The difference between a representative democracy and a liberal democracy is that a liberal democracy concentrates upon diversity, choice and individual rights and freedom.
The UK and other Western states are liberal democracies. The UK has a small governing body representing the people of the nation. This is a true statement of liberal democracy, as is that the government were voted into power by the general public on a majority vote. This is a feature of a liberal democracy. Within the UK there are individual freedoms also, such as freedom of speech, movement and the right to protest, basic human rights. Also within this state there is the freedom of choice where there are more than one party to vote for, unlike some other countries throughout the world. There are also pressure groups which influence the decisions the government make. These all point to the conclusion that the UK is a strong liberal democracy.
A liberal democracy is supposed to have a government which represents the majority of the public’s opinion, but in the UK a party could win with a minority vote, and also in the UK seats in parliament are not proportional to the votes won in an election. This is because the government in power benefits from this being the case so a proportional system is never introduced. A liberal democratic government is supposed to make decisions based on reason and the views of the people but many decisions made by the current government and ones past have not been the views of the majority and have been unpopular, with the strong example of the war in Iraq. A strong number of people in the UK were against the war, as well as many people in Tony Blair’s own cabinet, but the decision was already made, and the views of many people were not taken into consideration, this is not democratic.
Theoretically the UK has an “open government” which is accountable to the people, but in practice this is not necessarily the case. The concepts of “spin” and “presentation” undermine the openness of the current New Labour government. The Hutton enquiry into the incidents surrounding Dr David Kelly’s death has revealed certain aspects of the government that are usually hidden from the public eye.
I am not disagreeing with the fact that a government is needed otherwise chaos would take over the UK, what I believe is that the UK is a liberal democracy on a bureaucratic level but when some aspects come under closer scrutiny it shows that not all characteristics are liberally democratic.
Jo Muter 6E2
