BY BRAD JAMES
We are two months away from a General Election, only the third of a new millennium, yet the second to herald unique overhauls in the landscape of all we once knew politically. The dinosaurs of the fossilised Westminster terrain, trapped amid the neo-gothic architectural quagmires of past privilege, have little to no notion how to adapt to the change. The change itself becomes somewhat of a conundrum when it is placed under deeper scrutiny. Voter apathy is calcifying political discourse and despite best efforts to chisel away the crust of disinterest and pursuing efforts to at least be seen to care that overwhelming voter participation – like what was recently was witnessed in Scotland last year – would actually upset Parliament like an out of tune Big Ben peal that refuses to stop ringing. Voices of the discontent have began that chiming, most notably Russell Brand’s call for voter abstinence… an avenue that could result in exposing the illegitimacy of our elected class, or create an autocracy, perhaps both.
The furore surrounding Scottish Independence demonstrates that a healthy vein of participation by the populace in the shaping of their own destiny exists. It just needs to be connected to the rest of the body politic, but how? TV debates does stir the loins a little, yet still falls far short and this is exactly what David Cameron is hoping to exploit here. Even before he wasn’t – yes WASN’T – elected as Prime Minister in 2010, he failed to come off as the most convincing in the leadership debates. Nick Clegg came out as favourite the first time and the waters were more muddied the second time around. Now that five years of history is at his blue heel, the First Lord of the Treasury is certainly prizing the golden lustre of silence when everyone is deafening his ear to participate in the debates that are already oddly prizing representation when dropping the ball at the same time.
Earlier this week the BBC Trust rejected appeals for the Northern Irish political the DUP to appear in the debates. This decision is rather odd and disappointing in an era that ostensibly appeared so fresh and exciting. Voters were going to be treated to witnessing the entire political spectrum represented in their nation, yet a major player in one of the UK’s nations (Northern Ireland) has been elbowed out, somewhat unceremoniously as though it were a gate crasher and as though Northern Irish votes play second fiddle. Although, why the Prime Minister so reluctant to throw his hat into the debating arena is anyone’s guess. It must come down to popularity. He knows his is waning and was never strong to begin with. David Cameron has a lot to answer for, and is deemed more of a villain to the public than a hero. Austerity is a monster, a harbinger of evil lurking outside many doorways of British people, like the Angel of Death during the Tenth Plague of Egypt and Cameron’s government loosed it on the country. Gordon Brown had the legacy of Tony Blair to stave off in 2010, but David Cameron’s past is of his own making and blaming Labour will not work after half a decade of the same broken record, nothing can get a Tory majority on track. His dodging public scrutiny is a blend of a plethora of reasons: knowledge that his party is on the ropes, awareness that his legitimacy is as solid as wet toilet paper, public contempt, even the hope that silence will speak volumes over the rhetoric and that it may seem like he is too busy running the country to participate in several hours of arguments.
Or perhaps it is the thorny issue of another coalition? The Lib Dem Conservative alliance was deemed as an uncanny outcome in the eyes of the masses, and has left scars of broken promises and aching lesions of distrust in Britannia’s polished façade. With the nation’s very own leader refusing to pander to this modicum of democracy, what does it say about the future of our government? Lord Baker provided a sinister answer to such a question today. The former Tory MP and Dorking Peer wrote today in The Independent of the urgency in keeping the UK together, warning of a disastrous consequence of a Labour minority government teaming with the SNP, spelling the death knell of the Union louder than Big Ben or Mons Meg! His solution… a Labour and Conservative coalition! Such a Grand Coalition has not been seen in this country since World War Two, the second first since 2010 from that dreadful conflict. Ironically this very trend worked recently for Germany in their last election, when the Christian Democrats sided with the Social Democrats. So on the surface, paints an interesting allegory of enemies becoming friends. Lord Baker’s suggestion comes off the back of former Prime Minister, John Major’s warning that the SNP would only enter a deal with Labour for the sole intent of prising apart the Union. But any flirting with this idea is flirting with disaster also, for it would spell the end of any illusion of freedom and democracy we have as a nation. Power would be the greater lure here for oppositions accepting such a deal, and not the democratic process. No one in their right mind would endorse such a union. The Mother of Parliaments would be reduced to nothing more than a shrill, maniacal harridan that no one listens to. It is perhaps this scenario that the ultra capitalist Conservatives wish for, a Westminster that everyone save themselves and those lining their purses are interested and invested in… that’s one union that will truly divide a nation! As Julius Caesar always said: “Divide and Conquer.”
