"Is this the phoniest election of all time?

By STEPHEN GLOVER
Last updated at 8:31 AM on 15th April 2010

This election should be one of the most important in living memory. There isn't an economist alive who doubts that the next few years are going to be dreadful for most of us.

And that there are lots of other pressing problems such as immigration, yobbery, education, law and order, and health, all of which worry many people. Oh, and there's the little matter of a war in Afghanistan, too.

We should be engaged. We should be hanging on politicians' every word. We should be taking this thing very seriously. And yet the electorate might as well be dancing the night away. In the midst of many woes, politicians are encountering widespread apathy, and sometimes downright contempt.

Many people have become disenchanted with the party leaders and their campaigns

A Populus poll yesterday revealed extreme disenchantment with the campaign, as well as much scepticism about manifesto pledges and the trustworthiness of the parties. Sensing the mood, David Cameron opined that 'politicians have been treating the public like mugs for about 40 years, pretending that we the politicians have all the answers'.

The Tory leader was trying to suggest that he is different. In fact, in the timeworn business of treating us like mugs, there is little to differentiate him from Gordon Brown or Nick Clegg or the rest of them. This is the phoniest election in modern times, and it is phoney because all of them, Mr Cameron included, have deliberately made it so.

They do not, as politicians once did, address huge gatherings that might include political opponents, some of whom would heckle or even throw the odd rotten tomato. The whole bogus process is stage-managed by flunkeys to eliminate the possibility of their leaders meeting ordinary and possibly disgruntled people.

Prime Minsiter Gordon Brown, Tory leader David Cameron and Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg (below) are not doing themselves any favours

Individuals masquerading as members of the public are hand-picked, and most likely are party loyalists. Gordon Brown is photographed entering a supposedly ordinary home, but you can bet your summer holiday that his visit is painstakingly choreographed, and the chances of someone asking a hostile question, far less tossing a cream bun in his direction, are precisely nil.

14th April 2010. Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg t

We know it is false because we can see that it is. Mr Cameron launches the Conservative manifesto against a backdrop of people more carefully selected than England's World Cup football team.

There are obligatory quotas of nonwhites, attractive young women and men of youthful appearance whose collective presence is calculated to convey the modern Tory Party. If you are over 60, or not particularly pleasing in appearance, forget it.

And the launch had to take place in a derelict power station (clunk, clunk: Britain is derelict) even though it has been in this condition since Margaret Thatcher bestrode the globe.

Similarly, Labour chose to launch its manifesto in a brand new Birmingham hospital (clunk, clunk: Haven't we built a lot of those!?)

As for the wives! Doubtless we journalists are to blame for dwelling on every detail of their attire, but perhaps we do so because political dispute and controversy have been removed from modern elections, so we find ourselves discussing the footwear of the leaders' compliant wives, or their nail varnish.

To our fathers it would all seem pretty odd, to our grandfathers distinctly bizarre, to our great grandfathers actually lunatic.

And, needless to say, there is no serious debate such as our forebears would have expected. For all the attempts of commentators to identify bold ideas in the manifestos that distinguish them from one another, vast chunks of bland verbiage could be interchanged without anyone noticing.

More from Stephen Glover...

I don't believe Labour's pledges about tax because it broke them last time. I am suspicious of the Tories' invocation of ' people power' because it sounds more like a fanciful essay in a monthly political magazine than a programme for government.

The real issues which concern people are barely discussed. On the economy, Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling know where and when the knife will fall if Labour is returned to power, but will not tell us. For all his talk of needing 'to see the books', the shadow chancellor George Osborne has a pretty good idea too, but is equal ly unforthcoming.

I suppose it might be said in their partial defence that they don't dare tell us the truth because if they did then we wouldn't vote for them. We voters sometimes want higher public spending and lower taxes at one and the same time. But wouldn't many of us listen if political leaders were brave enough to spell out what, in our hearts, we know must lie in store?

Then there is immigration which, polls suggest, is second only to the economy in voters' minds. Millions of citizens worry about it, but none of the parties dares address it. Little wonder that so many people's faith in the electoral process should decline when important questions which matter to them are shoved on the back burner.

Given the contrived nature of this campaign, in which image crowds out substance and problematic issues are cynically swept under the carpet, it is hardly surprising that voters should feel they are not being offered the truth. After the dispiriting stories of MPs' expenses scams, we have a dispiriting election campaign involving more deceit.

Tonight the three party leaders are appearing in the first of three TV debates which the political classes are billing as a decisive innovation. I wouldn't be so sure.

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The rules are so tightly laid down that the scope for genuine interaction between the leaders and members of the public will be limited. I hope tonight's debate will be illuminating, but I fear it may not leave us much wiser about what sort of government we will be electing on May 6.

Maybe, over the next few weeks, there will be gaffes or indiscretions or even unaccustomed flashes of candour that will help us to make an informed choice about so important an election.

The truth is, though, that in modern Britain politicians have stepped back from the public and, for all the efforts of the media, they increasingly succeed in presenting themselves to us on their own terms.

Probably the most rewarding political experience I have had came in a small village hall in the wilds of Iowa in the American Midwest in the late Eighties. Senator Robert Dole was seeking the Republican nomination for President - he did not get it on this occasion, though he did subsequently - and had come to talk to a handful of ordinary country folk in the middle of nowhere.

I don't know about America nowadays, but it is inconceivable that during a modern British general election a grand politician would be held to account in so humble a setting. I doubt leading politicians will ever be trusted in this country again until they have an honest exchange with ordinary voters.

Nor, unless that happens, are the British people likely to take politics and the political process seriously. If, as seems probable, there is another low turnout on May 6, it will not be because the election is unimportant, but because there are so many people fed up with lies, evasion and spin.

People:: Margaret Thatcher,; George Osborne,; Alistair Darling,; Nick Clegg,; Gordon Brown,; David Cameron
Places:: Afghanistan,; United Kingdom,; America

Comments (60)

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Apathy?

I want to vote, people died so I could vote. Yet there isn't a party worth voting for. We need HUGE changes in our ciminal system, justice system, PC garbage needs throwing out, prison system, immigration.

It's BAD when the BNP, look to be the only party who'd really tackle these changes. ..and I won't vote for them.

So I'll write across my paper, rather than vote for more of the same.

- GB, Fed up with the nanny state, 15/4/2010 16:02

Click to rate Rating 2

'Selected audiences' asking 'selected questions' and getting 'Well rehearsed non answers'?? You bet it is Phoney!
It would be better if the Media gave the same airtime and column inches to the Other parties as they do for these fraudsters!....Then maybe we could call it democracy!.....However.....This NOT a democracy it is a 3 party communist state!!!!

- Trevor R, Scotland, 15/4/2010 15:50

Click to rate Rating 31

In my opinion all the spin doctors should be sacked. This would not only save money but would mean that politicians would be more likely to "tell it as it is" rather than churn out the usual spiel so that they never answer a question with a straight answer. Because of this we don't know how much of a speech/comment is genuine and how much is written by spin doctors, and therefore absolutely worthless. Also why do politicians promise everything under the sun to their constituents at election time, then do exactly as they are told by the party. That attitude is no good at all to me, and is why so much trust in politicians has gone. I despair and find myself wondering whether to bother to vote at all, for the first time in more than 50 years.

- J.Dove, Kinross U.K., 15/4/2010 14:52

Click to rate Rating 9

The big three are a total let down and I understand people voting UKIP or BNP, I will vote for one of them and at the moment the BNP are my choice.

There is NO reason to be loyal to the big three, in fact what really is the point in being loyal to any of them? They have let us down so badly!

- Chris, York UK, 15/4/2010 14:43

Click to rate Rating 22

Remember, we were told that Lisbon was not constitutional and then find that it has replaced our constitution. Lisbon, and the Amsterdam treaty, gave control of our borders to the EU. This is why immigration has run out of control and the issue ignored. The full implications of Lisbon are being hidden until after the "election".
Of course the "election" is phoney, we are expected to "elect" nothing more than a EU management team who's sole purpose will be to rubber stamp Brussels legislation.
A dangerous situation is developing, propaganda says that we must vote "Tory" or we'll get "Labour". This is deliberate to steer votes away from the anti-EU parties. The EU want nothing more than for one, or all in the case of a hung parliament, of their pro-EU parties to be elected. This would then be treated as a firm acceptance of the EU by the UK public and trigger the final destruction of our country.
That is why the "big three" ignore mention of the EU, all part of the plan.

- Simon, Barnstaple, UK, 15/4/2010 13:59

Click to rate Rating 17

The future is depressing for sure.

Regardless of which party forms the next government we have years of financial misery ahead, primarily thanks to Gordon Brown.

Labour have burdened the nation with crippling debts which now have to be serviced and repaid. The list of feckless and/or reckless spending is long, a misconceived war, MP's extravagant expenses, huge benefits for the workshy, tax credits for children, housing for immigrants the list goes on and on.

Anyone who votes these clowns back in for another five years must have strange masochistic tendencies.

- Neil, Tenterden, Kent, 15/4/2010 13:47"

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Thursday, April 15, 2010

KHOODEELAAR! Noting the London DAILY MAIL commentator Stephen Glover's piece today: “Is this the phoniest election of all time”