Letter: Democracy: just what is it, and where can we get one?

Sir: Andrew Marr's devastating and depressing analysis of our present national discontent ('How much worse can it get?', 26 June) surely echoes what many people are thinking. I have been a democrat all my life, in the sense that I have believed that the government of the day represents national standards, and reflects the democratic system at work, even when I disagree with it. It is increasingly difficult to take that view when we have a government that seems to hold the electorate in contempt and demonstrates appalling arrogance in its approach to its own proliferating errors of competence and judgement.

How any government can imagine that it is appropriate for a political party - and particularly the party of the government - to receive secret funds from anonymous overseas donors is beyond belief. There is a reek of corruption that will quickly turn us all into cynics. Something must be done, and it is perhaps time for senior Privy Councillors of all parties to grasp the problem and give the moral lead that the Government appears quite incapable of giving.

Yours sincerely,

BILL KIRKMAN

Cambridge

26 June