“There is no point in voting. It is just a poor substitute to finding out what people actually want.” Baroness Helena Kennedy, Q.C., life peer for Labour in the House of Lords, has no false illusions about the current situation of the world.

In the 54th Founders’ Memorial lecture at Girton College, she paints a grim, yet realistic picture of “Power and Democracy in a Globalized World”. Varsity had a news chat with the Baroness after attending the lecture.

“We are no longer an industrial society with tribal attachments. The political parties and institutions haven’t moved along with the changes.” Born into the Scottish Shaw clan, having worked as a barrister for the past 30 years and being author of several prize-awarded books, the 60-year-old has remained critical of society despite her many successes.

Baroness Kennedy has clear views on the British political system and its need for reforms: “It is a privileged elite that decides, and so democracy runs out of steam. Politicians are low down on public trust scales - together with bankers and lawyers - because their promises are never carried through.” She knows that “power is delightful”, and therefore she believes it has to be more evenly distributed: Less power for the whips in the House of Commons, and give more influence to enquiries by members and civilians who are not in parliament.

“No legislating without taxing” for the House of Lords, and caps on donations in general. Reduce the House of Commons to 500 members, and employ fewer people as part of the government.

Civil liberties have been one of her main areas of work both as a barrister and in parliament. Not just in Britain, where the “old fashioned party structures” need to be revisited, but all over the world, people need to be given adequate opportunities to participate: “Democracy has to be tended like a flower. If you want it to become beautiful, you can’t just pour water on it every few days. The same goes for democracy: Voting has to be enriched by other forms of participation.”

As human rights law is another of Baroness Kennedy’s area of specialty, she has dealt with cases of trafficking, illegal immigration and international fraud in the past. “New sciences, and with it globalization, have brought a lot of benefits – but also new black markets. We have failed to put in place institutions which accommodate this shift. The poor world is already experiencing the pain of exploitation through low wages and tax havens. We are yet to feel that.”

While condemning the globalized corporate and banking world for restraining governments in their actions, she finds it vital to emphasize that it would be wrong to be “fearful of investigating wrongdoings”, as she accuses many politicians of being: “We need to sit together and revisit the settlements made after the Second World War, such as the UN and the Human Rights.”

According to Baroness Kennedy, it was the “post-Cold-War-scramble” that changed a lot: “1989 was seen as the triumph of liberal democracy and the free market. However, eventually, democracy was used as rationalization for the needless criminal invasion of Iraq; and the moral component in the market can only be injected by us.”

Commenting on more recent events in international and national politics, she sees the need for large-scale reforms of underlying problems: “The Wikileaks scandal showed us that there needs to be a reconfiguration of the relationship between electorate and elected. Yes, a nation needs her secrecy, but we should not be kept in the dark. We are entitled to know everything that helps creating a more peaceful world.”

And finally, on the matter of tuition fee rises in the UK, she admits that she feels most anxious for those students “who have lost the momentum for education in their teenage years due to pregnancies, drugs or other problems. When they want to re-start in their mid-twenties, they will be discouraged by the prospect of huge debts.”

So, is the future all dark? Not at all – it is all about finding the right channel to participation. Politicians need to be reared: “We need those who choose it as a career. There is no such thing as being ‘too political for politics’, as I’ve always been told I am.” As an individual, one should “find your place where your voice will be heard.”

This is why Baroness Kennedy has great faith in the youth. “They begin to challenge things. They volunteer, recycle, donate, and march against Iraq and tuition fees. I believe most students were on the streets not out of self-interest, but because they wanted to share the gift they’ve been given.”