What exactly is a democratic deficit?

A democratic deficit is a great big gaping hole where public engagement with political processes should be. This means any area where citizens like you and me should have a say but don't. Since the UK is a democracy, the feeling is that we the people should be able to have some kind of a say on most if not all political matters.

Some people say that the House of Lords is the site of a big democratic deficit, because Peers (members of the House of Lords) are not voted in by us, but chosen by the government. Conversely democratic deficits can be avoided when we the people are given a chance to express our beliefs, for example when we vote in the MP for our constituency, or when important decisions are opened to us in a REFERENDUM (a directly democratic question of public policy) like the recent one on membership of the European Union.