We are currently living through an apparent contradiction. On the face of it public opinion has never been stronger. Information moves at a startling pace, interacting with and increasingly being defined by the users who consume it. Yet at the same time we have rarely seen, since the collapse of communism, European democracy as weak as it is now. How to explain this?

The Arab Spring, little anticipated but much welcomed, brought with it the promise of change - towards modern democracies respectful of all and to open economies that will create jobs and wealth.

From Aung San Suu Ky's Myanmar to the United States Tea Party, from Occupy Wall Street, St Paul's, the world to the Arab Spring, from Scotland (population 5.2 million) to Catalonia (population 7.4 Million), from Germany to Holland to France to Greece to Ireland to Portugal to Spain, men and women are demanding more say in how they are governed.

This week Londoners should have received a booklet in the post which outlines the campaign platforms of all the seven Mayoral candidates. It's quite ...

Politicians are completely out of touch with ordinary citizens regarding taxpayer funding of political parties. People are disgusted with the influence exercised by an unscrupulous rich elite, that is able to bend politicians and policies to its will using its wealth.

The UK faces challenges of such enormity that we urgently need to reconnect with, and put all our trust in, the political class.

Having recently come back from a few days in Tunisia, meeting with the President, members of the major political parties and the youth who were so courageously at the forefront of the movement to topple the dictatorial regime of Ben Ali - it is clear that the eyes of the world are firmly fixed on Tunisia's journey to democracy.

Today's elections are broadly expected to sweep Burma's democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi into parliament. Her campaign has dominated global headlines for the past few weeks and her iconic image has come to encapsulate the new face of Burma.

The Iranian government harbours grandiose ambitions of becoming an influential force in Middle East. It has become a paranoid state of fear, not only of foreign governments but national and religious communities within it.

Few Europeans in northern countries understand that to keep Greece economically alive (for now) is in their own interest. A domino effect unleashed by a chaotic Greek default will have devastating consequences.

Over the past year, we have witnessed how the Egyptian revolution has stalled. From exuberant optimism in February 2011, through a violent summer and autumn with continuous clashes between activists and the military, to a still uncertain second winter.

Lying on a sun bed in Pefkos Greece last August after catching up with a batch of e-mails from constituents on a whole range of issues my mind wandered.

If they say that a week is a long time in politics, then the last three have felt like an eternity. For anyone following the final parliamentary stage...

There was no Arab Spring - nor is there necessarily an Islamist Winter. Ongoing events in Syria, and recently across the Middle East, are the last in a long historic process of protest, opposition and revolution. But the outcome will not be democracy as we know it in the West.

Four years ago today, gunmen under orders from Burma's dictatorship came to a house in Thailand in broad daylight and shot dead a man as he sat on his veranda. The man who was assassinated was the General Secretary of the Karen National Union (KNU), Padoh Mahn Sha Lah Phan, one of the most prominent spokesmen for Burma's ethnic nationalities.