THE spectacle of Labour’s manifesto launch typifies a trend in electioneering today (“Labour’s £50bn tax hike to boost public services”, The Herald, May 16). Politicians don’t seem at all keen to enter the bearpit of an old-fashioned media conference. They prefer to be among friends. David Cameron and, to a lesser extent, Ed Miliband were prepared to face what they knew would be hostile questioning; not so Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn, whose advisors doubtless tell them frankly that they’re more likely than their predecessors to come across poorly.
Thus, at the Labour launch, the media were corralled at the side, while Mr Corbyn addressed head-on a claque that cheered inanely at his every sentence. This preaching to the converted and crude identity politics are perhaps inevitable signs of the times, the showbiz and celebrity culture that’s anaesthetising the western world. (At the Q&A that followed, the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg was picked third, while the first “question” went to an articulate, on-message, Labour-supporting transgender woman.)
The Labour circus brought to my mind the fuss over another kind of pageant, the leaders’ debate, whose apotheosis was the 2010 edition, when the country discovered that Nick Clegg was the podium politician most groomed for TV. Do we really want to have to watch 2017’s take on that pantomime?
The format is an American import from an indigenous presidential system, whereas the UK’s is much more grounded in party, cabinet, and policy. Whether a politician is a snappy or aggressive or witty debater is utterly irrelevant: the only question is whether he or she is the right person, at the head of the right party, to lead the country.
The TV companies and the presenters love the debates. They’re cheap telly, good for the ratings, great for the showreel, and always hold out the possibility that we’ll have a good laugh at another Diane Abbott-style meltdown. Is that what we want? A cross between Britain’s Got Talent and the Eurovision Song Contest? Maybe Ant and Dec would be the ideal moderators? Myself, I prefer to read the manifestos and walk to the polling station.
Just an afterthought. As it’s a General Election, shouldn’t the SNP’s representative be Angus Robertson, its leader in the Commons? What are the chances of Nicola Sturgeon letting that happen?
Martin Ketterer,
Sandringham Court, Newton Mearns.
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