The new bestseller from the author of The English. Whatever may be wrong with it, democracy is the least bad form of government we can imagine. It always starts so promisingly. There is something so exhilarating about that moment in the tatty old polling booth, as you make your 'X'. And it always ends in disillusionment. Even the most apparently popular government will eventually fall. What is it about the business of politics which turns hope, vision and ambition to despair? Jeremy Paxman proposes to find out.