Fear-mongering is the enemy of democracy – from Greece to Cameron’s EU referendum | Suzanne Moore

The Tories always use Project Fear to get their way at the ballot box, and the same tactic is used when the Greek people are asked to choose between the hell they know and one they can only imagine

Project Fear stalks Europe. In suits and ties and chaffeur-driven cars, in hurried meetings, in corridors blaring with strip lights, around the cabinet tables, in meetings where strategy is scrawled on whiteboards, in advertising agencies where earnest young people compete to unsettle us in the most effective ways.

Perhaps I am too old and dreamy to think that politics was ever about anything other than fear; that hope is a necessity not a luxury. Surely I know, really, that when you want someone to vote a certain way you have to frighten them into thinking that any alternative is worse. We may not know what we like, but we sure as hell as know what we don't like.