The Greeks would laugh at our notion that “democracy” should be limited to placing an X on a ballot once every five years, writes Carlos Alba.

Of all the roles and responsibilities of a contemporary political leader the most challenging, I think, is the frequent requirement to mislead their supporters.

The artifice of politics, and its relationship with a modern mass media, necessitates that leaders speak in a coded language which facilitates the avoidance of letting voters know what they really think.

This is what many people mean when they accuse politicians of lying, and they may have a point, depending on whether you prefer to call a spade a spade or a curved, foot-propelled garden implement.

Some leaders struggle in this Janus-faced endeavour; others take to it like a duck to water. Tony Blair never flinched in his career-long insistence – against all the available evidence – that he was a socialist.

Jeremy Corbyn, in contrast, visibly writhed in discomfort throughout the 2016 Brexit referendum campaign in which he was obliged, as leader of the pro-Remain Labour Party, to give the impression that he actually wanted the UK to remain in the EU. Never one for thinking on his feet, he permanently had the appearance of a man simultaneously wetting himself while trying to work out a hard sum.

For leaders of the SNP, there is a relentless pressure to give their followers the impression that they are going hell-for-leather towards the goal of an independence referendum.

This is particularly acute when they are in office and there is the small matter of running the country to distract them from their party’s constitutional raison d'être.

While the man on the Clarkston........

© Herald Scotland