A referendum has just been held in Denmark over whether the country should take part in the agreement by which EU memberstates collaborate closely on justice and security issues.

Next April, a referendum is being held in Holland regarding whether the country should ratify the agreement of association between the EU and the Ukraine. The fear is of a negative outcome.

Soon after, a referendum is being held in the UK, once it has finalised negotiations with the EU to change the conditions of its membership in the Union. The British people will be asked to decide whether to stay in the Union or not.

Personally, I was against referenda when they delivered results that favoured greater union in Europe and still am of the same opinion now that the results are going in the opposite direction.

In a parliamentary democracy, the decisions taken by people are expressed through representatives they have chosen. When into this system a procedure is injected by which decisions are taken via referenda, a wide margin is opened for an enormous manipulation of public opinion.   

***

Image and design

In politics, business, arts and culture, in public management, image dominates.

The packaging of products, services, work, artistic creation, no matter what, as well as how such packaging is delivered to consumers, have become independent of content and taken on a life of their own. We have come to judge content in terms of how it is modelled and projected.

Is this good? bad?

Some insist that it has always been like so.

They point to religious liturgy or the pomp and circumstance of royalty to demonstrate how image and design have always been at the heart of methods by which to fascinate, attract, impress... or deceive.

***

Constitutional changes

Once again we’re getting told that the Constitution needs radical reform. I said it a number of times and will repeat it.

The Constitution does not need radical change.

It is obvious that some amendments, mostly minor in nature, could be implemented, above all to remove certain anachronic references. But beyond this I fail to see how the Constitution is shortchanging us.

Rather, the contrary is happening: over the years, the Constitution was not treated with the respect due to it because the procedures it sets to manage national affairs were deployed with bad faith.

Many reasons account for why this happened, but among the most important -- and I am again repeating myself here -- there is the factor of our small size, of a society where everybody knows everybody else. As a result, the temptation is great always to suspect that others are not being genuine in their decision making but are playing a dubious game. And so the rules which should guide interpersonal and interinstituitonal behaviour, such as those laid out in the Constitution -- are not followed in a transparent manner but via double takes.

This will go on happening, no matter what format the Constitution assumes.