The First Election Debate

It's the Americans I feel sorry for. They have had to put up with this pointless, political posturing for far longer than we have. I'm surprised they aren't all one-armed. From having gnawed the other one off in sheer fucking frustration at the mind-bending dullness of the event.

The build-up went through the usual media frenzy of "history in the making" and "getting to the heart of the issues" but, as is usual with the mainstream, all we were ever going to see was 'spin' subject to strict rules that have been worked out over months. Spontaneous it was never going to be.

When you put three dull, middle aged, white men in suits in a room and ask them to start talking about how best to manage the country, you're hardly likely to get fireworks. But there wasn't even a spark. The audience seemed torpid as though they had enjoyed the pre-debate sedatives a bit too much. The three stooges were exactly as you would expect and host, Alastair Stewart, did his best to punctuate the boredom with periods of irritation. At him.

I sat through the whole 90 minutes - Tweeting as I went - and my prejudice against all three parties remained intact.

There were many comments about the number of times that Gordon Brown said, "I agree with Nick" or something similar and the policy differences, where they were even apparent, amount to little more than managerial nuances. All three men spoke of the bravery of the armed forces with absolutely no mention of when troops would be coming home. All three spoke of cuts in public spending, without a hint of irony given the ongoing military spend, where the only difference was timing. At least Clegg spoke of getting rid of Trident but that was about as good as it got. In the main all three made commitments to the things that they believe people want commitment on. It was ninety minutes of three capitalist parties telling the populace what they believe the populace want to hear. It was a joke. A bad one.

"Hello. I'm a politician and I am so conceited that I believe I know what's good for you. And everyone else. But I am going to sell it to you as though I share your concerns."

Clearly they do not share our concerns. How can they? Cameron at one point said something along the lines of "What family hasn't had to cut back in the recession?" and the Twitter-verse replied with "Yours!" I am sure the same could just as easily be said of Clegg or Brown.

The legitimisation of the charade that is UK democracy is now complete. We have US style TV election debates in a country where there is no discussion of the alternatives. And hence no alternatives to put on the debate. They had the cheek to cover items that the devolved parliaments in Scotland and Wales handle for those countries but yet no Nationalist MP is invited to take part. Where were the Greens? Hell, while we're at it, where were the BNP?

I think people are fed up with it. I'll happily wager that turnout for the General Election will be the lowest its been for a while (ever?) and the reasons for that aren't going to be cured by more of the same. In the sanitised, anemic world where policy is driven by tabloid headlines and geared towards marginal seats the choices you have had presented to you tonight were actually only one choice: capitalism.

And I shan't be watching the future debates. Life is too short.