Democracy: The God that Succeeded?

I'd like to congratulate X-Factor winner, Joe McElderry, on his victory last night. For five straight weeks I've voted for Joe, as his singing does rather strange things to the hairs on the back of my neck.

Did he out-sing George Michael? I reckon he did, and that we're going to be seeing and hearing a lot more of Mr McElderry, especially if he can successfully squash all of those rumours about batting for the other side and especially if he can elope with Cheryl Cole.

Who cares anyway if he is a secret wearer of the pink carnation? The man's a great singer, and we should be thankful that in these dark times the occasional ray of sunshine is still allowed to break out.

What I think was really interesting about this competition was not just the way Simon Cowell manipulated it to give himself the result he realised he needed, with Danyl Johnson being an unmelodious shouter, but for the way that the result was decided by those who paid to vote.

I've spent £1.75 on voting for Joe in the last few weeks, and that gave me a tiny say over his almost inevitable victory, and certainly gave me more rights over that victory than anyone who didn't vote, because they weren't prepared to pay.

It's all a bit fuzzy in my head at the moment, mixed up with bread and circuses, and I'll need some more time to gestate on this, but this may be the difference between the X-Factor vote, and political democracy.

For in political democracy, everybody gets to vote, including all of those who take from the vote, the millions of tax-eaters in this country who are net beneficiaries of tax (almost all of whom demand higher taxes, remarkably).

This is why the Conservatives will be just as bad as the Labour Party, after the next election, should they win it. Personally, I think they'll flunk it and we'll get some stitch-up between Labour and the Liberals. However, it matters not a monkeys which fig-leaf party claims the ministerial cars, for the British government will have been re-legitimated and re-returned, for another five years of a train wreck horror show, at the end of which we will have been engineered into begging to join the Euro to save what little we have left.

Because with close to a half of the British population being tax-eaters, and with tax-eaters more likely to vote (state pensioners and dozing bureaucrats taking the day off), it is now impossible to win an election here in Britain without kowtowing to the tax-eating class.

No, paid democracy may work in the bread and circuses of X-Factor, but politically, democracy is still a God that has failed.

UPDATE: Some clips from last night. Judge for yourself whether Joe is better than George:



Here's Joe singing my favourite song of his: