Living in a democracy can be trying, says Clive James in his weekly column. Until you think of the alternatives.

In my share of these columns I've placed a lot of emphasis on democracy, and on how it can never be a perfect system, but by the mere fact that no tyrant or oligarchy can ever count on remaining in power unchallenged, democracy can hope to avoid some of the abuses that even less perfect systems are guaranteed to generate.

As somebody once said - I think it was Winston Churchill, but it could have been my Uncle Harold - democracy is the worst political system you can imagine, except for all the others. If it was Uncle Harold, it was generous of him to say this, because during the Great Depression he spent a lot of time out of work. Some of the competing political systems sounded quite persuasive in that period, but Uncle Harold didn't like the sound of a lot of people all shouting at once.