Preserving Our Democracy

Those Britons who have lived abroad for fifteen years or more, thereby missing almost the entire earthly ministry of the Reverend Blair as well as the miracle of Osbornomics, will be deprived of the right to vote in the forthcoming EU referendum. A pledge was made that such people would be graciously permitted to exert their democratic influence, despite the obvious risk of their having gone native; but it is most unlikely that the pledge was taken seriously even by expats who habitually go out without their pith helmets, since it was made by the former chair Michael Green. The Government will also be excluding sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds from the vote on the grounds that the franchise, unlike the NHS, the schools and the justice system, is much too important to be tinkered with.