With parliament in the straitjacket of party loyalties and controls, the consequent barrier between representatives and people, the Queen's Representative with Reserve Powers, and court decisions often a mystery of technicalities, people are confused and frustrated, and the prospect of coherent democratic 'government by the people' is an elusive dream. The result is that the public debate on any controversy grinds along, with its accompanying heat, or apathy, instead of moving steadily towards its goal of sensible, acceptable decisions, unhindered by extraneous 'political' objectives. As a result we have a constant basis for political and social aggression and instability, despite the claim that the party system gives stability - some stability, when a Prime Minister can be pelted with eggs and tomatoes, and televised in humiliating circumstances, and with parliamentary behaviour quite often a national joke. Ironically enough, the concentration of power into the hands of the two more or less evenly balanced major parties, means that neither can have enough confidence in its public support to tackle many of the sticky problems properly when in power. Power and weakness are prominent features of our 'democracy' - power to ignore the people, but weakness against lobbies etc.
Representative government is a step away from pure, or direct, democracy.
But party government is one long jump from representative government. It has sometimes, with some justification, been referred to as a system of elected dictatorships. It is not the people who are to blame for the failure of the political system to unite the people in a bid to cope with the problems. It is the manufactured conflict of the party system. The ones to blame are the ones, whoever they may be, who resolutely refuse to see that democracy and the party system are not compatible, and that radical change is necessary before any claim can be made to democracy.