I'm afraid, as usual in my case, the thought wasn't original. I was paraphrasing something said much more cleverly by Charles Dickens many years ago.

Occasionally - you see something awe inspiring from America - like Watergate, where a President was called to account. And that is a direct result of them crossing the t's and dotting the i's correctly in their constitution. You know that would never happen in England - the Spycatcher revelations were much more damning of the power group behind Thatcher than anything those Washington Post guys had on Tricky Dicky.

And yet when Labour came to power, were the Augean stables cleaned of the Mi5/Mi6 boys who obviously must pull the strings, behind the scenes and decide little details like this latest ballsup in Iraq. Were they fuck!

No the democracy we enjoy, at one level is obviously window dressing. Theres no way a guy of Blair's intelligence and general sympathies made that decision about Iraq. Similarly Wilson couldn't dissociate himself from Vietnam - even when his Home Secretary was disobeying him and going into conflabs with the Viet Cong. Look how the will of the people has been frustrated continually over Northern Ireland.

There is little to hope for in reforming a democratic system, which the exective of this country (whoever they are!) has never taken seriously.

Like I say (and Charles Dickens said) just try to make sure the people you vote for, are decent chaps - that's all you can do.