Election debate number 1

So the first ever pre-election priministerial live debate passes, embracing presidentialism and giving the public, at least for a while, the chance to remind themselves that politicians are relatively real people. What this live debate has done, looking past the political engineering and one-upmanship, has once again linked the public to popular politics much like Nick Griffin’s tumultuous appearance on Question Time a few months ago. This has both its benefits and its flaws, on the one hand any attempt to get the public to engage with politics has to be seen as a positive, this goes without saying. On the other hand this idle attempt at showcasing the future leadership of this country leaves quite a strange taste in the mouth.

The debate itself went largely without incident with each candidate at their stereotypical best. Gordon Brown unexciting and uninspiring, David Cameron hollow, with style (make-up) over substance and then Nick Clegg, the leader of the third party in British politics, eager to make a name for himself on the equal footing in which the live debate provides. In essence each leader did everything that they were expected to do, David Cameron wanting to point nuclear weapons at China aside, they all managed to neither significantly help or hinder their cause in a way that was going to have a big influence on the way people will vote. Out of the three leaders up there only David Cameron had anything big to lose and in most respects he reminded everyone watching that despite some populous ideas on immigration and school discipline he has very little else that will distance himself from the other leaders, apart from maybe the most orange face. As a signal of intent David Cameron provided almost nothing in the way of a nucleus for change.

If the inevitable does happen and Mr Cameron does win a majority on May 6th the comparisons are likely to be drawn with New Labour’s victory in 1997. Coming on the back of 18 years of a Tory government the New Labour agenda promised, and provided for a while at least, the prospect of real change lead by a man who provided the real promise of making a difference. If David Cameron and the Tories think they are on a similar bandwagon after 13 years of a Labour government, they are sadly misguided.

As for Gordon Brown the debate was never going to portray him in the greatest of lights. Gordon Brown is just not made for modern, publicity driven election campaigns. Gordon Brown is the type of politician that should be left in the backroom to read big dusty books on Milford and Keynes and devise policy, not out in the shop window scaring the babies. To be fair to him though he handled himself ok but wasted too much time on reminding the public of the Tories flaws. He should have taken this time to convince the public that to vote Labour won’t mean the continual breakdown of society and the risk of a place on the economic slagheap.

The real winner of this debate and the one with the least to lose was Nick Clegg. Being the least well-known of the three all he had to do was not to make a tit of himself, which he managed to achieve quite comfortably. Giving concrete policy promises and answering the public on first-name terms he provided the freshness and ease of speech which Mr Cameron can only yearn for. Only time will tell what this could do for the Liberal Democrats but with solid and respected politicians like Vince Cable behind him they surely have to be taken much more seriously on the back of this performance.

The debate was odd that’s for sure, with the set looking like it cost the equivalent of the X Factor’s firecracker budget it was hard to give the occasion the seriousness it deserved. Added to this the presenter looking at best like an overeager sixth former and at worst Alan Partridge at his camp and socially inept best it lacked the sheen and legitimacy that the BBC adds to these occasions. Let’s just hope that the bland realisation that politics is dead can in part be resurrected by two more debates.

Why Cameron doesn't want you

So Mr Cameron today unveiled his mighty new manifesto in the bold hope that it represents something completely unique, an unparalleled document so unalike to any other political party it would almost make us want to clean his shiny bicycle every morning. The truth is the Conservative manifesto seems to have fallen flat right at the moment when it should have underpinned Mr Cameron's growing sense of complacency as to who will win the election on May 6th. It offers little or no major alternatives to Mr Browns own manifesto published yesterday, other than the fact that Mr Cameron seems to believe that the way to cure the countries budget deficit it so punish the public sector.

Now the Tory party’s language over the past few months, especially George Osborne’s has at best been annoying and at worst a full fish-slap across the face. How can he possibly say, in many public speeches, that we are all in this together?? I had absolutely nothing to do with this mess; neither did 99% of the population, so the audacity to stand on his platform and give us some public-relations smothered spiel about how we all have to do our bit stinks of hypocrisy of the worst kind. Now the main focus of the Tories successful campaign, and let’s face it- they will win, is that within 50 days of the general election they will enforce an emergency budget. In this 'emergency' budget they will lay down their plans for a massive overhaul of the £128 billion budget deficit on far greater scale than that of the Labour Party. Within this budget the Tories will announce massive public sector cuts, something which, if you think about Labour's massive public sector spending is fair enough, but what the Tories are proposing is to hand out the 'punishment' of the recession squarely at the feet some of the hardest working and in most cases over-worked people in the land.

This is no more evident than with teachers, who for years now have seen their profession turned from one of the most inspiring and important roles in society to arguably one of the most frustrating. Held back by years of a government who believes that whatever the rights of the teacher, they will always come second place to the rights of the child, including in this the fact that to discipline a pupil is a near myth nowadays. In fact, one child was allowed to stay in a friend’s classroom for 6 months even though everyday the child attacked other children, other staff and caused mayhem on a 'Damien' scale. The answer to this was to put him in another room to 'play games' or to reward him for not smashing the face of the teaching assistant. Now although this is surely (and hopefully) an isolated incident it is part of a much wider problem. Teachers are asked to perform miracles and it can't continue. They are castigated for not hitting targets when this should never be a target driven profession, they are bullied into 'controlling' violent children and then vilified for not doing so, they are given paperwork after paperwork when they should be teaching and marking and are given responsibilities to teach all children at the same level, even if some pupils are clearly not capable. In what other profession would this be allowed to happen? On top of this they have the 'privilege' of having to put in 80 hours plus per week.

And what is the Tories answer to this? There answer is to freeze all public sector pay for at least 1 year, with the probably intention to make that three years. So in a profession where they are social worker, prison guard, crowd control, admin assistant, learning assistant and a multitude of others they are now being asked to effectively take a pay cut? Is that fair? Is it fair that the blokes who have cleaned the gutters, mended the bin lorries, cut the hedges, shovelled the shit and sick off the street for forty years now be asked to work till they are 66 and accept a much reduced 'slap in the face' rate of pension??

Now if Mr Osborne thinks we are all in this together, I ask you this. Let’s sacrifice your pension, give you a classroom of inner-city school children to teach and then tell you we are taking away your money. No My Osborne I don't think we are...