Righto, it was "the medias" fault, not the government running the country for 10+ years.
It is in Tory DNA to be authoritarian, the pandemic was simply an opportunity to act on those impulses. While laughing about it from No. 10 (see Cummings, the parties, et al).
The UK is barely-democratic. All key decisions are controlled by Westminster and number 10. The rights under devolution for Scotland and Wales (such as they are) are "lent" and can be taken back.
Real democracies have regional federated governments with real powers to set taxes etc. The UK is a bureaucratic monolith with almost 70 million people controlled by one office in Westminster.
I think only France has a similar centralization of power.
A strong centralized democracy with very little in terms of local government is not an outlier; it's the norm. Europe and Africa mostly run on central authority, as does Ireland. I think your view is skewed because you're an American (I think?)
Yes there are certainly other centralized democracies. The UK and France have some of the largest populations under such a system however, by a decent amount to my knowledge.
