Fear Boris

<< Boris Johnson: Don't say I didn't warn you

The polling stations are closed, so it's sadly too late to issue a final cry to the good people of London to please, for the love of God, not vote for Boris Johnson. All we can now do is wait and hope. If you have been foolhardy enough to vote for him, I'd just like to point out why you shouldn't have. If you're gay, poor or an ethnic minority, he doesn't actually like you very much. If you're an ordinary working London resident, you could do a better job than him, because you a. work and b. live in London. His ideas include cutting crime (no explanation as to how), improving transport (see cutting crime) and bringing back Routemaster, for fuck's sake. It's embarrassing for the other candidates, particularly Ken Livingstone, that he's got so far on a silly haircut and absolutely no decent policies.

Anyway, I didn't vote for Boris, as you may have guessed, but I did vote - I went along to the weird village hall, got told not to fold my ballot papers at any cost (were they booby-trapped?) and placed my vote with a broken pencil. I would never not vote in anything, because it may be a futile choice between a dubious champagne socialist, a floppy-haired tool or someone who won't win because the media won't even allow the idea to enter people's heads, but it's our right in a democracy, and it's a right we have a duty to accept. I even voted in European elections, for christ's sake. After all, democracy depends on people voting to elect their government, doesn't it? Well, not necessarily.

Demarchy is a system of democracy without elections.

Demarchy uses sortition, which is effectively a kind of tombola, to elect individuals, rather than having votes between selected people. It's admittedly not a widely used or particularly feasible way of governing a nation, but it was used in Ancient Greece, and in Canada to create Electoral Reform. Closer to home, how do you think you end up getting called for jury service? Because your name comes out of a giant judicial hat, that's how. Maybe it's worth a shot. There's 8 million Londoners - put all their names into a sizeable trilby, and pluck out a new mayor at random. Could they really be worse than Boris Johnson?