Did you China has 56 nationalities

The Soviet Union made strenuous efforts to avoid this fate. It identified one hundred different nationalities, each of which on paper had the constitutional right to leave the Soviet Union; but sought to create the image of a happy socialist family in which all these national members were united by ideological belief in a higher, unifying goal. In reality, the "multinational family" was held captive by single-party rule, violent suppression and economic exploitation; not even autonomy was granted.

A warning to the Chinese comes from Li Datong writing over at Open Democracy

Now we have lazy MP's

Amongst all the sleaze doing the rounds ( and the Mail has some more this morning)

The Times uncovers another aspect of parliamentary life.

It reveals that backbench MPs routinely skip the meetings of powerful Commons committees, undermining Parliament’s power to scrutinise the Government.

The paper has found that

At least 60 of the 220 members on the most influential Commons committees examining public services and government spending missed more than half their meetings last year, according to an analysis of figures released this week by Parliament.

If you are interested in your MP's performance take a look at the information HERE

More importantly though if proved correct this is an undermining of the Parliamentary process.The select committees are becoming the only place where ordinary MP's are able to scrutinise legislation and the sovereignty of Parliament moves increasing to cabinet government.

Worrying times

Does democracy hinder long term solutions?

"our political system doesn’t deal well with gradual, long-term problems" that require "trading off up-front costs in exchange for long-term benefits."

Although Ezra Klein is talking about America he could be talking about any democratic system.

The problem is that government's have to face the electorate before the long term gains become apparent.

As Ezra continues

Few Congressmen want to raise taxes tomorrow to reduce carbon a decade from now. Lots of Congressmen don't want the economy to collapse if they have to run for reelection next year.

Ht-Mother Jones

Is democracy becoming impotent?

Alice Miles' column in the Times this morning should be rustling a few feathers in Westminster.

Alice argues that

the country is facing a crisis of parliamentary and governmental impotence. In both the banking collapse and the row over the employment by British firms of migrant workers, the solutions and the causes lie outside Westminster. Westminster could arguably have prevented them, but it couldn't have caused them. And it does not seem able to stop them.

It reminded me of something I read on the train yesterday by George Mobiot in the Guardian.He firmly believes that democracy and therefore Parliament has become impotent

The small Welsh town where I live, many of whose inhabitants are among the very poor, was once a haven of progressive politics, built from nonconformist religious sects and a long tradition of social solidarity. People from these valleys were transported to Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania) for demanding the vote.

The past inhabitants,he feels would turn in their graves if they saw the state of denmocracy today

had their forebears been told that, 125 years after the first agricultural workers got the vote, the poor would be bailing out the rich and (thanks to the first-past-the-post system) the votes of only a few thousand citizens would count, I doubt they would have bothered.