Democracy: Grab what you can before it fails

I HAVE long believed that countries join the EU merely to get hold of somebody else’s money — just as we were once promised £6 billion to vote yes.

Recently I came across this quotation: “A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.

"From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.” (Alexander Tyler, Scottish historian, 18th century).