Democracy's poster boy

Back in 2002, David Davis was all for keeping the electorate well-informed, so that political decisions were implemented with informed consent:

"Referendums should be held when the electorate are in the best possible position to make a judgement. They should be held when people can view all the arguments for and against and when those arguments have been rigorously tested. In short, referendums should be held when people know exactly what they are getting. So legislation should be debated by Members of Parliament on the Floor of the House, and then put to the electorate for the voters to judge.

We should not ask people to vote on a blank sheet of paper and tell them to trust us to fill in the details afterwards. For referendums to be fair and compatible with our parliamentary process, we need the electors to be as well informed as possible and to know exactly what they are voting for. Referendums need to be treated as an addition to the parliamentary process, not as a substitute for it." [my bold]

By 2017, not only is Dave cool with lying to voters and Parliament about what the executive's been getting up to but, never mind the electorate, it's apparently fine for even the executive to be ill-informed about the issues:

"What's the requirement of my job? I don't have to be very clever, I don't have to know that much, I do just have to be calm..." [my bold]

Fifteen years ago, he was a persuasive advocate for participatory democracy. Today, a "Keep Calm and Carry On" poster could do most of his job, apart from the lying.

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