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offsite link Labour Sinks to Lowest Ever Poll Rating ? as Andy Burnham Fuels Starmer Challenge Rumours Fri Sep 19, 2025 17:00 | Will Jones
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The post Labour Sinks to Lowest Ever Poll Rating ? as Andy Burnham Fuels Starmer Challenge Rumours appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Oxford and Cambridge Drop Out of Top Three in University Rankings Because of ?Misguided Attempts at ... Fri Sep 19, 2025 15:00 | Will Jones
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offsite link Jeremy Corbyn?s New Hard Left Party Descends into Chaos as Zarah Sultana Says She?s Been ?Frozen Out... Fri Sep 19, 2025 13:16 | Will Jones
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The post Jeremy Corbyn’s New Hard Left Party Descends into Chaos as Zarah Sultana Says She’s Been “Frozen Out” of “Sexist Boys’ Club” appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

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Voltaire Network
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Cohesion

category louth | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis author Saturday February 25, 2006 16:17author by Sean Crudden - imperoauthor email sean.crudden at iol dot ieauthor address Jenkinstown, Dundalk, Co Louth.author phone 087 9739945 Report this post to the editors

Democracy or Dictatorship?

Are there only the two opposites which, in abstract terms, define all possible approaches to political development? Are we sleepwalking from democratic ideals into a colourless and unsvoury dictatorship?

Consideration is being given in the boardrooms of the Partnerships and Louth LEADER to local development and social inclusion programs. The keyword is “cohesion” and the impetus seems to be towards amalgamations and “integration.”

This is no surprise because in the political sphere in Ireland today the ruling idea seems to be centralisation of power. An example of this is The Health Services Executive. Some of us have experienced the aggregated way of doing things - for instance under Vocational Education Committees. In other places - in the same spirit - I have previously pointed toward what may not be dictatorial tendencies in psychiatry and education. But they are certainly, at the very least, prescriptive.

It seems to me that for true development to take place the opposite attitude is required. Decentralisation and real democracy and a sense of place are the more obvious routes to social and political development in the regions. The cornerstone of a living community is the individual and individual freedom and responsibility. The growing push towards integration and command politics and economics (which was the modus operandi of the old Soviet Union) seems to me to militate against and crush fragile but important developmental freedoms.

Related Link: http://www.iol.ie/~impero
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