IN 1974, I was representing Great Britain in an eight nations water polo tournament in what was then West Germany. Spain, Italy, Turkey and Russia were all there and most of the players knew each other moderately well as we knocked around on the international circuit together.

I was quite friendly with a couple of Russians who, at 20, were a year older than me. One night, I asked them what it was like to live in Russia. In their half-English, they told me it was a bad place. The people weren't consulted, they weren't asked. Instead, the Russian government told them what they wanted.

With a laugh of disdain, my friends said that, even when a loaf of bread went up in price, their government said it was because the Russian people wanted it to go up in price.

The day after our conversation, the two Russian water polo players defected to West Germany. I have never seen them since, but I have often thought about this awesome exhibition of power by which a state can so dictate a person's life.

I thought about it last week when the British Government announced that it was going to slaughter up to 300,000 animals in Cumbria.

It was an enormous exhibition of power, done apparently without any consultation with the farmers. And it resulted in enormous anger. There were grown men crying on television at the prospect of their lives' work literally going up in smoke. There was furious talk about farmers blockading their land to keep the slaughtermen off.

That announcement was last Thursday. Over the weekend, the Government realised that it hadn't acted properly and, on Monday, the chief vet, Jim Scudamore, was despatched to Cumbria to explain why the measures were necessary.

Although the meetings between him and the farmers were fraught, they appear to have been open and frank. Now, a majority of farmers - 80 per cent according to one poll - accept the merit of the Government's plans and many of them now think that the Government should press ahead with them as quickly as possible.

I was recently talking to an academic friend who is big in the world of social policy but whom I regard more as a philosopher. He says the whole of life is a power game. Look at the papers: the headlines are full of people exercising their power. Striking teachers having pupils sent home, a Government minister suing a newspaper, an ex-girlfriend claiming half her former partner's Lottery winnings, David Beckham getting a table at a restaurant.

My academic friend also pointed out that, when exercising power, it is important to remember that other people have points of view and you have to consider them.

The Government, although it was right, didn't respect the views of the Cumbrian farmers when announcing its mass slaughter and so succeeded in making the situation worse.

And now the Government is preparing for another exhibition of its enormous power. It is going to call an election.

It seems to have learnt nothing from the last week. It seems to be ignoring the views of many people that this is not a good time to hold an election when the countryside is in crisis.

Rather than respect these views and engage with them, the Government says that the people don't want suspended democracy, that they don't want American tourists scared off in their droves.

This may well be a correct assumption - but by not even listening to others' points of view, the Government is using its power to create another resentment.

I don't believe we live in a dictatorship, but sometimes I begin to understand how my Russian friends felt all those years ago.

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