We’re doing work in South Africa at the moment so I had the good fortune to be there at the time of the election.  Yes, there are all sorts of problems, but what impressed and humbled me was the sight of people stood in queues, sometimes for hours and far into the night, to do what they all described as “exercising their democratic right”.  Its only 91 years since women over 30 and most men who did not own property were able to vote in the UK – that’s not long and in those 91 years we’ve lost the enthusiasm and sense of entitlement about voting.  Less than half the population turns out for a right that people fought and died for.  We can learn a lot from South Africa.

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