Older readers might remember the night in April 1992 when, unexpectedly, a tyranny of the majority returned John Major’s Conservative government to power. That same night a local bunch of tyrants in Huntingdon sent Major back to Westminster with a majority of over 30,000, while a tyrannical mob up in Nottingham did the same for Ken Clarke – who was to become Home Secretary and later Chancellor.
Funny enough, though, I don’t recall either John Major or Ken Clarke using the word ‘tyranny’ at the time – or anything approaching it. On the contrary, I vaguely remember them making remarks as to the effect that the good old British people had made a sensible decision in rejecting windbag Kinnock.
Yet for some reason, both men now prefer to use the term ‘tyranny of the majority’ to refer to what most of us – a tyrannical majority, even – would generally call ‘democracy’.
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