Tuesday 22 December 2009

Coming Attractions

If it wasn't for the icy conditions (global warming kicks in - Continent cut off), there would no doubt have been dancing in the streets last night at the news that Broon, Cameron and the other one (Clegg is it?) are going to treat the nation to three (count them) 90-minute (count them too) live TV debates in the run-up to the election. The political class is certainly all of a doodah at the prospect, and the story led the news on radio and TV - but doesn't that only go to show how wide the gap is between them and the rest of us? The rest of us really aren't interested in politics as such - 12 years of Blair-Brown has seen to that - and this election will be all about Cameron managing to persuade us that the prospect of a Tory government is that bit less appalling than the prospect of five more years of the most catastrophically inept government of the postwar years. If he can't do that, then we might as well all despair of the whole business (I suspect many already have). Will four and a half hours of Brown lying, bludgeoning and flashing his weird smile, Cameron looking serious and managerial and faintly wounded, and the other one impersonating a hole in the screen revive our interest in politics and send us to the polling station in unprecedented numbers? Unprecedentedly low, I fear, is the likeliest outcome. Brown is said to be 'relishing' the prospect of the debates... God bless us one and all!

5 comments:

  1. Oh I suppose I'll watch it.

    But given that we don't elect a President from three candidates, but rather a local MP, and the leader arises organically from the sum of the various local MPs, does this actually make any sense?

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  2. "He's just a bloke on the telly" a bloke on the telly said of Cameron the other day when asked whether he'd vote Conservative. Together with Broon, Clegg, Martyn Lewis, Gary Lineker, Simon Cowell, Prince Charles, Gordon Ramsay, Jonathan Ross, some Time Lords, Tony Soprano and all the rest. So distant are they from our lives that the news that Cameron may soon be running the country is hardly enough to provide any connection at all. I've always found that wildlife documentaries have a bit more to offer. I'd definitely watch if the debate showed the party leaders being chased through Regents Park by lions.

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  3. Couldn't agree more, Nige. All politics is good for is provoking a sort of sour, impotent rage. I've felt a lot better since I stopped paying it as much attention.

    Brit, I'm not sure many people know about that particular fiction, never mind care about it.

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  4. "Noun 1. clegg - large swift fly the female of which sucks blood of various animals" - so what does the male do, then?

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