Hello and welcome. This is an audio recording of an IFG live event.

Hello and a very warm welcome to the Institute for Government. I'm Bronwyn Maddox, the director.

We're delighted to be having this conversation today with Sir John Major, with his title of,

In Democracy We Trust, Question Mark. with Sir John Major, with his title of,

in democracy we trust, question mark.

Sir John, as you will all know, was Prime Minister from 1990 to 1997,

and I'm not going to give a longer introduction than that.

But let me say a few crucial housekeeping things. we're going to be live tweeting throughout using IFG events and the hashtag IFG John

Major please do follow and tweet along and we're going to have a video and sound

recording up within 24 hours so John thank you very much indeed for joining us,

and we're very much looking forward to your remarks.

In democracy, we trust.

Thank you.

Well, Bronwyn, thank you and good morning, everyone.

I'm delighted to be here,

and I think it's an apt time to talk about the subject I'm about to address.

We're living at the moment through a time of uncertainty and political turbulence, both overseas and at home.

And at home, we tend to take democracy for granted. We should not. It's far more complex than simply having the right to vote. In many countries

at the moment, there's a widespread discontent of the governed, and democracy in many places is

in retreat, and nor is it in a state of grace in the United Kingdom. In the last decades of the

20th century, the number of democratic countries drew

quite dramatically. The arbiter of civil liberties, Freedom House classified 110 countries

...