What’s Going On – as Marvin Gaye might have sung …

To borrow a phrase, democracy is a many-splendoured thing but also – as to paraphrase Churchill – that is, if it wasn’t one of those clever/profound bon mots he didn’t actually say or write but which people fondly attribute to him because it sounds like the sort of thing he might have come up with – “the least worst form of government”.

Arguably, in times of extremis, when extreme measures potentially need to be taken and “you need to take people with you for their own good” (even if they don’t know or recognise it), notions of democracy, popularity and ‘consent’ present a particular and complex problem.

Firstly, because – whilst on the face of it war and coronaviruses might seem to be two situations that automatically qualify as ‘extreme’ – when one also embraces the principles that the freedom of individuals to act as they please and/or at least have a vote that counts are inalienable rights, a degree of subjectivity as to what constitutes either extreme or necessary enters stage right.

I call as my texts of the day in evidence the following:

Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas.

One man’s meat is another’s poison.

As the economist Edgar Fiedler once said of his kind “Ask five economists and you’ll get five different answers (six if one went to Harvard)”.

US President Donald Trump has just signed an executive order apparently designed to limit the ability of social media giants to ‘censor’ right wing views (viz. his own) on the back of Twitter tagging one of his tweets with a “Fact Check” warning because its contents are deemed to be “fake news” invented by himself.

My theme today is that ‘social media’ has generally had a detrimental effect upon humanity.

How so?

Firstly, Its joys and facilities have the effect of encouraging every individual to delude themselves that their opinions are as valid as anyone else’s.

Secondly, its inherent lack of censorship and qualitative control potentially allows every fraudster, right-wing dictator, totalitarian regime, lunatic, crackpot philosopher, malevolent foreign power, terrorist, fundamentalist, weird fantasist and well-meaning halfwit to put their views, theories and schemes “out there” unchallenged and seemingly bedecked with as much truth, perception, insight and scientific/unimpeachable research evidence behind them as anything that de facto (by any standards) actually does carry that validity.

As a result nobody quite knows who or what to believe precisely because for every policy decision and choice there exist tens of ‘authoritative’ talking heads who cannot agree on anything: for every scientific  or other adviser assisting the Government, one can easily find half a dozen that totally disagree and are prepared to take to the airwaves to say so.

It’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that at the moment in the UK we are existing in a state of total chaos.

Among our politicians, from the Prime Minister downwards we seem to have been lumbered with second-raters both in Government and Opposition.

Part of the problem is that – by the historical nature of British politics – no self-respecting Government minister can ever admit a mistake.

Instead, ever development (including any U-turn, cock-up, poor decision taken on the best expert advice at the time, abject failure to plan – or implement the findings of a past report analysing a potential problem/threat – and change of policy hastily made “on the hoof”) has, of apparent necessity, to be presented as merely the latest milestone in a never-ending progression of a sound strategy and tactics being deployed by a supremely gifted and intelligent elite that will inevitably result in the “resumption of normal services and benefits for all of us” in due course.

Even when we, the public, know that it’s just a load of tosh.

And strongly suspect that – if instead any other government, authority, foreign power, military junta or simply an administration consisting of “the great and good” had been (or indeed were) in power – their decision-making “success and failure” rate would also have been broadly in the same ball park as the current incumbent’s.