Why a democratic UK is doomed along with the rest of Western civilisation

'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, which is always followed by a dictatorship.'

The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

• From bondage to spiritual faith;
• From spiritual faith to great courage;
• From courage to liberty;
• From liberty to abundance;
• From abundance to selfishness;
• From selfishness to complacency;
• From complacency to apathy;
• From apathy to dependence;
• From dependence back into bondage.

The Tytler Cycle by 18th century Scots historian Alexander Tytler, although there is some debate over how much of the above is Tytler and how much has a 20th century source.

Regardless of the debate over attribution, this part seems to cover Western civilisation's problems very neatly:

'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...'

The Labour party in the UK, similar parties across Europe and the Democratic party in the USA laid the bait and enough of the electorate have taken it to make left-wing governments the norm from now on. Gordon Brown's expansion of the welfare state to try and ensure that as many people a possible were sucking on the teat of public money is the man most culpale in the UK, I detest that man so much.