These are just anecdotes, but there's many to count. And Freedom House, who have been counting these things for decades, tell us that since the great financial crisis, democracy has been in decline around the world. Fewer countries practise it now than they did 12 years ago and those that do are taking it less seriously than they used to. Too many people around the world decide that democracy is not working for them and they elect populists and strongmen. Sometimes it's quite amusing. The Italians at one point decided to elect a comedian; or my personal favourite, the Ukrainians, who took up an actor who played a fictional president in a television drama and made them their actual president. It's less funny when we remember the iron law of international relations: that the strong do as they can while the weak suffer as they must. We as a small island democracy cannot afford to ignore this trend that is unfolding around the world. And the question we must ask is why? Why, after a resurgence of democracy after the Cold War, do people turn away from it? Well, there's lots of theories. The internet circulates fake information, probably. Globalisation creates winners and losers, sure. The Russians are interfering in our elections. The media are dying. And so it goes on. 