giddy for Giddy
by Charlie Tims
"Britain is a sophisticated 21st-century society, but we still make do with a crude 19th-century system of limited and indirect democracy."
This is Saira Khan. Apparently she was in a TV programme called The Apprentice. This was a sort of staged masochism where contestents tried to make money in "real life situations" before being ritually humiliated by Alan Sugar. In anycase the experience doesn't seem to have broken Saira. She has an article in The Times today arguing for a more participative version democracy. Inspired by Pam Giddy and The Power Enquiry she specifically argues that Britain should adopt the model used in Switzerland, where 100,000 signatures acquired in support of an issue are enough to invoke a national referendum. She has set up a campaign "to revitalise democracy and make politics work for people." Time to serialise Everyday Democracy in Heat.