What is a democracy?

How interesting it is to watch self-professed Liberals tie themselves in knots.
Faced, on the one hand, with the prospect of President Mubarak's demise and democratic rule for Egypt, they can scarcely contain their glee. On the other, the decision of the elected House of Commons to overrule the (unelected) European Court of Human Rights on the subject of voting rights for prisoners has them twisting their hankies in outrage and anger.
Patently, for them, Democracy is a multi-faceted philosophy.
In a Middle Eastern country deemed to have been in thrall to the US for twenty odd years, it means one thing. While, in the country that virtually invented the idea of Universal Suffrage in the first place, it means something completely different.
As far as regime change in Egypt is concerned, nothing could be more exciting or invigorating to our liberal elites.
If they are to be believed, once Mubarak is consigned to the dustbin of history, the crowds thronging Tahir Square will form orderly queues, head for the ballot boxes and vote into office a new, suitably soft-Left government, with no special dispensations for the Moslem Brotherhood, American presidents or other pressure groups. It will enthusiastically embrace equal rights for women, atheists, Coptic Christians, Jews and Zoroastroans and adopt a stance of compete neutrality towards other Arab states.

And squadrons of pink porkers will fly the length of the Nile in celebration, just as they have when other nations have thrown off the shackles of colonial rule. Think Iran, Sudan, Algeria, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Yemen.......

The reality of Parliamentary Democracy in action, on the other hand, has the opposite effect on our gilded liberals.
When our elected rParliament overrules the subjective musings of 16 totally unelected judges from countries with very little in the way of democratic tradition, they regard democracy as deeply flawed.
Obviously, therefore, Democracy a little like the Curate's Egg to our Liberal elite - Good in parts. But only if it makes the right decisions.