Brendan O’Connor: Change? Democracy can often bring upheaval too

UK prime minister Keir Starmer promised 'Change'. Photo: PA

Brendan O'Connor

Our topic this week is democracy. Because there’s a lot of it about. The technical definition of democracy is government by some of the people, for some of the people, some of the time. The reality of it is a more complex beast.

In the UK, democracy means that one-fifth of the electorate can deliver a loveless landslide for the party and the man for whom the voters are least unenthusiastic. Apparently, they voted for “Change”. Indeed, increasingly, in every election, people will just vote for Change. Because people get bored easily these days. So it’ll be all Change. Except maybe for Ireland, where the more things Change, the more they stay the same.