Francis Beckett has narrated this article for you to listen to.
Most days, outside the local courtroom where I live in Finchley Central, a man holds up a placard that says in big black capitals: ALL OUR BRAINS ARE MICROCHIPPED BY THE SECURITY SERVICES. It’s a foolish conspiracy theory, of course, but it’s also a symptom of the fear and loathing of the state which has grown in recent years and which, according to this lucid and persuasive book, threatens to return us to a time when we were governed by the whims of a monarch whose wishes were implemented arbitrarily by his family, friends and flatterers.
The problem, say Stephen E. Hanson and Jeffrey S. Kopstein, is not that this presages an end to democracy. It does; but the threat is to ‘modern state administration in general – upon which any workable democratic system of government must depend’. If you destroy this administration, you get bad, authoritarian and worst of all unpredictable government. One of the reasons dictatorships are so awful to live under is that there is no rulebook. You cannot know how to keep safe. Most victims of Stalin’s purges honestly believed they had done nothing to offend the dictator.
Democracy is necessary, but not sufficient. Leaders such as Narendra Modi, Victor Orban and Donald Trump can claim to have been elected democratically. In 1933, Adolf Hitler could properly make that claim, too. Neither is this a left-right battle. Now, the main danger comes from what we call the far right, with its ‘deep state’ conspiracy theories and its demonising of the civil service and judiciary.
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