Is it possible that the politicians are right and we are wrong...?

No politicians are poor decision makers. This is why the world is currently in the midst of an environmental crisis. It was thanks to Tacther and reagans ideology that the whole system of crop managment was deregulated. Today this coupled with the oil crisis has created a food crisis and political instability.

Meanwhile politicians ratify the Lisbon Treaty inspite of therejection of its content in three countries. This has been opposed on the basis that it will introduce privatisation, water charges and create a war machine for europe to use. These will inevitably favour elites. Who will sit back and make money as ordinary people pay for water and are mamed and killed peace keeping in former french colonies.

This sort on antidemocratic double speak that this man is using is infuriating. Democracy to him means the passing of legistlation which most favours elites. Any percieved atmosphere of crisis is because of the worries of right wing politicians like Sarkozy and Merkel. Its not unusual to see a british man in one of there more middle class newspapers say this. Apperantly all authoritarianism is civilising to us savages. This is how rich people always thought of Ireland. The same way the Americans think they are "civilisiing" Iraq. They have, as powerful states are best at doing, created a sectarian bloodbath. Kick the english out if the wont take the Euro on.

Although one might argue for a so-called representative government position clearly in Ireland, france and the netherlands the government didnt represent their people. And the EU votes on representative basis but is distant and unaccoutable to its voters. Except in the case of ireland. The Irish voters turn a descision of a couple of thousand bureacrats into the descision of one million people. That is closer to democracy. This question of course should be put to all 500 million citizens at once.

It all depends on your definition of "right". Democratically speaking, the opinion of the majority of the public is "right", therefore in a true democracy, the politicians should always act according to public opinion. However, the public may not be well informed and so its opinion may not provide the best outcome for the country, so the elected representatives have to take some decisions themselves, as they should be better informed than the general public. Effective governance is a balance between democracy and autonomy of the politicians, without getting sucked in to either extreme.

This is a question as old as representative government, itself.

Basically, a representative is sent to represent the people of his district. However, the people of that district are not of one mind. Having those people vote on every issue that comes along defeats the purpose of a representative. So how is it supposed to work?

Well, this demonstrates the importance of political parties defined by core beliefs. If a person is part of a clearly Liberal Party and gets elected he would be well within bounds to apply Liberal beliefs when making a decision. If he is from a clearly Conservative Party then he would be well within bounds to apply Conservative beliefs when making a decision.

The problem arises when the person is a Moderate. By definition, Moderates can go either way. The Moderate representative from a Moderate district has not definitive core beliefs to guide him.

On one hand, a Moderate is least likely to lead a group over a cliff, yet he is also least likely to be able to display much leadership at all. The voters need to decide if they prefer to follow a Compass or a weather-vane.

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Yes, but for that to work, the press would have to adequately inform us of the consequences of those decisions are. If they did, we could then make informed decisions about whether or not to apply political pressure, such as through the voting process, to elect those who do well and those who do poorly. As politicians disagree on what the best thing to do is, its hard for an underinformed populis to know what is right and what is affecting them. With the current state of headline news, the easy argument generally wins, but the world is often more complex and nuanced than that and the easy argument is often wrong.

As a result, many politicians who know better do the things that are easier to sell even when they actually disagree.

Politicians should be mindful of the people who put them where they are and can remove them just as easily at the next election. They get one term of Parliament to prove they're worth another one, and they're only ever as good as the last term they were in there.

However, what the UK currently has is the Labour party, and they truly do not give a flying fornication about the general public. Otherwise they'd have cut fuel tax to offset the price of oil raising the price of petrol and diesel. They wouldn't have sanctioned the use of British troops in Iraq.

They are very occasionally right, and normally completely and utterly wrong.

I do have faith Ron Paul. i don't believe all of his positions however the guy looks trustworthy and is adequate of an interloper that he might desire to be official. no count if I agree or not whilst a flesh presser is particularly saying something of substance that addresses an argument with out having to return to 3 set of buzz words producing applause breaks then I take observe that this might actually be a trustworthy flesh presser. it is extra uncommon than the dodo chook even with the undeniable fact that. Bush and Obama used a similar form of mass manipulation in speech varieties.

I understand that you are talking about the UK here. But a good example of this is Hillary Clinton, changing positions to reflect what the polls say. Wavering on issues because of voter outrage, even defying the party stance on an issue because of it. (she wanted to outlaw a video game, because of the violence and sex in it). It is sad that society has degraded itself into this. Politicians used to be elected to represent the people to the best of their ability, they were elected because of who they were and what they stood for, not because they were able to outspend their opponents on the campaign trail or because of who was backing them. I beleive that it would be better if they pressed ahead and did the job they were elected for instead of waiting to see "what the public wants".

Politicians SHOULD be scared of the voters! But politicians also should not be scared to do the right thing --even if it means they do not get reelected!

But are politicians right? I tend not to believe so. If they were right then government would not continually create 2 bigger problems everytime they attempt to fix a problem.

An MP is supposed to be in dependant and serve his community. This may mean that he votes against his party because it is against the interests of those who he represents, that is the whole of his constituency not just those who vote for him. For this reason i think many Labour MP's are not so much in fear of the electorate but their constituency party which rarely has the intersts of tyhe community as a whole at heart

Rofl, you're funny!

No politician is ever right, I can explain this with one simple quote

'Public opinion will be led to adopt, without knowing it, the proposals that we dare not present to them directly … All the earlier proposals will be in the new text, but will be hidden and disguised in some way.”

- Former French President V.Giscard D’Estaing, Le Monde, 14 June 2007 Regarding the Lisbon Teaty.