Week One of the Campaign over, and the first election debate has come and gone.
My first impressions so far:
Has the election really started? The manifestos are out, and the first debate has been had. Yet, for such an important election (and it must be, The Economist has said so*) it all seems dreadfully low key. Maybe living in a safe seat in East Yorkshire, has meant the parties are concentrating elsewhere. All thanks to an outdated electoral system no doubt.
Still, here are my initial thoughts;
1 - The polls maybe heading for a hung parliament, but a coalition is NOT what we are likely to end up with. At the moment the Polls suggest a minority Conservative administration. Think Stephen Harper in Canada, and Alex Salmond in Scotland,** and it is possible to imagine how David Cameron can still head the largest party in the Commons, without a majority.
2 - An improvement to the TV Debate: the French presidential debates, between Ségolène Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy, had a nice touch we would do well to emulate. For each candidate, the TV audience were able to see a timer to display how long each had been speaking for. That way we could see if they each had equal time, or were speaking for longer than the other candidate. I suspect for long periods, Nick Clegg did not get as much speak time as the other two. The time he did have, he used ever so effectively.
* The Economist "Britain's Choice" 10-04-2010, p13
** The Economist 28-11-2009 p42 “Lessons form a hung parliament”
“But experience shows, in Scotland and other places, that by building a constellation of alliances, minority government can be made to function. It is just hard work.”
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From the parties themselves, it's pretty quiet around here too. It's been a Labour seat for the last 18 years (same MP) but it was pretty close Labour/LibDem in the last election. We haven't had any canvassers and just the one leaflet - from the LibDems saying "forget the Tories here, the only way to get rid of Labour is to vote LibDem". (The next constituency along, Shipley, has had the same propaganda but the opposite way around, "forget Labour here, the one way to beat the Tories is to vote LibDem".) Policies have been buried, barely mentioned. I obviously understand the importance of strategic voting but it disappoints me that they're concentrating so heavily on it. I was going to offer to help leaflet etc (because I want to get rid of the Labour MP that badly) but I don't want to be pushing that sort of thing.
ReplyDeleteThe parties aside though, I have never talked as much about politics (particularly party politics) as I have done over the last week or so. The Digital Economy farce has politicised a lot of geeks in my world and there are some kids at drama who are obsessed with the election - one kid is a rampant Tory, although he admits to being a centrist Tory unlike his more right-wing dad, but I (almost) don't care because it's just so nice to meet a 15 year old who is so keen to read and talk about it to anyone who will listen. Will be very interesting to see how it unfolds.
It will be very interesting, louisa.
ReplyDeleteCan you please enlighten me about the Digital Economy issue? Is it related to super-fast broadband?
It is also very annoying that we are forced to be dishonest with our votes. The system, unfortunately forces us to be dishonest. If we get a hung parliament - the Liberals can help Labour change the electoral system. The Tories do not want that change though.
The Open Rights Group can explain the DE Bill stuff better than me - but really, it's not the content of the bill that was important, it was that the way it was rushed through in the last week of parliament. There was no proper debate or scrutiny. The main proponents of it were hideously uninformed and the few people speaking the truth were ignored because it was a three line whip issue.
ReplyDeleteThe LibDems have pledged to overturn it if they have the opportunity.
Went to the after-show party for my drama group last night and spent nearly the whole time talking to the Tory 15 year old (he's wavering towards LibDem - I'm leftivising him!!). It was really interesting though - his interest in politics has energised the rest of the group too - 13 year old cool girls talking politics with 17 year old so-macho boys about how well Nick Clegg performed in the debate. It reminds me of 1997 - people wanting change.
maybe we should give the 15 years old a copy of something by George Orwell. That will sort him out....unless he is looking forward to his Michael Caine inspired national service?
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