We are not worthy:official

Just in case any of you out there are of the opinion that democracy has something to do with you, The Independent puts you right.

It’s the most concise argument for an aristocracy that I’ve ever seen.

Read it and wonder, peasants.

The discerning minority

Monday, 9 May 2011

As became apparent soon after the first results came in, the referendum on the Alternative Vote would be lost by a majority of more than two to one – a thumping defeat if ever there was one. And that is a source of deep regret for this newspaper, which has consistently supported the cause of electoral reform. But the rejection was not quite universal. Of the 440 electoral districts, a select 10 – that is 2.2 per cent – voted Yes. So let's hear it for Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh Central and Glasgow Kelvin, as well as the London boroughs of Camden, Hackney, Haringey, Islington, Lambeth and Southwark. Here, the Alternative Vote convincingly carried the day.

The particular reasons why these places voted as they did will doubtless be studied long and hard by psephologists and demographers, and they will provide material for many a doctoral thesis in years to come. But it is hard to escape the impression that these 10 districts between them represent a pretty formidable concentration of brain power and diversity of all kinds. Could it be, perhaps, that we are looking here at a bold intellectual and political vanguard that may one day be vindicated? If so, Oxford, Cambridge and the rest are not unrepresentative so much as ahead of their time.

I wonder what the life expectancy of children and other innocents in those elite conurbations of is?

But don’t you merely wonder, dear reader: instead simply follow the links and revel in the joy and safety brought to ordinary peoples’ lives by the no-doubt disproportionately pro-AV pretty formidable concentration of brain power and diversity of all kinds.

Hat tip to staybryt commenting over at House of Dumb.

Picture from here.