Democracy, for the most part, is a fantastic concept (except when Americans try to impose it on Arab countries, but that's another issue!)
In a complex society of millions of people, it gives every single individual within that society (and I'm not getting into the debate of whether people under 18 should get the vote!) an opportunity to influence who (be it a person or a party) represents them in the running of their country.
What's wrong with that?
Well, nothing...except when the democracy is a blind democracy.
'So what's a 'blind democracy', Andy?' I hear you shout.
Well, my friends, a blind democracy is one where people are asked to choose a person or a party without having had the opportunity to truly understand what that person/party represents and what that person/party's appointment to government is likely to mean.
And that is exactly what we now have here in the UK.
Ever since the election was called, we have been fed, by all parties, an unsatisfactory diet of soundbites, platitudes and promises...and why?
Well, the simple answer is to say 'They're all politicians - none of them tell the truth and none of them will ever answer a question.'
And, of course, you'd be right.
But perhaps the time has come to ask why it is our politicians are the way they are, and why it is we seem to be expected to make significant political choices based on nothing other than headline snippets.
I, myself, blame the media.
Take, for example, the most recent instances where politicians have appeared on our screens:
- the Andrew Neil interviews
- May vs Corbyn (with the risible Jeremy Paxman)
- the so-called Leaders
Debates
Did any of these events provide us with anything meaningful by way of expending our understanding of the policies of any of the parties beyond the basic soundbites?
Emphatically no!
Instead, we were subjected either to petulant, belligerent interviewing techniques which now seem to be based on not letting a politician say more than five words before they are rudely interrupted, or we had to listen to so-called
ordinary people asking bland questions to which they received bland answers, with television executives sitting in the background waiting hopefully either for an audience member to have a real go at one of the candidates (as Nicola Sturgeon found with the 'nurse who needed to use a food bank) or for one of the candidates to have a bit of a mare (as Jeremy Corbyn did when questioned about drone strikes).
Let's face it, the TV executives aren't interested in informing people - they're interested in the prospect of some car-crash television, great headlines in the morning paper.
And the interviewers themselves - snarling, outraged, aggressive - too many of them are interested not in having a meaningful debate, but in tricking or bullying whoever it is they are interviewing into saying something 'wrong' or making a mistake or contradicting something they said 25 years ago so that they can then pounce on it and milk it and prove how clever they are and how incompetent the interviewee is.
Come on, guys!!!
Everyone has flaws.
Everyone has made some bad decisions.
Everyone has changed their mind about something.
Yes, I accept it is important to get a feeling about the person (especially for the likes of Corbyn and May who may be leading the country), but when Paxman interviewed each of them he just went on and on about Corbyn's past affiliations with the IRA and Hamas and May's past support for remaining in the EU and didn't talk about anything else. Okay, ask the questions on that, help us get a feel about them, but once you've done that, please, for God's sake, move on to something meaningful!!
So what's the solution?
Well, I think it's time we had measured debates, not involving the leaders of each party, but involving the ministers and their shadows.
Each debate should be with a single chairman whose job it is to keep things going, but not to get involved in the debate, but to question the veracity of claims made by all parties.
Each sitting minister should be asked to defend their record on the subject in question (defence, education, the economy, health, etc), using FACTS to back up their claims of what they've done well. They can also present their plans for going forward, with DETAILS (it'll be the job of the chairman to keep discussions at the layman level).
The shadows from the opposition parties can then question and challenge the facts and the policies, giving us something of a DEBATE.
Then, each opposition party presents their policies and these are likewise challenged.
No fireworks, no studio audience to heckle and applaud, no lazy platitudes and soundbites.
Just policies and facts.
Yes, it may be a bit dry.
Yes, some may even find it a bit boring.
But, to be honest, I think it would be rather good to hear Phillip Hammond questioning John McDonnell about how he's going to pay for all the things the Labour Party have promised to pay for, or have Kate Osamar asking Priti Patel to provide detailed justification for spending £13 billion pounds overseas.
A debate on the economy...that would be good.
A debate on immigration and security...hmm...useful.
A debate on our education system...fantastic!!
Alas, I feel that such informative and useful vehicles for spreading information to the masses would be something of an anathema to TV executives who seem to believe more and more that 'ordinary people' are mindless morons with 5-second attention spans whose opinions are shaped by an endless diet of reality TV, gutter humour and soap operas.
It seems to me that the only cure for blind democracy is self-help - it is up to us, the ones who want to cast our vote based on knowledge and understanding, to try to see beyond the fluff, to ignore the soundbites and the platitudes, and seek out the facts so that we can at least put a cross in a box on the basis of something more than a chaotic hour of TV in which seven politicians do nothing more than interrupt and talk over each other!
