This is fascinating. I hadn't even heard of SO 14 before. My ignorance is a crime.
"The political significance of SO 14 is not just in the dominance it gives the government over the Commons but also the impotence of the Commons in affecting public discourse about politics. The shift of political debate from the Commons to the TV studios is a function not so much of technology as of SO 14, which keeps the Commons well away from current issues and decisions as long as the government wants it that way.
Worse still, SO 14 contributes to the pervasive feeling that conventional politics, the politics of elections and representation, makes no difference in politics and is irrelevant to what large numbers of people, including many who are deeply interested in politics, worry about."
David Howarth is pretty awesome. Almost as awesome as George.
I've known about it for quite some time. This is the thing really, half the times we let our selves forget.
ReplyDeleteAs Robert Maynard Hutchins said: 'The death of a democracy is not likely to be an assassination by ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference and undernourishment'.
ReplyDelete