The General Election

This has been a very peculiar election campaign indeed. Several very odd things have happened, most of them to the detriment of democracy.

Firstly, we have seen the completion of the hijacking of the democratic process by the media. In a country with two major rolling news programmes we have had wall-to-wall election coverage, with almost total coverage of the three main party leaders, yet almost no serious discussion of policy. The level of wall-to-wall coverage has extended so far as to invade Gordon Brown’s privacy by broadcasting his private ‘drawing of breath’ after meeting a member of the public. Surely, the mic line feed had an off switch. This seemed to give the broadcast ‘journalists’ opportunity to analyse, dissect and further analyse his comments ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

Secondly, we have had the leader’s debates, set up in such a way as to suggest that anodyne would be too dynamic a word to describe them. Both the debates themselves and the analysis of them concentrated almost solely on ‘performance’ and, again were devoid of in-depth policy analysis.

Thirdly, we have had a huge number of opinion polls, creating confusion in that most have been voting intention polls, whilst some have been ‘leaders debate performance’ polls. That is not to decry the value of opinion polls, but the sheer number does tend to again emphasise the media victory of process over policy.

Fourthly, the ordinary people of the country have been almost totally excluded from the pre-election process. For example, the chattering classes, through the London-based media, have begun to question if there is a re-alignment of the Left with the Liberal Democrats replacing Labour, and much talk has been of a Labour meltdown; all this on the basis of the flimsiest of evidence.

Before discussing this in any detail it is worth questioning the Liberal Democrat credentials as a party of the Left. It is the descendent of the Liberal Party, an establishment party, primarily concerned with issues relevant to the middle-class, such as civil liberties, equal opportunities, meritocracy etc. It is not a party primarily concerned with social rights, equality and wealth redistribution. The Labour Party, on the other hand, despite the gentrification of the party in the 1980s and 1990s, still retains some of those Left credentials. Hence the huge chasm between the Liberal Democrats and Labour over fundamental policies at this election such as maintaining Sure Start Children’s Centres, nursery fees and Working Tax Credit / Childrens Tax Credit. The Liberal Democrats, for all their posturing cannot see beyond the middle-class.

Today the Guardian has endorsed the Liberal Democrats and urged its readers to vote Liberal Democrat rather than Labour to keep out the Tories. The Guardian has always been a Liberal newspaper and only supported Tony Blair in 1997 to jump on the anti-Tory bandwagon. The opinion polls are showing Liberal Democrat and Labour exactly equal, about four points behind the Tories, with over 30 per cent of respondents still undecided. This neither points to Labour meltdown or the Liberal Democrats outpolling Labour. With the current distribution of parliamentary seats it actually points to a balanced parliament with Labour or Tory as the largest party,

Political choice in a democracy is surely about voting for an individual and / or a Party on the basis of what they are actually going to do, not what the Party leaders are wearing or their posture and demeanour.

The media campaign to defeat Labour may have serious repercussions. If, it does succeed, and we end up with a Tory of Tory / Liberal Democrat coalition (and don’t believe that the Liberal Democrats are not considering it), it will be a dark, dark day for the poorest 25 per cent of people in our country. Tax credits will not be protected, the schools budget will not be protected, the cuts will be immediate not in one years time, giving neither fiscal stimulus to the economy, nor giving the poorest people in our society any kind of opportunity to prepare themselves. The recession will return and abject poverty of a kind not known since the 1930s will stalk us like a spectre, with daily bankruptcies, job losses and evictions.

The measure of a civilised society is the quality of life of its poorest members. If some individuals and communities in our society do not have the wherewithal to participate fully in the economy, culture and polity of our society, we are all diminished. If significant numbers of people fall below the poverty line, that financial poverty draws down multiple other forms of educational, social and cultural poverty. It is, in effect, social exclusion.

Nothing points to the Liberal Democrats as anything but a ‘softer’ Tory party. Their real value in our polity is to split the Tory vote; if they eat into Labour support on a bogus claim to be progressive, modern, or even, ‘Left’, it will be music to the Tories ears. I would thus urge those who think the Liberal Democrats are a progressive party to examine their manifesto and scrutinise the coherence of their ideas. Indeed, I would challenge anyone to actually state in basic, straightforward terms, what the Liberal Democrats actually stand for. The basic philosophical underpinning of Labour and of the Tories is manifest and easy to understand; despite the various degrees of gloss they both tend to overlay it with. The Tories stand up for big business, privilege and minimal government; Labour stands for social inclusion, the welfare state and full public provision of the essentials of education, health and social care.

On a lighter note, we need a touch of realism. As a grandfather I am old enough to have witnessed many general elections and have drawn my own conclusions on the way this election will eventually pan out. My experience this time round is that there is a definite majority of people who don’t want a Tory victory, and those people comprise Liberal Democrat, Labour, Green and Scottish and Welsh Nationalists. Of these groups the Liberal Democrats have had a media influenced surge, which is beginning to tail off, whilst Labour (after being in power for thirteen years) is holding its position. As we see the election campaign rush towards its climax and eventually the votes are counted we will see a parliament returned with little support for the lunatic fringe (BNP, UKIP, English Democrats etc), one possible MP for the Greens, the Liberal Democrats in third place (both in terms of sets and popular vote) and either the Tories (probable) or Labour (possible) as the Party with the most seats and the largest share of the popular vote. To ensure that the Tories don’t get in by default I would urge all those who are considering putting their lot in with the Liberal Democrats to think again, examine their consciences, think seriously about the most vulnerable people in our society and cast a vote for their Labour candidate on May 6th.