BRITISH-LITHUANIAN SOCIETY ORGANISES LECTURE OF DR J.ROBERTS ON DEMOCRACY
Dr Jeffery Roberts Thursday 3rd May 2007 6.30 pm for 7.00 pm Lithuanian Embassy, 84 Gloucester Place, London W1U 6AU “Diseases of democracy” For British-Lithuanian Society members only. For a membership form please e-mail blssecretary@hotmail.com
Jeff Roberts did his Ph.D. in geology in Finnmark, Norway, then worked briefly as a wellsite geologist in the North Sea before joining Wood Gundy's international oil team in 1973 to cover the North Sea and Middle East. He soon had two careers competing with each other in the 1970s and 1980s - one in the City as an analyst in oil & gas; the other as a local councillor in the London Borough of Hackney. All changed with the 1987 Stock Market Crash when he went to work in Finland as Director of Research for a then leading Finnish stockbroker. That led to an interest in Estonia and nearby Russia, including Murmansk and Apatity, where he is now connected with A.O.Pana, www.panapgm.com. The workings of politics in London’s Hackney helped him understand the former Soviet Union and provided the inspiration for this talk. Dr Roberts is a B-LS member.
Many people are convinced that 'democracy' precisely equals 'representation'. This simple 'black and white' idea gives too great scope to politicians and too little to their curbing. From experience as a local councillor in the London Borough of Hackney in the 1980s, I see representation as sometimes in conflict with meaningful democracy: the power of the voters to get rid of politicians who have abused their power. I will argue that Proportional Representation (PR) is poison to true democracy, and hence is favoured by knaves everywhere. There are special lessons to be drawn from Russia, where PR and national party lists have been one of the many tools used to curb democracy. Formerly, Russians could vote an eccentric 'No' to all candidates and force a re-election with a new slate, but that great principle has gone, along with the right to choose the Regional Governor. I hope we can discuss the diseases of democracy and the need to treat politicians more like old socks than cozy poodles of the party of power. I will try to stick to useful ideas in my talk, and my main objective is to promote such a discussion as I have never heard in public.
