Managed democracy
17 April, The Guardian, Comment is free
It started on a low – with all three leaders defining “immigration” as a problem and promising “tougher” action – and it didn’t get much better. From the economy to Afghanistan to “law and order” there was an unspoken consensus upheld by a host of unasked questions.
In the exchange on Afghanistan, the millions of voters who support a withdrawal of troops were treated as if they didn’t exist. On the economy, the various progressive and green alternatives to massive cuts in public services were excluded from even momentary consideration. If only on these two core issues, huge numbers of voters are being disenfranchised by the shaping of the debate and the carefully-constructed “choice” on offer.
On the NHS, the consensus is one of hypocrisy. Everybody says they’ll “protect” it while at the same time planning huge annual “savings” (and increased privatisation) in future NHS budgets. A direct question about the coming NHS pay squeeze might have shed some light, but on this issue as on others, the media-centric format rendered the politicians immune from real scrutiny. The three leaders could only be interrogated by each other. The political consensus was built into the exercise. The “minor” and nationalist parties were excluded, as were probing or follow up questions, and the “major” parties were thus licensed to evade real choices and issues.
For me the worst moments were the sentimental tributes to soldiers, nurses, carers (to say nothing of the exploitation of cancer sufferers or victims of crime). Do they have any idea how patronising this sounds? But then, self-degradation is part of the whole institution of television-filtered debate.
From the Oscars style coverage of the run-up to the post-match analysis, the media treated the debate as a spectacle, part gladiatorial contest, part choreography. What was “analysed” were performances, not policies or their absence. Given the actual consensus among the party leaders, it was amazing to see how many differences they managed to manufacture. Unsurprisingly, Clegg is anointed the “winner”, but in a contest so circumscribed, what does this amount to?
Everyone talks about Kennedy-Nixon and the first televised presidential debate, but since then revelatory moments have been few and far between. Over some forty years, until 2004, the increasing centrality of the debate was accompanied by decreasing turn out at the polls. The heavily controlled format forces leaders to construct themselves as a package with more pluses than minuses, not to clarify issues but to position themselves within a narrow and carefully-policed spectrum. Fundamental arguments and real choices, urgent and necessary, are excluded from the discussion. It’s a specimen of managed democracy. In the absence of ideological divisions or any clear contrast in social vision, the election becomes increasingly about itself.
Which is why the media in general love the event: it confirms and re-enforces their pre-eminence. Their verdict seems to be that it was an “exciting” evening. But I know I’m not the only one who found it frustrating and depressing. Is this what the struggle for the franchise has come to mean in the 21st century?
