I once wrote:-

I have a dream that my four little children will me day live in a world where they will not be judged by the colour of their party but by the content of their character.

Today we live in a world where individuals no longer matter. To the academics a climate sceptic is not a person who comes to their views because of their differing experience and skill set, they are part of an evil group of “deniers”. But many sceptics are just as bad, “warmists”, “eco-zealots”, are also group stereotypes that do not do justice the the massive variation of viewpoints in those supposed groups.
In ancient Greece, they had a political system which was not based on the “colour of your party” or your “grouping”. Indeed, the system that grouped people by their “colour” and asked people to chose the “colour” they preferred was seen as wholly evil and anti-democratic.

We still have the system they developed: the jury.

However, the quote was not about the jury. It was about a system developed to replace the present House of Lords selection process by a jury.  (OK, that sounds boring, but please read on.) At the moment new members of the House of Lords are largely chosen by their political affiliation: by the colour of their party. Less that 2% of the UK population belong to any political party. Last time I did the maths, something like 99.7% of MPs belonged to a political party.
As such the “political class” have about 1 MP for every 2000 of them. Those who are not part of the political class are represented by 1MP for about 60million. So, the political class has about 30,000x more representation in the UK parliament than those outside the political class. Yes, that calculation may be a little unfair, but however you calculate it, the “ruling political elite” who are part of the political parties have vastly more influence over how our country is run than the ordinary people who in our system have almost no say at all.
AND THE POLITICAL CLASS WONDER WHY EVERYONE ELSE IS SO PISSED OFF?
The reality is that the only place people outside the political class or those “without colour” have any representation is in the House of Lords in the cross bench peers.
The reason why the Greeks hated elections and eagerly expelled any who were anti-democratic enough to espouse this anti-democratic form of selection should be fairly obvious to anyone who has seen the way money buys American and increasingly British elections and how politics is panders to the special interest groups … a few global warmers with an ear in government completely outweigh the vast overwhelming bulk of ordinary people who do not want bird mincers. A few ego-centric gay activists pushing to end marriage completely outweigh the views of everyone else who wants marriage to continue to protect children and families.
That is why elections are anti-democratic. A democratic election (one in which everyone has a vote) is not democracy. Democracy means ordinary people running government, it does not mean ordinary people having a once in a blue moon chance to chose the thin veneer of colour slapped over a privileged undercoat of private-school educated political elite.
But juries are literally democratic. Democratic by nature, and the democratic by meaning, because Greek government was run by juries and juries were what they meant by “Demokratia”.
OK, the reality was more mundane and pretty much as it is now. Just as a minister doesn’t really run their department but is asked by civil servants to make a few decisions, so the Greek jury probably had their own civil servants advising them and ensuring that their decisions wouldn’t wreck the government.
But just imagine if instead of an Eton twat for an education minister we had a group of 10 jurors whose children went to the ordinary schools that most people in Britain have to endure? Would they just sit back and let abysmal teaching and PC nonsense take over the schools and e.g. replace science with global warming non-science?
Or to put it the other way – would the civil servants running the education department faced with a group of ordinary people with absolutely no clue about the reality of government, suddenly start suggesting that every boy and girl in the country get a proper education so that they are never again faced with a jury of 10 totally ignorant people who did not understood the basics of government and how the country is run?
IT IS NO COINCIDENCE THAT GREECE WHICH WAS RUN BY DEMOCRATIC JURIES HAD AN EDUCATION SYSTEM WHICH WAS THE ENVY OF THE ANCIENT WORLD.
So, why couldn’t the House of Lords selection committee be a jury? Or perhaps even a number of regional juries each selecting a member of the upper house from their region?
WHY COULDN’T A JURY SELECT MEMBERS OF THE UPPER HOUSE BASED ON WHO THEY ARE – THEIR CHARACTER, AND NOT THE COLOUR OF THEIR PARTY?
The procedure would be simple. When a new member was required, nominations would be invited and the jury would be gathered together to sift the nominations for suitable candidates to interview. The candidates would then be questioned by the jury and the PERSON they felt whose CHARACTER best suited them to the job would be selected. And perhaps most radical … THE JURY MEMBERS WOULD BE PAID perhaps an equivalent of £100,000 per year for time spent on jury duty – so there would be little question of people not wanting to be on the jury so it would be very representative.
But what about political balance? Would it really matter if we actually had the best people to scrutinise legislation rather than a bunch of numpties whose only redeeming character was that they could brown nose their party elite?
And even if some in the jury might be swayed by political considerations … on average a jury chosen at random would tend to have a majority of political viewpoints which would swing fairly between the main parties in proportion to their political support by ordinary people such as those on the jury.

So what’s stopping my dream?

THE BBC

When the then labour government was “consulting” about the make up of a house of lords selection committee, a campaign was run to have a jury of ordinary people. Given the lack of any publicity by the likes of the BBC a very respectable 10% of those responding supported this option. The BBC had very extensive coverage of all the various ways politicians could be selected for the replacement body, but it did not once in any of its coverage of this issue ever mention any form of jury selection (or indeed several other ingenious ideas such as forming the lords from leaders of councils or business leaders). In my view that is because the same private school privileged class who run government are the same private school privileged class who run the BBC … and the same private school privileged class who would lose power under a jury form of selection.

(And why can’t the governing body of the BBC be a jury of viewers?)

THE CORRUPT POLITICIANS

Under the rules of the consultation any option with over 10% of the respondents had to be specifically identified in the report. As such the option of a jury selection panel should have been on of the options presented for further consideration. It was not.  This was blatant anti-democratic (in the real sense) corruption and probably illegality by the civil servants and politicians. But what can any ordinary person do about their corruption?

SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS.

Lobbyists, gay activists, EU twats, global warming zealots, bankers, and other anti-democratic tendencies in our society who benefit from the present corrupt system which allows them to worm their way into the heart of government and deny any power to the ordinary people in this country have a very special interest in denying the vast bulk of ordinary people who dispise their nonsense any real say in government. So, we end up having to endure their nonsense, non-science, bust economies and uncaring morality.

So, the people stopping jury selection are more or less everyone most ordinary people think are the most contemptible scum of the earth. Which tells you why juries are so unpopular by this group because if ordinary people ever had real power all the parasitic scum of the earth who do so well out of the present system would find that life is not nearly so cushy when  the country is run for the ordinary people by the ordinary people .. in a system which in Greek is “DEMOKRATIA” or in English “democracy”.

Are you beginning to understand why the BBC, the politicians and everyone else who gains out of the present corrupt system of government by the elite for the elite, repressed any discussion of real democracy such as a jury selecting the members of the upper chamber?

A list of places juries should be used in Britain

1. House of lords selection committee
2. or … the upper chamber should be a “grand jury” of 100 people (would fit with committee style scrutiny as seen in Scotland)
3. The MPs expenses and remuneration committee (i.e. ordinary people should set their salary … the daft thing is I suspect their pay would rise steeply!)
4. Selection of judges … or at least appointment of the panel that selects judges
5. Appointment of leaders of all the various quangoes should be by panels of ordinary people.
6. The BBC governors should be a jury of viewers.
7. The electoral commission … should be run/overseen by a jury.

List of place where elections should be used

1. To decide between the competing manifestos for the future of the country and determine the government.
2. In selections where influence cannot be bought by money or special interest groups.

Addendum
Just to be clear. In the same sense ordinary people shouldn’t be excluded from power as they are now, so just because someone has the unfortunate experience of going to a private school, neither should they be penalised and excluded from power. But there certainly should not be more people of a “privileged” background in government than is right by their fair proportion in society. As for Eton twats … anyone who thinks a government made up from bum chums from Eton could ever be acceptable is a twat.