Two Doors

The crowded ballot

You will be told there are many choices. Left, right, centre, protest, abstain, the new face, the old hand, the outsider who promises to burn it all down. The ballot paper looks crowded. The feed looks even more crowded. Every message is urgent, every message is different, and every one of them seems to be speaking directly to you.

Strip it back, and there are two doors. Kleptocracy or Governance. That’s it.

Everything else is decoration on one door or the other.

What the two doors actually are

Forget the labels on the parties. Left and right tell you almost nothing now. The difference between the two poles comes down to a handful of questions, and every candidate answers them, whether they say so or not.

Who does it answer to? Kleptocracy answers to its owners: donors, networks, the holders of offshore arrangements. Governance answers to the governed. Clumsily, slowly, imperfectly, but the line of accountability runs back to you.

What does it do with the rules? Kleptocracy treats rules as obstacles for others and options for itself. It drains the oil, then blames the engine. Governance treats rules as the thing that makes a society function, including for the people writing them.