{Silence gives Consent}[6th December 1988]

[Redbook6:61-63)][19881206:1713]{Silence gives Consent}[6th December 1988]

.1713

I think one of the most chilling experiences of my life, was to learn* of the Government’s rules for democratic voting on Council estates which a private developer or Housing Association wants to buy:

Vote cast	Result Counted
Yes	Yes
No	No
Abstention (No[t] vote[d])	Yes

– with the consequence that the result intended by the Government, on the Torbay council estate where this was tried out, was achieved (I quote the figures from memory):

No	Yes		Abstentions
42.5%	15%		42.5%
Difference 27.5%		57.5%

Result: Buy-out goes ahead despite overwhelming rejection by voters.**

Apart from the hypocrisy – the Government frequently abstains at the United Nations, and certainly (as in the recent circumstances involving criticism of the U.S.A. for refusing Yasser Arafat admission to the USA [sic] and thus the UN) does not wish to be understood to vote Yes – and the philosophical ignorance which refuses to accept the possibility of an answer which is neither Yes nor No – the really shocking aspect is the mockery of fundamental democratic principles for the sake of pure window-dressing in an attempt to obtain a ‘democratic’ justification for what the Government are determined to have – that is, their own way. Even if the result had been straight compulsion to sell out without a vote, as a matter of principle that would be preferable to the devaluation of the idea of democracy by their chosen procedure. The whole thing stinks of ***South Africa.

*(BBC1[TV], Panorama, 19881205.2130)

**Apparently the Government refused this sale <890314>

***[Apartheid era, obviously]

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