Breathtaking!

Last night's "Newsnight" illusttrated what I feared might be the case with the "PM TV debates". Last year I wrote about The Commoditisation of Politics. For some time, Newsnight has had a "Politics Panel", made up of people who are not themselves politicians, or even Political Philosophers. They are people who would be at home in the political equivalent of the series "Mad Men", that is they are people whose job it has been to sell politicians in the same way that advertising agencies sell soap powder. And we should remember that the job of an advertising agency is to help sell the product whether it is good or bad, whether it does what it claims or not. Yet, there is wonder that there is disillusionment amongst the electorate!

In the last few months, things have got worse with the media now focussing on the "Leader's Wives" as much as on the policies of the contending parties. Of course, this kind of trivia is bound to come to hold centre stage the more actual policy differences between the parties are eroded. It is why in the US politics is almost entirely fought out on those grounds. As the Doc says to Marty McFly in the first "Back To The Future", having seen his video and realising the role that TV had assumed, "No wonder your Presideent has to be an actor". But, a dialectical process is at work here with strong positive feedback loops. In economic theory we know that large businesses use Game Theory to guide their action. It leads them to avoid taking big risks, and to increasingly converge their products around what market research shows to be a safe bet. We see the same thing amongst the main political parties, who have used similar methods of focus groups etc. to identify what messages are most popular with voters. Parties that seek to "sell" a message outside that safe ground will find themselves marginalised, confined to being "niche" players and so on. But, the more the main parties strengthen their oligopoly, the more like the makers of soap powder, they will be forced to compete not on the actual product, but on its packaging and the way it is presented.

But, Newsnight surpassed itself last night in its coverage. In addition to the "Politics Panel", we were treated to the musings of a "Body Language Expert". She declared that Cameron's decision to stand back from the lectern was "breathtaking", because it set him apart from the other two, made him appear to stand apart and above them. It was so brethtaking that I hadn't even noticed he'd done it! And that was certainly not because I was distracted from noticing such astounding and significant events, by the riveting comments that were being advanced, and which were after all supposed to be why we were watching, rather than to notice what colour tie the participants were wearing, what typue of suit, if they were sweating, or other irrelevant trivia for anytne wanting to be able to come to a decision on the politics of the contenders. No, it was boring. For anyone with a passing interest in politics there was nothing that came out of this debate that you wouldn't already have known from simply watching the news for the last year or so, or reading a paper other than a tabloid - even reading a tabloid like the mirror might have told you as much as you learned rom this debate.

In that respect, the debate of the Chancellors was perhaps more informative, though not much. The BBC have, however, been running some "Town Hall" debates in various areas, where local candidates have been questioned. To my mind they are far more significant, because for one thing the focus in these is far more on the actual debate than on the candidates, what they were wearing and so on, precisely because the candidates are not seen as "personalities" or celebrities in the way that the leaders are. As I argued last year, if the leaders debates, provoke debates amongst other politicians, including a return to the kind of hustings that used to be a feature of British elections, then that will have been a good thing. But, I doubt that will be the case. Instead we are likely to see it proceed further into the realm of being televisual spectacular.

For one thing, in last night's debate I was struck by how much Alistair Stewart sounded like the bloke who calls out the contestants names on Univesity Challenge, with increasing urgency as the contest progresses. Their was a version of the old "Clapometer" that was a feature of Hughie Green's "Opportunity Knocks", in the form of the "Worm", which apparently showed how much the audience liked what was being said by each contestant. I was almsot expeecting the programme to end with a comment like, "But, its your vote at home that counts folks" followed by an invitation to ring an ITV premium rate number to register your vote ending with "1" for Brown, "2" for Clegg, and "3" for Cameron, and with the option to eject one of the contestnts from the next debate. No doubt that will be introduced in future years when the programmes have been franchised out to Simon Cowell.

For a long time, there has been complaints that Britain was developing a political system in which the Government had too much power over Parliament, and that the Prime Minister had too much power over the Government. In short that we were developing towards a Presidential rather than Parliamentary system. Indeed, to hear the comments complaining that Gordon Brown was never elected - of course he was, he was elected by the electors of his Constitituency, and he was elected unopposed under the rules as Labour Leader, and as there is no actual position of Prime Minister in the British Constitution, it is only the title assumed by the Leader of the Governing party he was "elected" into that position too - most people seem to beleive that we already do have a presidential system. If that is what is intended then we should at least do it consistently. Labour and the Liberals are proposing continuing the bouregois revolution by scrapping the hereditary Peers, and making the House of Lords an elected Chamber. The Tories are proposing continuing the bouregois revolution by introducing elected Police Chiefs and so on. Socialists should support both, whilst pointing out that such measures still do not represent consistent democracy so long as ordinary working people are excluded from real power in society.

But, the most obvious continuation of the bourgeois revolution if we are to move towards a Ppresidentiail system, would be to scrap that most grotesque remnant of feudl society, that greatest afrront to the principle of democracy, that greatest example of an expenses scandal - the Monarchy. Yet, not only have the press and media in all of the furore of the expenses scandal said nothing about the vast sums wasted on supporting an already rich coterie of people who scrounge off the rest of society, but none of them or the political parties have even so much as raised the question of if we are indeed "all in this together", if low paid Public sector workers are to lose their jobs, if they are to have their wages cut, their pensions reduced and so on, isn't it time to sack the most expensive Public sector "workers", the Queen and her Family. Could they not at least show some community spirit by agreeing to no longer leach off the taxpayer, and instead pay their own way? After all in Presidential systems the President holds the position that the Monarch holds in Britain, not the Prime Minister. Instead of cutting the number of MP's by 10% - MP's who for whatever we might think of them, do actually perform a function in dealing with Constituents problems - and thereby cutting the service provided to Constituents, the Tories would be far more consistent in what they say if they made the most obvious saving on waste, by promising to abolish the Monarchy as soon as they were elected. Of course, none of them will propose any such thing.

Of course, what the Worm actually showed was that Clegg got most support, and got the best ratings when he was slagging off the other two parties - ironically slagging them off for slagging off each other - which only means that the frustration that voters feel at the two main parties for being identical, and offering them no real solutions led them to react sympathetically when that was voiced for them. Clegg was just their feelings being expressed vicariously. It doesn't mean that they actually support Clegg, because anyone wwith a brain, anyone who has witnessed the activities of the LibDems when they have been in ppower at a local level knows that, however, much they try to present themselves as "new" or different, they are far from it.

What it does show IS the need for a new politics. Anyone trying to fight on the old basis of simply presenting a set of ideas at election times that are outside that safe centre ground around which the "market" for ideas has been shaped by the existing oligopolies will fail. New ideas can only win traction in practice, in providing real solutions for ordinary working people as and when they need them, to deal with immediate situations. That is the case on the shopfloor, and in the local communities. But, that can't be done on an ad hoc basis. The kind of individualistic political activities then many have sunk their energies into as an alternative to involvement in mainstream politics can never provide a sustainable solution. As an environmental activist, you might stop a new road - but chances are you won't - but, only to see another road proosed elsewhere. You might have a succesful campaign to stop your local school closing, but only to see another school closed instead, or to see the proposal raised again later. More importantly, success in any one of these areas does not carry over into strength and success in other areas. In order for that to happen more generalised bases of power for ordinary working people are required, and within those more generalised structures, a coherent programme has to be fought for by socialists.