“WE ALL BELIEVE in democracy, my dear, but some of us are too well mannered to practise it.”
I can't remember where and when I first heard this quote – I may even have dreamt it or made it up – but it's probably from an Oscar Wilde play. It must have struck me at the time as being both funny and cynical, which are two of my favourite characteristics, but it's only now – in my dotage - that I feel there maybe more to the quotation than can usually be attributed to a throwaway gag.
Democracy has been
