Life is Elsewhere (1)

Last night's 7-way party leaders' election debate was dispiriting. Little was said beyond the predictable gobbets. Now it's the task of those involved - namely the political parties, pollsters, pundits and the media - to fabricate a significance and momentum it didn't deserve.

Firstly, it was inevitably superficial and personality-focused. These are the last things we need. The number of participants meant that only four subjects were discussed; and anyway ours is not a presidential system. The election should be about policies, not what one man or woman will do for us. If we understood this better we'd be less cynical and leaders would make fewer bullshit promises.

Secondly it was bogus, not least the ruse of getting members of the public to ask the questions and the fake, mawkish presumption of the leaders in addressing questioners by their first names.

Thirdly it was fudged. In order not to offend anyone there was a false appearance of equality between the parties. This was clear from the fact that Leanne Wood's plug was solely towards the Welsh electorate. And so it should have been, because Plaid Cymru have no candidates let alone influence elsewhere, but it made what was supposed to be a debate about a UK election look daft. And why, assuming the stage was big enough for four more, weren't the Ulster parties there? Or for that matter the BNP, which polled twice as many votes as the Greens and more than half the votes of UKIP in 2010?

Perhaps worst of all, it was illusory. Thanks to our first-past-the-post voting system, only the Conservatives or Labour can return enough MPs to provide a UK prime minister. So the logic of having this kind of beauty contest is that only Cameron and Miliband should debate. Of the UK-wide parties, the Liberals or even, God forbid, UKIP, might well win 20+ per cent of the vote, but they will get disproportionately few seats. The best they can do is to hold the balance of power, but that's not what the debate was about. For the Greens it will be even worse.

So while there's a case based on popular support for getting everyone on stage, it's irrelevant and even deceitful if the system can't translate that support into seats and power. People say that the old two (or three) party system is dead. No it isn't: and it won't be so long as huge numbers of us continue to waste our votes on no-hopers in seats they can never win.

The trouble is, in the 2011 referendum 68% of us voted against even a mild reform of the system. The subject is therefore ruled out of public discussion. Yet the debate was structured not only as if it hasn't been, but as if a system like the one we rejected were in place. A very British fudge!

And now spittle-flecked pollsters and sleep-deprived pundits are crawling over the debate with their little league tables showing who was the 'victor', which will, in consequence, be required to mean something - whether it does or not. (Apparently it was Nicola Sturgeon of the SNP; which indicates what, exactly?) Yet from pretence will grow the reality of significance. Already, between the breathless contributions of party motormouths, the BBC is trying to have it both ways, hurling barrages of high-tech statistics at us while reassuring us that they don't tell us very much. Well exactly.

Until then, I do suspect that life is elsewhere.