DEMOCRACY 4

Excuse us, this month, for indulging in a diary that takes place in a world of imagination so detached from our present reality as to be almost unthinkable. A parallel universe with almost no links to the lived experience of anyone who will ever read this magazine.

This month, I’m going to be a politician. One who’s in it to make his rich friends richer, and isn’t against grinding the poor if it keeps foie gras on his table. His policies are good, old-fashioned, common sense – none of this namby-pamby ‘kinder, gentler, politics’ or political correctness here. Oh no.

All political careers in Democracy 4 end with failure. You either lose an election and are ejected from power by the will of the people, or crumple to the ground following the crack of an assassin’s rifle. It doesn’t look much, particularly in a magazine feature that makes such great use of screenshots, but plays out like a modern-day Crusader Kings with less pope-eating. At least, I don’t think you can eat the pope, but I’ll certainly do it if the opportunity presents itself.

Election time, and I’ve