Life is Elsewhere (2)

Further to my post of 3rd April, what joke is this?

It's another "UK General Election party leaders' debate", in which, this time, 

• the two governing parties don't take part;
• those who do have only 268 (41%) of the 649 contestable Westminster seats;
• thanks to the British electoral system, only one can form a government;
• only two are UK-wide parties (one of which has only one MP and will be lucky to get even one more);
• four of the five participants have a combined total of 12 MPs (one of them thanks to defections from other parties);
• the nationalist parties of Scotland (the SNP), Wales (Plaid Cymru) and England (the absurd, absurdly-named UK Independence Party) take part while the Northern Irish parties don't although one of them has more MPs than four of the five parties who are present.

It's a folly, a pretence. But like many great pretences it is honoured by precedent, saturated with time, money and expertise, engraved in minds through its promotion and packaging, and ringed-fenced by individual and corporate reputations.

Yet, far from being a conspiracy, none of those involved, from the parties themselves right down to the BBC audience, seems to possess the mental vocabulary let alone the means to step outside and see it for what it is.

Will voters?