Treasures from the Threads - Number eleven

The Times columnist Gerry Baker, linked here, pontificates on Democracy as if it were alive and well in Britain. This response from Athens nails him nicely: Living in Athens where the idea of democracy as we know it today was born I can only weep at its removal from the political world. Yes, China deserves what it's getting but not seeing since the protests are censured from the TV screens - but look much closer to home. A new EU treaty was brought into existence without the direct consent of the peoples of Europe, except for the Irish. Leaders who promised their electorate a vote on the issue reneged and some were blatantly honest in their skulduggery in admitting that if they asked their electorate the treaty would have been defeated. The EU is now a vast bureaucracy attended by an ineffective and inefficient body politic. America for all her faults and mistakes - Iraq being its most egregious - is still the safeguard of democracy as the ancient Athenians conceived it. Gordon Brown is now recognised worldwide as a clown not only because he can't negotiate a table but because he sold his democratic inheritance for a bauble of power. Dr David Green, Athens, Greece