Things are so much better here. In recent decades, there have been so few violations of democratic principles or interference in inappropriate places. Mind you, the invasion of Porlwi by non-ambulating hawkers last weekend did make me wonder if I’ve missed something. Just a handful of them dropped more litter than the hundreds of thousands of Admirables thronging the city. And the police had been told to do nothing. Surely being not terribly wealth-off is no excuse or explanation for incivism? The White Queen had the solution for a Mauritius in Wonderland: Off with their heads – and the heads of those who allowed them to operate. How can societies, let alone democracy, survive if a rabble is allowed to break the law with impunity? Police no-go neighbourhoods and the like help to explain the rise of the extreme right in France.

But what was our original concept? Many men enjoyed full political standing – but not those falling below a certain socio-economic level. Giving them political power might have been misused by demagogues and populists, unlike here of course. Indeed, Pericles thought that Athens was a model for other states as our laws provided equal justice for all and success in public life depended on ability and merit, not on social origin and class. Just like here. Poverty did not impede anyone’s advancement, providing they seized the opportunity to advance – in legal ways.

A hundred years later, my dear Aristotle became increasingly concerned that democracy was encouraging majorities to pursue self-interest to the detriment of the public good. Consistent and fair criteria had gone out of the window, and civic duty was becoming poorly understood. Thank Zeus there’s no such problem here. Greed had become another problem, with both Thucydides and Aristophanes blaming a democratic culture for encouraging an unhealthy desire for excessive consumption and possession. Luckily for them there were no populist Union leaders around to exacerbate the problem.

In fact, the Hellenistic Era had collapsed by the end of what you call the first century BC, along with democracy, and the Roman republic moved instead to what became imperial rule, as might have happened here at the last election. Not that stops people nowadays wittering on about republican values. What values can that mean when the republic emerged as a result of a political connivance, a sharing of the spoils? You take the presidency and we’ll have the prime ministership.

Meanwhile, there seems to be continuing confusion about what the local democratic system actually entails. There’s no executive president as in France and the US. People don’t vote for a PM but for a candidate or candidates – for a set period. The PM is the person who can best command a majority of MPs in the Assembly, normally the leader of the largest party. The current calls for an election should the PM need replacing are mere rabble-rousing, although those who want a presidential system are welcome to get into bed with Monsieur Hollande, who’ll soon be adding to the huge number of unemployed in France – and finding mistresses more difficult to come by.