Election Campaign promises forgotten, endless criticism in the Media disregarded - all too often the citizens feel helpless in face of poorly executed or plain wrong political decisions.
The easy solution is obvious, but very uncomfortable for the 'Elites' that are in control of Government and the Civil Servants, Bureaucracies and Quangos that often benefit from these policies.
A headline in today's Daily Telegraph illustrates this: "Foreign aid contractors that do not deliver value for money to be named and shamed under new plans"
A few questions come to mind immediately: Who decides what is 'value for money', will the naming scheme ever be implemented? by whom? and will it have any positive effect?
But the more relevant question really is: who appoints these contractors? who decides on what terms they are engaged and who supervises them?
There is zero democratic control in all this - the citizens have no opportunity to get involved.
And the REALLY important question raised by this headline is the following: Why should the citizens be forced to make donations to foreign entitites, many of them in the grip of corrupt cliques?
There is no hindrance for private citizens to donate whatever amount of money they wish to give to Mr. Mugabe or to India (which seems to be able to afford its own space programme).
The state should only do what the initiative of private citizens cannot achieve.
In addition, all government policies and their implementation, in particular the allocation of public funds, should be subject to the will of the citizens.
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