Democracy may die this week!

A strong statement, an emotive statement, a statement of possible reality.

The rioting that took place was neither justifiable or righteous. It was not protest it was lawlessness. Of that most people are agreed. We are agreed we do not want to see it on our streets, our city centres or near our homes. The problem is that the knee jerk reactions have already started.

My grandfather told me stories of the German bombing raids, he told me about the fear of invasion and of how Britain stood alone in the dark nights of 1939 and 1940. He told me stories of the few. The few who stood up have left the legacy that I am allowed to write this today. They left me with my freedom of speech.

And if we start own a road of censorship then we kill that immediately. We destroy all that those brave men and women fought for, we blight their memory, forever.

If social networks are responsible for the spread of this riot then the telephone is responsible for the coordination of the flying pickets in the 1980's. There was no call to ban the telephone but there are calls to suspend social networking.

The argument that the authorities cannot monitor these communications and act upon them is nonsense. The phone hacking scandal has shown how easy it is to break into communications networks. If you really believe that communications are not monitored then you are living in cloud cuckoo land. It is an art as old as communication and it is something that will not go away. And for the sake of national security it is in many ways vital. Does it infringe my civil liberties, absolutely, am I prepared to put up with it, well to a certain extent. However for those who know me know that I will speak my mind as is my right. I am not going to commit acts of anarchy, I love my country, so I have nothing to fear. Others though who would commit these acts should fear it.

With power comes responsibility and there should be strict rules which if broken carry the penalties that are suitable. No one person should be damaged by the state or any individual who is want on pursuing anything that is outside of the law. We have a judiciary that has separate powers to make sure that this doesn't happen.

I do not want to be told what I can or cannot wear, I am no thug but I have hoodies in my wardrobe. I wear a scarf over my face in winter, will I be told to remove it when I go to work in St Paul's because it was a scene of trouble? OK that may be scaremongering but there are people who would do this because it is a little power trip. There are already shops that refuse to allow people in if they are wearing hoodies, even if the hood is down.

Must we look at the root causes of these problems, absolutely. But we have to stop playing politics. Let's face it politicians are not the best role models.

Democracy must not be allowed to die because the Police Chiefs were poor at their jobs, Politicians preferred their holidays to being leaders and Parents devoid themselves of responsibility.

Because if it does then we might as well cancel Remembrance Day because we have given up on all those who died for our freedom, for our democracy.

I will not give up on that though and I will go door to door if I have to defend our democracy and I will win the hearts and minds of the people so that we cherish our freedoms and respect our democracy.