problem?
• What is YOUR stance on European integration?
• How do YOU think we should tackle global warming?

I could think of a hundred other questions if I sat here and thought about it long enough. The miserably depressing thought is the responses such questioning is likely to receive. These would range from the obvious:'Muuh' to the educated: 'Fuck off out of my face you cunt', from the media-educated: 'it's all someone else's fault innit?' to the one in a million: 'actually, I've thought about this in some depth and...'

Ok, okay, okay. I know the quote you're all reaching for, right? 'Democracy is the worst form of government, except all the others that have been tried.' Yeah, I know. Wasn't Winston Churchill a fucking genius. However, he also said 'The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter'. I tend to believe him. There's a lot of wisdom in those few words. Ultimately it boils down to the indisputable fact that democracy is fundamentally flawed, and continues to be the government of choice throughout the 'liberalised' freedom-obsessed world simply through a) a complete lack of a better alternative and b) the fact that any better alternative that denied the masses an equal say could never be democratically introduced anyway. That's just magnificently ironic.

So, despite my detestation towards democracy, it is, unfortunately, here to stay. The only possible way out of the current mire of 'governing through stupidity' is to embark upon a mass education of the voting public. Unfortunately, that would be an invasion of their democratically protected human rights. Oh, how I laugh.