So BBC Radio 4 did a report on Sark yesterday. Their reporter, Sarah Montague, told us that democracy on Sark is under threat. No kidding? And I thought the UK brought us democracy in 2008. That’s when the nice, do-gooding Labour Party friends of Ms Montague and her colleagues at the taxpayer-funded Labour Party Public Relations Departm … err, I mean the BBC … rammed The Reform (Sark) Law 2008 down our throats — although the people of Sark didn’t want it (we were not smart enough to understand its benefits and the kindly Labour Party elite, in the interests of democracy, did us a favour and saved us from ourselves) — and installed an unelected speaker of parliament-cum chief judge-cum electoral returning officer-cum licensing authority-cum a number of other things who solely holds these powers for the rest of his life and is unsackable.

Readers familiar with history will recall that there once was a Holy Roman Empire and a Holy Roman Emperor; the latter was crowned by a monarch (the Pope) and held his job for life; but his position was not hereditary. The legislative body of the Holy Roman Empire was called the Reichstag and was theoretically superior to the Emperor himself. Those readers will also recall that the Roman Emperor in his days was not called Emperor but prince of the senate (speaker of the parliament)-cum tribune of the people-cum many other things. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Ms Montague then tells us that some people want to take over Sark. But I thought they already have done? Ah! She was talking about the Barclays. I thought she was talking about her communist friends.

Ms Montague next tells us that nobody on Sark dares raise their head above the parapet for fear of reprisals … and then we hear several people telling us how nobody dares speak against the Barclays (while doing the very same thing on radio), whereas we are told that lots of people were willing to take a different line privately so long as it was not on the record.

And that would presumably be why? The BBC logic — as I understand it — seems to go like this … if you dare challenge the Barclays on the record, bad things will happen to you (like being ostracized from a public meeting, presumably) but if you dare challenge those who run the government of Sark on the record, then you have nothing to fear and nothing bad will happen to you. Hence, people are happy to criticize the Barclays on the radio, but not say anything on the record which the establishment does not approve of. Any reader who follows this logic, please write to me.

Ms Montague also helpfully tells us that “Sark needs outside help” to defend our democracy. ‘cuz, presumably, the way democracy works is, if you can’t get what you want by the will and the action of the people, you bring in solidarity and help from the outside. Preferably from your nice friends at the Labour Party and the BBC, or, better still (or is it the same thing?), the Comintern. Well we had lots of such outside help in 2008, and much good did it do us. Didn’t it?