The events are designed to show how powerful and important are the broadcasters, and how trivial our political leaders. Silly little bar stools, demeaning sets and intellectually inadequate presenters with little understanding of democracy and frequently an inability to chair either effectively or impartially the debate make the things a spectacle like those in which secret incestuous caravan-park relations are revealed before a studio audience. TV debates are all about the broadcasters.Well, last night was absolutely everything I hate about these staged spectacles. The set was taken from a game show, the vacuous presenter would perhaps have served to interview a minor royal with the IQ of a slice of bacon but for nothing more challenging, and the audience bayed and booed. The broadcasters have yet again insulted the gravity of our democracy with jejune malice and have turned a leaders' debate during the most important election in a century into an episode of the Jeremy Kyle show.
We must ensure that this is the last time the broadcasters insult our democracy, devalue the power of our vote and belittle our electoral process. A ninety-minute studio debate without an audience chaired by Andrew Neil would serve - but this lurex spangled game show must end.
18 comments:
Do you get the feeling, from the pantomime in the USA and the charade yesterday, that we are just being 'entertained' by our hidden rulers? We are given a veneer of democracy, to make us feel like we can make a difference, but in reality we are just the worker ants for …
Oh dear, am I a believer in the Deep State..?
I am currently reading a chapter a day of an old book in order to spend less time with the horror that is our contemporary media. A little escape, if you will.
Unfortunately, my current study seems a bit modern when our hero Gulliver describes the manner in which his people live to the various kings that he meets.
In short, very little has changed.
The people have got the media and the politicians they deserve.
They watch the brain-numbing fodder called entertainment pushed out by the BBC and ITV. They take no interest in politics or our politicians for 95% of the time - their ears only pricking up when there's some salacious gossip. And they vote for 3rd rate lobby fodder because their family votes X.
Until the people mend their ways, nothing will change.
Novocane for the brain. Yep, just like a Jeremy Kyle show.
Does ANYBODY take this retarded pantomime even remotely seriously?
Try reading a chapter a day of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, I picked up DMLow’s abridged version in Letchworth for £1.25. ASnip at just over 900 pages in hardback. Informative, very funny in places and still relevant today. True careers ended more permanently, but the political shenanigans we see today were going on two thousand years ago. It does put things in perspective. He sums up the capture of England by the Romans in a couple of pithy sentences, and consigns Scotland to the outer darkness at the same time. It really is worth reading.
Didn't watch, bound to be pointless, too early in the game.
Why is anyone surprised or even disappointed, what we have is monarchy-lite, we never really moved on to a proper democracy. Then normal people don't care who runs the country so long as they don't make a ballsup of it. Normal people don't want to attend smelly town halls on wet Wednesday nights. Politics is a career for a certain type of people, the type who were prefects and snitches at school.
This problem goes back beyond the Romans and Greeks. Things were always run by the palace bureaucrats and the big traders, sometimes they were wise, but mostly merely venal. Personally I would like to see election agents touring the alehouses (these days supermarkets and bingo halls). At least we would get a little dosh, take money from all contenders and then flip a coin.
The ancient cure for too much venality and incompetence was burning down the palace and blood-letting. Sadly those opportunities are a bit limited these days.
People like Johnson have demeaned what should be the gravity of our democracy, and to such a point that there's nothing left for comics to do.
The country is rightly an international laughing-stock.
Voting for Grandpa Death are you Cheesy? You sound like well off middle class leftist scum Cheese and --public sector rich or not--Jizz will have his dirty thieving fingernails into the hides of prosperous scum like you from Day 1.
Your little leftist paradise isn't happening Cheesy-- whatever happens.
Raedwald, I agree completely with your last sentence.
It is the presence of an audience which turns “a leaders’ debate….into an episode of the Jeremy Kyle show” and insults our democracy.
I can no longer watch the BBC’s QT with its “self-selected audience” and 4 remainers to one leaver despite the country voting to leave at the EU.
Having said that, it was years of the BBC’s pro-EU bias which gave TPTB the false impression that it was safe to offer the country an EU referendum in order to remove UKIP and at the same time provide them with a mandate to proceed with deeper EU integration – such as joining the Euro and an EU army, removing the rebates and opt outs etc..
It's not so much the format of those debates that irk me - rather it is how the politicians are never asked pertinent questions and never made to answer them. They are given an easy ride - questions that are pre-picked and permission to obfuscate seems a given.
Andrew Neal appears to be a decent independent observer/questioner so I'd be pleased to see him grilling the various leaders as Raed suggests.
But until we get straight answers then interviewing politicians is utterly fruitless other than showing them up for what we already know they are and letting them get away with it.
"Our democracy" hilarious!
A choice between a fool and a knave every 5 years (or more often if they get some new deckchairs to squeeze in).
We have absolutely no say in the functioning of our country.
If people can not see that, since 33 million people took part in a so called "democratic vote" nearly 3 years ago then I despair.
Bring on the democratic vote in December for a new sock puppet. It will all be so much better with the new boss!
JPM 08:45
"People like Johnson have demeaned what should be the gravity of our democracy, and to such a point that there's nothing left for comics to do."
YUou mean all the Greens, 99.9% of LAB, all the LDs, all the SNP, 95% of the CONs? I am sure you do, just you singling out BoJo suggested a slight bias in your thinking.
"The country is rightly an international laughing-stock."
Still beating the same old - completely and overtly wrong - pap? Do you ever leave the country? Have you seen any foreign poliitcal news? Name any country and I will provide links so you can read how the UK's politicians and politics are par for the course.
Anonymous said @ 06:52
'Do you get the feeling, from the pantomime in the USA and the charade yesterday, that we are just being 'entertained' by our hidden rulers?'
Certainly feels that way sometimes - I think the saying is 'Washington (D.C.) is show business for ugly people', or thereabouts. In a nutshell, back in July of 2016 a small group of people decided that if Trump were to get elected they'd enact a rolling impeachment plan. They're in the second phase of it now. The first Russia/collusion, the second Ukraine/quid pro quo. Senior members from the alphabet agencies were involved, and we will see just how devastating it is for American democracy when IG Horowitz makes his determination public on December 11. Our problems this side of the pond will pale in comparison.
Steve
Judging from the reactions of the Libdem and SNP leaders, these events are very important to them. And despite the format it does seem to me to be something they want to do. They see the two participants as being favoured.
They can't have it both ways; either could have refused (and faced a certain criticism about coward).
They had ample time to prepare - I know I would - and I'd make certain anyone I mentor would have had everything thrown at them beforehand.
So their problem seems to me to be overconfidence and an inability to manipulate a situation to their respective advantage.
In that respect either will benefit from reviewing the Republican debates from a couple of years back when a certain no-hoper did exactly that.
Quote from the DT link. “The role of British police today goes beyond bringing offenders to justice when they commit crimes,” the College argued in written submissions, adding that “police now take an active role in the resolution of conflict within and between communities.”
Unfortunately, they have a point. Its unfortunate that the police have been put into this position. They are confronted by a known fact, that some communities are likely to be offended at the drop of a feather, and respond with violence far in excess of any offence, no matter how slight or tangential. Charlie Hebdo is a case in point. So far, France has been fortunate that there has been no counter response to Charlie Hebdo.
Dave P
Anonymous said @ 06:52
Senior members from the alphabet agencies were involved, and we will see just how devastating it is for American democracy when IG Horowitz makes his determination public on December 11. Our problems this side of the pond will pale in comparison.
Good point.
The USA is the last man standing, as the communist lite Democrats try to bring it down. If Pres Trump is impeached with fake allegations, we might well see a civil war in the USA. Fin. West is gone. Hello China.
DaveP
Anybody know if the Brexit Party Ltd. is selling shares? The dividend stream from the ordinary people signing their contract ought to be worth a few bob.
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