WHAT is democracy? You and I might think it involves listening to the people. And as long as we don't expect more, that's about right - at least in the eyes of our present Government.

Its concept of democracy was underlined the other day by the Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer. Tony Blair's old buddy revealed plans to remove many crimes, including "low level" motoring offences, shoplifting and TV licence evasion, from the jurisdiction of the courts. Magistrates are unhappy, and so might others be once the situation is fully explained. For instance, a motorist who has killed someone but is charged only with careless driving might be dealt through the new "bulk processing centre".

But Lord Falconer is unfazed. Explaining this "fundamental new way of delivering justice", he says: "It is an approach that, rightly, will be the subject of discussion, but it is also an approach where we can and should make progress."

In other words: "We'll allow you to talk about it but we're going ahead with it anyway."

Of course much the same thing is happening with the police mergers. At a public meeting I attended, where the feeling was strongly against the Yorkshire-wide merger, I asked why, if fighting terrorism and serious crime demanded reorganisation, the merger plan didn't start with a nationwide blank canvas? I was told the Government had decreed that the existing regional boundaries could not be breached.

The close interest people have in justice and the police is matched by the value they place on their local post office. Last week it was announced that, from August, TV licences will no longer be issued by post offices, but by outlets such as Londis, Costcutter and Somerfield.

Where was our voice in this major change? Nowhere. We never even knew a change was being considered. The guilty party here is the BBC. But since the Post Office is (still) a public service, you might have thought its customers would have been consulted.

What a docile lot we are. And it is on our quite astonishing passivity that those in command rely.

Which of us wouldn't give a penny for the private thoughts of Condoleeza Rice when she finally shook off Jack Straw. Her parting words to him probably didn't run along the lines of: "We must do this more often." To the possibly-smitten Jack and others wowed by Condi, let me point out that she could be smoothly serenaded by an adapted version of the Nat King Cole hit devoted to an even bigger female mega star, Mona Lisa: "Condoleeza, Condoleeza, men have named you..."

At 85, Peter Sallis, long noted for playing the quiet, wryly-humorous Clegg in Last of the Summer Wine, and more recently famous as the voice of Wallace in the Wallace & Gromit films, is to write his autobiography. Back in 1967 I saw him in the first production of Frederick Knott's now-classic thriller Wait Until Dark. Would you believe it - against Honor Blackman's lead, Sallis was the sinister villain? Still rooted in the understated style that is his hallmark, the air of quiet menace he generated was startling. Arguably, the success of Summer Wine has denied British theatre-goers the full display of a quite outstanding talent.