I am trying hard not to laugh

Well, not all that hard. A friendly correspondent informs me that today is International Day of Democracy, presumably because there are so many democracies around the world and because we have international democracy. I suppose it could have been worse: it could have been called International Democracy Day, implying just that.

The link on the parliamentary website (which, incidentally, I cannot recommend highly enough as a source of information) tells us helpfully all the many things we can do to get involved in democracy. Curiously enough, it does not tell us how we can control our political process, for sure as eggs is eggs, petitioning the House of Commons is not the way to do so. Nor is viewing Parliament on-line. In fact, until we restore its legislative powers and, at the same time, strip them of their rights to interfere with our lives more than is necessary for the protection of life, liberty and justly acquired property, we shall not have that control.

But what is International Day of Democracy and what does it do apart from, presumably, giving large salaries to some transnational officials?

First things first: the Inter-Parliamentary Union is (or has been in the past) a perfectly respectable organization. I have my doubts about the efficacy of conferences about democracy in Africa but, I suppose, they have to try to extend the hand of friendship, as it used to be said in the dear old unlamented Soviet Union. Its history is respectable enough and it does not do a great deal of either harm or good, which is all one can hope for.

At least, it was relatively harmless until it decided to establish closer links with the United Nations, an organization that cannot be called harmless by anybody. So now we have an International Day of Democracy, which was first celebrated last year.

It was established by the United Nations, to be precise by its General Assembly, the majority of whose members are not democracies and would do anything, including torture, imprisonment and murder to prevent such a state of affairs from passing.

In fact, the United Nations, by its very existence is the greatest enemy of democracy in its unaccountability and pretensions to override democratically elected governments. Its subsidiary organizations spend their time pandering to tyrannies and attacking Western democracies, particularly the United States and Israel. Endless resolutions are passed to control free speech under the label of fight against hate speech or Islamophobia. And, as I mentioned above, its members are largely undemocratic in any, even the widest, definition of the word.

It is, therefore, entirely appropriate that there should be a day dedicated to democracy around the world, decided on by the largest anti-democratic organization in the world.

Just remember: "War is Peace", "Freedom is Slavery", "Ignorance is Strength".