First, I'm not convinced that a government in power can do "exactly as it pleases" (discuss!).

But I do believe that democracy is weakened when:

1. A large percentage of voters can't be bothered to vote (and don't give me any of that crap about 'it never does any good' - it's largely because the non-voters are lazy, selfish and stupid and incapable of thinking things through).

2. People who do vote tend to vote out of habit and 'party loyalty' rather than commonsense. For example: "I've always voted Labour because my great grandad mined coal with his teeth" or I've always voted Tory because my great grandad owned the mine." I note with amazement that hard-core Labour voters failed to change their allegiance when their party followed Tory policies for 17 years!

3. Neo-liberal free market economics has been the greatest threat to democracy over the last 30 years or so - and ALL of the major parties have fervently embraced it. Strictly speaking, we no longer live in a democracy - but an oligarchy - or should that be a kleptocracy?