We’re having an election. In my country. To find a new government. In May. And we shall replace this current coalition with a proper government. Fit to rule over England. And possibly some of Scotland (for the time being), a bit of Wales and small pieces of Ireland. And as the general consensus is that all politicians are pants and that the only way to engage the massive number of young voters who really don’t give a shit about elections because they don’t happen on Facebook, is to hold a ‘televised debate’, in the hope that some people might watch it and become fascinated by our charismatic and powerful party leaders, (who????) that’s what we shall do.

Its an American concept. Its show-biz. Razzmatazz. You put a Republican candidate against a Democrat and you let them rip each other apart on live tv. Its good viewing, its gladiatorial and it works. Over there. In America.

Here we are ‘blessed’ with a more proper and pure form of democracy. Rather than the choice of two, coin-toss style of US politics. In the UK you don’t need to be a member of a mainstream political party to become prime minister. You can be represent the ‘Preserve the Hedgehogs’ party and if it has enough candidates in enough seats, in theory you can become prime minister and run the nation. We have Socialist Worker parties, clutching their little red Mao Tse Tung books. We have the BNP who can’t read but are great at making symbols that aren’t swastikas but kind’a look like they could be. We have the Monster Raving Loony party, who field hundreds of candidates every election. We have Wind Farm Alliance parties, we have Save the Whales parties, all kinds of poor, misguided nutters. We even have a Scottish Nationalist Party.

And thus David Cameron, so outspoken last election about how Gordon Brown ‘must’ engage in a televised pre-election debate, how it would be cowardly otherwise, what is Gordon afraid of, etc, etc, now this time seems to be wimping out. He doesn’t want a ‘main party leader debate’ like they had last time. Its arguable that the Lib-Dems are no longer a ‘main party’ despite being in co-government. So Dave’s solution is that rather than him and Milliband shouting it out limply before the entire nation, the debate should be ‘seven-cornered’, and have leaders from the Green Party and Plaid Cymru and all manner of everyone… except the Ulster Democrats. The Scots, the Welsh, even frikkin UKIP are in but the Northern Irish are out. And not on the most logical reason that no-one can understand a fucking word any of them say.

Because so many people live in a world in which nothing really exists unless its on tv, which is tragic but so true, televised debate would seem to be the way to go. Cameron reckons ‘there’s no time’. But actually, Dave, there’s plenty of time. Man up. Go on the telly with Ed. Show us what’cher made of.

Happy Friday

A xxxx